Oh, Cruel World

Feb. 11

We spent the day tooling around Santiago and botching up a walking tour that we had planned. It really didn't work out because we didn't see much of interest and it was extremely hot. Oh well, we're not sure if there is much of interest in Santiago at this point anyway. The one highlight of the day was visiting the Central Market where we bought some tasty fruit and nuts on the cheap. We had our farewell Santiago dinner in a little local restaurant where we had a nice $7 bottle of Pinot Noir. Good stuff. I was hoping the wine would help me sleep on our 12 hour journey to Pucon. We would be on the train for about 10 hours and then a two hour bus ride from Temuco to Pucon at the end. Matt, the train lover, was definitely looking forward to the trip.

We headed to the train station around 10pm and there were already lots of people lined up for the 10:30 train. We waited and waited and finally the train arrived around 11pm. After we got settled into our seats Matt immediately fell asleep. Somehow my wine trick wasn't working and I was awake until about 2am. About one hour later the train attendant woke us up and in my delirium I thought she said we were stopping and could buy some food and other things at this stop if we wanted. Uh, ok. It's 3am - I just want to sleep! Then we started to see that everyone was grabbing their bags and heading off the train. Huh? A guy walked by us and told us in English that there was a break in the track and we had to take a bus. Hmmm...they didn't mention this when we bought the ticket.

So we all boarded the bus at about 3:15am. At this point my wine trick was really backfiring on me because I had a full-fledged headache and I was exhausted. The blaring music on the bus didn't help (who plays loud music at 3 in the morning on a bus??). An hour later we arrived at some other train station and had to get on the new train. That's a big break in the track! Around 4:30 or so we were moving again and finally able to go to sleep. They even gave us a blanket - I knew there was a reason we booked first class!

Feb. 12

We arrived into Temuco at about 9am. I wasn't feeling very good but just thought it was the lack of sleep. After arriving into Pucon we wandered around looking for our hostal and finally found someone who knew where it was and pointed us in the right direction. We checked in and then decided to go check things out and look for a place to eat lunch despite a nasty stomach ache on my part.

Pucon is a great little getaway. It's a cute little town bustling with tourists. It is situated on Lake Villarica next to Villarica Volcano and beautiful mountains. Very picturesque. There are tons of outdoor activities here: climbing the active volcano, white water rafting, zip lines, hot springs, kayaking, swimming, water skiing, etc. That afternoon I went back to the room to take a nap (I was still feeling nasty) and Matt went in search of a good tour company to book some activities, the most important being climbing the volcano, of course. The volcano could be seen from anywhere in town and there was steam coming out the top - cool! We had to get fitted for our gear that evening so I dragged myself out of bed. We found out from the girl who worked at the tour company that we should see lava at the top and we would get to slide down the volcano on our butts in the snow. It sounded so fun! We had to bring our own food so we headed off to the grocery store to stock up. I still felt sick but figured I would be fine in the morning. Oh how wrong I was! Ten minutes later I was hurling in the grocery store parking lot. Less than 12 hours until our volcano trek departs and I'm puking my guts out! Damn, damn, damn.

Well, what can I say. That sort of put a damper on the evening. I was still determined to hike the next day though....

Feb. 13

We were up at 6am and off to the tour company to gear up. I had been able to eat a thing of yogurt for breakfast and keep it down so I hoped I would be ok. My plan was to ask the guide when my last opportunity to ditch on the hiking was. Turns out the guide really didn't speak any English so that was a no go. So I got in the van and hoped for the best. And that is when we turned off the main road to a dirt road...a really bumpy, dusty dirt road. We were flying over the pot holes and dust was coming in through the window (which I had to keep open at that point because I thought I might need to use it!). It was stuffy. I felt hot and sick and sweaty. I was miserable. Abort! Abort! It was at that point I decided the volcano hike was not going to happen for me. Boo hoo. The last thing I needed was to be puking my guts out on the side of the volcano. So, needless to say, I headed back to the hostal and Matt had to do the super cool volcano hike without me. He'll have to write the blog to tell you all about that.

I slept the day away and pondered what had made me sick (the tomato salad in Santiago? fruit from the market?) until Matt got back from the volcano around 3pm. There doesn't seem to be any A/C in Pucon so our room was stifling. We decided to hit the beach for a while to cool down. We got there and hid under an umbrella. The black sand was smokin' hot and neither of us were in the mood for sun anyway. I still felt gross and Matt had reached his maximum sun intake for the day.

That evening was also a bust. I still couldn't eat and the restaurant we ate at was terrible anyway. We went to sleep hoping I would feel better. We had an important river rafting trip the next day!

Feb. 14

My Valentine and I slept in and then I ate my first meal in over 2 days. Yea! Big success. Looked like we were still on for rafting. We headed out to buy our bus tickets to San Martin de los Andes (back in Argentina). We were somewhat successful - we were able to buy tickets to go there but not the return (it was a pen and paper sort of establishment so no computer bookings to allow for the return ticket). Let's hope we can buy the return when we arrive there...it would be good not to be stuck:-)

Then we headed back to the tour company for our rafting trip, which was great. It was a baby trip with only class 3 rapids but was lots of fun. We stopped in the beginning and jumped into the frigid water off a big rock. It was a good shock to the system - luckily we had wetsuits and boots to keep us warm. Our group was good and the guide was great. We had four instructions: adelante (forward paddle), atras (backward paddle), alto (stop paddling) and el agua (jump in the water). We had fun going through a big rapid then jumping in and floating to our rescue boat in front of us. I'm so glad I didn't miss this one too.

Ciao for now.