Pucon, Chile Part 3

Well a slight change of plans, we´ll be leaving tonight from Pucon to Santiago via bus (10 hours) and then getting a flight from Santiago to Beunos Aires tomorrow morning.  We stay in Pucon slightly longer than planned but arrive in BA at the same time (lol)

Yesterday the four of us went to visit a Mapuche family and we got to dress up in their clothes, ride their horse, eat their food and just hang out in their house with them drinking wheat coffee around a fire.  It was amazing!  Ruben´s dad is Mapuche, so he translate most of it and what he couldn´t he says in Spanish and then Phillipe translates into English . . . as you can guess conversations were a bit slow, but they were such friendly people.  Of course it´s set up for tourists (like us) but instead of having a group of 20 it was just the 4 of us with them.  Then we were suppose to have a BBQ, but it had rained heavily all day, so we went shopping for food (aka meat and potatoes) and Ruben cooked the whole meal, while I lay on the couch watching Beverly Hills 90210 (re-runs of what I use to watch in High School LOL)  Jo and Phillipe came over to eat as well.  Meals are eaten much later here, so we had dinner at 11pm so by time dinner was over and we were just relaxing in our living room, I fell asleep on the couch. 

When I woke this morning at 8.45am, I realised I had to shower, pack, clean the kitchen and catch the bus which was leaving at 10am.  So of course I jumped outta bed and raced to the shower, got dressed and started to pack and never even noticed that Ruben wasn´t sleeping anymore, so when I ran downstairs to start on the dishes I nearly fell over to see the whole kitchen and dinning room were completely cleaned up!  Then we got the knock on the door from Phillipe to say no bus, all that rushing around for nothing, but at least it´s all done now :-)

I got some good photos at the Mapuche village house and last night at dinner, but need an internet cafe where I can upload them.

Okay, off to get some lunch now . . . will try to write from Argentina soon

Pucon, Chile part 2

So my mate Jo & I have decided we´ll be leaving Pucon on Friday morning and taking a 22 hour bus to Beunos Aires, Argentina.  I think I can easily speak for her as well and say that neither of us is looking forward to leaving, but at the end of the day, we both need to get to BA by Saturday night, so this is the longest we can stay.  But, I´m determined to try to come back here at some point.  In the mean time I will just have to keep in touch with the people I´ve met, some of which hope to be in America later this year (yeah!) so we can hang out then too.

Yesterday, Ruben took me to a small town south of Pucon to see a less touristy town and to see the beautiful lake.  The weather wasn´t exactly fantastic, but we had a great time playing on the jungle gym and walking around the marina before stopping for some chocolate caliente (hot chocolate).  After that was just a quite night at home, I made spaghetti and we watched Friends in Spanish - No my Spanish is not that good, but my knowledge of nearly every episode of Friends makes it easy for me to understand it!

Well, just wanted to check in, we gotta run to figure out how to explain that we want to buy tissue paper, hmmmmm!

Pucon, Chile

So we were suppose to leave Pucon on Friday, but my mate Jo and I decided to stay a bit longer.  The town is so beautiful, from every where you can see the snow capped volcano.  Pucon is also in Chile´s lake district, and there are something like 10 to 15 large lakes in the area, and tons of other tall volcanos which aren´t active.  Did I mention the volcano we were suppose to hike the other day is an active one?  From my bedroom window between 5 and 6am I can see the top section of the volcano glowing from the lava, without even getting out of bed . . . how amazing is that?

Yesterday, Phillipe drove Jo and me over to check out another lake, it was so beautiful!  Only problem was I lent my camera to Ruben cause he was guiding a group up the volcano, so no photos, but I think Jo got a few good ones which hopefully she´ll share with me!

Weather is still cool, but the clouds are much higher and so if you´re in the sun it doesn´t feel so bad.

Santiago & Pucon, Chile

Safely arrived into South America (a new continent for me!) a few days ago, after a long 11 hour flight from Auckland to Santiago.  Country is beautiful.  The first day I went to two coastal villages, names now evade me.  Then took a 10 hour night bus from Santiago to Pucon (south) and we were suppose to hike up the 2000m volcano today, but it´s rainy and has lots of strong wind, so it´s postponed till tomorrow.