Hola todos! While in Santiago I felt as though I were home. I had a nice bed to sleep in, my parents were there (thanks Andreas and Vicki) and all around it was comfortable and nice. Of course I wanted to leave as quickly as I could. I left the warm house of the Vorwerk´s late one Sunday night for the freezing confines of the Transantiago buses followed by one of the wor
st, ok the worst busride. I made the HUGE mistake of choosing the window seat in the front of the bus. There were only two seats and I chose wrong. I had so little room that my right foot had to be angled all night. I had dreams of beds, and during the night every single part of my body fell asleep at some point. Despite this my time in Pucon couldnt have been nicer. When I arrived Sergio, the cousin of Cecelia, a grad student in the lab I worked in, picked me up right on time. It was so nice to talk with him as he was super excited to have me and to go on some adventures! We grabbed some bread and made for his house, 30 km out of town. it was the exact opposite of Santiago. No smog, no traffic, just pure nature. He lived with his mom on a piece of land that has its own natural hot springs! They are not quite ready yet, but as I was reminded many times by the time I return they will be. When I arrived we immediately went to a museum, and then began the preperation for an asado we were going to have. I learned the two most important, ok really the only two ingrediants for an asado are lots of meat and lots of beer. We got about 5 pounds of beef ribs and 7 liters of beer, and some tomatoes and other stuff to. We then went for a nice hike to see two lakes near Sergios house, (it aint called the lake region for nothing), and then started the asado. We were forced to do the asado under a little auxilliary house that Sergio had and were thusa bombarder with smoke during the entire process, but we got it done. We had to sit out there stoking the fire, drinking beer, and just having a great time for about 3-5 hours, Im not sure as the beer was steadily working its magic. By the time the ribs were done they were the most beautiful things I have ever seen, crispy, covered in fat, and perfectly tender. Needless to say we ate them all, and went back out to the fire to finish off the beer.
The next day we woke up a little late to a scolding by Sergio´s (and my) mother who was incredulous that we finished as much beer as we did. We then left to see the Cuevas (caves) on the side of the volcan Villarica. As we bagan the ascent we realized we couldnt make it in Sergios car and decided to walk the rest, in about a meter of snow. After an hour or two walk in the snow, (oh yea it was snowing as well), and we arrived. It looked like there wasnt another person around, and I began to blame Sergio, until we saw a girl in the ticket booth. Sergio rapped on the glass and the girl asked, ¨hello have you come to visit the caves?.¨ I had to hit Sergio to keep him from saying, ¨No, we came for a cup of tea,¨ but it was a ridiculous question. After speaking with Sergios friend we got a free tour of the caves and a free ride ont he back of a modified snow pickup with some Brazillians, sweet. That night we had a great soup made with some of the ribs that we didnt use in the Asado, and then we went to a hot springs nearby where Sergio had some friends.
The next day we visited some waterfalls all around Pucon, and had an amazing lunch of homemade Fetuccini Alfredo and great donuts made from pumpkin. After thislunch I decided I was far to comfortable and left for the furthest south point that I would reach, Valdivia.
Valdivia was a cool ciudad, between rivers. The fish market was amzing with some of the freshest fish I have ever seen, and lobos del mar, otherwise known as sea lions, sitting right next to the fishermen witing for scraps. I went for a long walk and ended up by some forts which were used to defend the city from attacks by pirates and by the native mapuche who kicked the settlers butts quite a few times. I had some great fish for lunch and then saw the news which featured Santiago up to it neck in water and I knew I had to head back for some snowboarding.
The busride back was so much better than the one down, it cost less, the legroom was immense , and it even smelled better. I arrived back in Santiago to find the rumors of traffic were not exagerated too much as it took em about two hours to get across town. However the sun was incredible, the first sunlight I saw in Santiago. It looked especially amazing as it struck all of the two meters of snow that had fallen in the preceeding two days! As I already wrote, I went snowboarding two days, the second being incredible, the first indecipherable.
It was near this time that my good friend Andrew Grock, AKA Grockster, emailed me and informed me of his plans to meet me in Peru
ASAP. I therefore dropped everything, left for La Serena with plans to head to Northern Chile and Peru as fast as I could hop on a bus.
Let me tell you something, if you can avoid arriving in a city in the morning (5 oclock in this case) definetly avoid it. Another note, busdrivers know which will be worse, arriving too early or too late, and will always try to accomodate you. In this case we were meant to arrive at 6, but there we were, groggy as hell at 5 in the morn. Despite this, I made my way to Valle del Elqui and the little town of Pisco Elqui. It turned out to be the right stop as it was a beautiful little valley of grape farms and distilleries. I rented a bike and rode for a while, (until my bike broke I think I am far too big to ever rent a bike as I always manage to break rentals, see Ecuador) I then toured a Pisco distillery and drank some of the good stuffa, followed by a wonderful hamburger and drinks in the bike rental guys bar.
The following day I managed to escape the valley on the first bus of the day at 12:30 and made my way to La Serena to buy a ticket for Arica, site of a surf contest with the top 40 surfers in the world! And thats where I am now. A great little town in the middle of the desert, with a world class surf break, and great rotisserie chicken, (a whole chicken for less that 5 bucks). Tomorrow I will continue my gawking at the surfers and then head to Tacna, Peru where I will catch a bus to Cuzco for the Winter Solstice festival on the 24th, and my reunion with Grock on the 25th.
st, ok the worst busride. I made the HUGE mistake of choosing the window seat in the front of the bus. There were only two seats and I chose wrong. I had so little room that my right foot had to be angled all night. I had dreams of beds, and during the night every single part of my body fell asleep at some point. Despite this my time in Pucon couldnt have been nicer. When I arrived Sergio, the cousin of Cecelia, a grad student in the lab I worked in, picked me up right on time. It was so nice to talk with him as he was super excited to have me and to go on some adventures! We grabbed some bread and made for his house, 30 km out of town. it was the exact opposite of Santiago. No smog, no traffic, just pure nature. He lived with his mom on a piece of land that has its own natural hot springs! They are not quite ready yet, but as I was reminded many times by the time I return they will be. When I arrived we immediately went to a museum, and then began the preperation for an asado we were going to have. I learned the two most important, ok really the only two ingrediants for an asado are lots of meat and lots of beer. We got about 5 pounds of beef ribs and 7 liters of beer, and some tomatoes and other stuff to. We then went for a nice hike to see two lakes near Sergios house, (it aint called the lake region for nothing), and then started the asado. We were forced to do the asado under a little auxilliary house that Sergio had and were thusa bombarder with smoke during the entire process, but we got it done. We had to sit out there stoking the fire, drinking beer, and just having a great time for about 3-5 hours, Im not sure as the beer was steadily working its magic. By the time the ribs were done they were the most beautiful things I have ever seen, crispy, covered in fat, and perfectly tender. Needless to say we ate them all, and went back out to the fire to finish off the beer.The next day we woke up a little late to a scolding by Sergio´s (and my) mother who was incredulous that we finished as much beer as we did. We then left to see the Cuevas (caves) on the side of the volcan Villarica. As we bagan the ascent we realized we couldnt make it in Sergios car and decided to walk the rest, in about a meter of snow. After an hour or two walk in the snow, (oh yea it was snowing as well), and we arrived. It looked like there wasnt another person around, and I began to blame Sergio, until we saw a girl in the ticket booth. Sergio rapped on the glass and the girl asked, ¨hello have you come to visit the caves?.¨ I had to hit Sergio to keep him from saying, ¨No, we came for a cup of tea,¨ but it was a ridiculous question. After speaking with Sergios friend we got a free tour of the caves and a free ride ont he back of a modified snow pickup with some Brazillians, sweet. That night we had a great soup made with some of the ribs that we didnt use in the Asado, and then we went to a hot springs nearby where Sergio had some friends.
The next day we visited some waterfalls all around Pucon, and had an amazing lunch of homemade Fetuccini Alfredo and great donuts made from pumpkin. After thislunch I decided I was far to comfortable and left for the furthest south point that I would reach, Valdivia.
Valdivia was a cool ciudad, between rivers. The fish market was amzing with some of the freshest fish I have ever seen, and lobos del mar, otherwise known as sea lions, sitting right next to the fishermen witing for scraps. I went for a long walk and ended up by some forts which were used to defend the city from attacks by pirates and by the native mapuche who kicked the settlers butts quite a few times. I had some great fish for lunch and then saw the news which featured Santiago up to it neck in water and I knew I had to head back for some snowboarding.
The busride back was so much better than the one down, it cost less, the legroom was immense , and it even smelled better. I arrived back in Santiago to find the rumors of traffic were not exagerated too much as it took em about two hours to get across town. However the sun was incredible, the first sunlight I saw in Santiago. It looked especially amazing as it struck all of the two meters of snow that had fallen in the preceeding two days! As I already wrote, I went snowboarding two days, the second being incredible, the first indecipherable.
It was near this time that my good friend Andrew Grock, AKA Grockster, emailed me and informed me of his plans to meet me in Peru
ASAP. I therefore dropped everything, left for La Serena with plans to head to Northern Chile and Peru as fast as I could hop on a bus.
Let me tell you something, if you can avoid arriving in a city in the morning (5 oclock in this case) definetly avoid it. Another note, busdrivers know which will be worse, arriving too early or too late, and will always try to accomodate you. In this case we were meant to arrive at 6, but there we were, groggy as hell at 5 in the morn. Despite this, I made my way to Valle del Elqui and the little town of Pisco Elqui. It turned out to be the right stop as it was a beautiful little valley of grape farms and distilleries. I rented a bike and rode for a while, (until my bike broke I think I am far too big to ever rent a bike as I always manage to break rentals, see Ecuador) I then toured a Pisco distillery and drank some of the good stuffa, followed by a wonderful hamburger and drinks in the bike rental guys bar.
The following day I managed to escape the valley on the first bus of the day at 12:30 and made my way to La Serena to buy a ticket for Arica, site of a surf contest with the top 40 surfers in the world! And thats where I am now. A great little town in the middle of the desert, with a world class surf break, and great rotisserie chicken, (a whole chicken for less that 5 bucks). Tomorrow I will continue my gawking at the surfers and then head to Tacna, Peru where I will catch a bus to Cuzco for the Winter Solstice festival on the 24th, and my reunion with Grock on the 25th.
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