The Long Awaited Post (Bariloche and Pucon)

Wow! What a juicy title! First and foremost we would all like to apologise for not posting for this tremendous period of time. The constant rain and strange chilean customs have required us to adjust, and this adjustment has manifested itself in the form of a lack of posting.

Right, thats out the way, we´ve got a lot to get through so I shan´t fool about any longer. Writing to you from a hotel (A HOTEL!) in Viña del Mar, which is about 150km north of Santiago and on the Pacific Coast. If this sounds very exotic and not very rough-backpacker-timesaretough to you, you are correct. Although I will say that because the hotel is under construction, there is a constant drilling sound which wakes you up at 9am sharp (how thoughtful) and continues throughout the day, only stopping when the overweight Chilean driller takes a break to scratch his sweaty bum. Nice. But otherwise, yes I will admit, its all rather nice and a very welcome break from hostelling and sleeping in tiny bunk beds. However, since this is an update, in this blog you shall hear of our final Patagonian escapades, and in the next you shall learn of how we landed up in a hotel in Viña. I will say though that the next blog will follow soon. We´re also having serious trouble getting pics on picasa, but we shall keep working tirelessly to bring to up to the minute news from the front lines.

Now lets see...last time we spoke was nearly two weeks ago (whoops!). We were in Bariloche then and I think it was a thursday. Not much happened that day, or if it did, it was not special enough to make enough of an impression on me to stay in my mind, which means there´s no point blogging about it. However, that night, Fausto, using his charisma and charm, rounded up the inhabitants of the hostel and convinced them to bare the cold and walk to town to watch an Argie Ska band. However, we got the time wrong, and arrived there after the band had gone home (and the underage audience too). Not allowing ourselves to be despondent, we used this chance to get to know our fellow hostellers better. Nora was a swiss girl who could speak about 7 languages. That night she got far too drunk. She claims her drink was spiked, but after she got just as inebriated the following night, her story lost some credibility. Ahhh Nora. AnnoyingCanadian was an annoying Canadian, who had a chip on his shoulder about being ´different´and ´the odd one out´, so at a random point in the night he informed us he was going home because he was the 11th person in the group, and thus he was the odd one out - I´m not sure how this makes sense, perhaps its a Canadian thing, but I suspect he was just a doos (aaah the romance of the Afrikaans language). Karen and Grant were a couple from Ireland (well, Karen was from Ireland and Grant was from England but he now lives in Ireland), who we took a liking too and spent much time laughing at Grant (possibly the funniest person we´ve met on the whole trip, apart from each other of course). I would rehash some of his classic jokes, but they just wont sound as good, so i´ll leave it to you to imagine.

The next day we decided to organise a car to rent for the next day so that we could drive an hour to a nearby glacier. This was the only activity completed on this day. Oh yes, that night we ate Mexican food and then went to an Irish pub (as you can see, we were really engaging with Patagonian culture that night). At Wilkenny´s, we met an Aussie who thought my name was ´Stew´and then proceeded to tell us a very long story about a guy he knew called Stew who had a condition which made his testicles swell up to "the soays of a guud soayzed mengo" (Aussie accent), and this led to him becoming the famous "BigNuts", the headmaster of a local Sydney school, and his son, who inherited the disease, being called LittleBigNuts. Then I told him my name was in fact Steve, and not Stew, but this did not put him off.

The next day we arose early to make full use of our rental car. We were slightly apprehensive, since the day before Fausto had recieved a prophesy from a fortune-teller who foresaw some sort of complicated car accident, and since we had rented the car just moments before, we were slightly worried. However, deciding we could not live our lives in fear, we three Gringos, and Karen and Grant, set off in our Ford Fiesta Max (MAX!) for Mount Tronador, a 4000m Andean Glacier on the border between Chile and Argentina. After a slightly nervous drive there which went off without a hitch, we arrived at the national park entrance. I should mention that on this day it was pouring with rain, just as it had been for the last three days. We informed the guard that we wanted to drive the 60km up to the base of Tronador to see the glacier, and he waved us in the right direction. We thought it was a bit strange that there was no one else around (apart from one 4x4 who passed us early on, but we persisted anyway. After stopping at some incredible lakes and forests, the road began to get rather puddly (as in, full of puddles), and we began to put our little Fiesta to the test. The rain continued to lash down, an as we drove down into a valley with a raging river it became clear that parts of the river had in fact joined with the large puddles, created a SuperPuddle. On encountering the first of these SuperPuddles and successfully navigating our way through, we celebrated our achievement and thought ourselves silly for even worrying about the strength of our trusty steed, the Fiesta Max, not knowing that just around the corner lurked The Biggest Puddle in the History of Wetness. Upon rounding the corner we stopped the car and sat in silence as we surveyed the small oceanic puddle. Our laughs turned to whimpers, our smiles to nervous twitches, even our FiestaMax stopped revving proudly. However, since we had come this far, there was no way we were turning back, and so armed with the knowledge that, in puddleriver crossing, all one must concentrate on is not getting stuck and not losing momentum, our driver Fonzie set off into the AquaticBeast. When the water came over the bonnet of the Fiesta, we began to think that someone should have perhaps warned us that the roads to the glacier were inaccessible. But our little car kept going and going and managed to cross the puddle despite temporarily turning into a submarine. I would like to, at this point, advise everyone to trade in their cars, no matter what it is, and buy a Ford Fiesta Max. It is a beast of a car.

Anyway, we made it through the puddles and arrived at the base of the Glacier, supposedly offering the best views of the Icy Tronador. Due to the mist, we could not see a damn thing. However, this was the last thing on our minds, as the few inhabitants of the area were bewildered as to how we had managed to naviagate our way up across the river. When they saw our humble FiestaMax, their bewilderment turned to utter disbelief, all expressed in colloquial Spanish. We were faced with a predicament... the water was rising, and to get back to safety, we had to once again cross the giant RiverPuddles. Using our reason, we reasoned that the puddles would only get bigger, and since the locals at the top did not seem to care, since we woke them up from their siesta, we decided to brave the puddles and go back down. To cut a long story short, we made it through once again, cursing the park for their negligence in not warning us about the danger. We did not see any glacier or any part of the mighty Tronador, although the beastly mountain threw all it had at us and we suceeded, emerging triumphant having beaten the Phrophesy of Doom.

Peter Jackson directed that last paragraph. Sorry it was so long but i felt the terror and danger needed to be properly conveyed. Anyway, the events had scarred us so deeply, and the rain was so relentless that we decided to leave the town of Barliloche, and head for Chile. A day of travelling and a few busses later, we crossed the Andes (very slowly), and entered our third country, Chile (which is rather Chilly), arriving in Pucon, still in Patagonia but on a whole different side. We soon discovered that it was raining even harder here, and so we hurredly followed a local women we met at the bus station who ran a small guest house. The guest house was a cosy wooden cabin with a few rooms and with a warm fire place, just the thing to warm up some cold, wet and miserable Gringos. The cabin was inhabited by two English girls (Sophie and Louise), a Munchen (Florian), and an Israeli (Omer), all of whom welcomed us by inviting us to join in an Israeli card game called "Shalom a makai" (although thats not how you spell it). The game has very few rules, the main one being that if you make the slightest mistake or act silly in any way, you are punished by being given all the cards. Fun.

The rain in Pucon was so thick and relentless that it took us three days to work out that there were some huge mountains near the town. We staying indoors in our cabin, only venturing out for necessities like Chilean wine, and food. The whole point of going to Pucon, for most people, is to climb the giant Volcan Villarica, an active 4000m Volcano which is covered in snow and ice. The blasted rain prevented us from climbing the fiery inferno. However, we did do one activity which was particularly enjoyable - because of all the volcanic activity in the area, there are some amazing natural thermal springs, which form 6 separate rock pools of bath-temperature water. Setting off at 9pm, we got a transfer to the springs, and proceeded to explore the six giant steaming pools of magical water with the cold rain pouring down above us. It was pretty amazing, and it made us feel better about not being able to climb the volcano and being trapped indoors.

After a few more days of putting up with the rain, we decided to head North to Santiago, in the hopes that it would be drier. In Santiago we met up with Jax, who flew here from SA to travel with the gringos for a couple of weeks. After a few days in Santiago we headed to

Viña del Mar. All these adventures shall be chronicled in the next episode though. I have been typing for what feels like an eternity and my fingers are sore. I need lunch. Mmmmmm....

Ok. As I said, sorry there´s no pics on Picasa, but we´re trying.

K bye!