Pucon

Time to post about my active yet relaxing weekend in Pucon. Pucon is a woodsy tourist town, kind of like Lake Tahoe or Truckee, which is 9-10 hours away from Santiago. It's about 7 hours south of Santiago, and then a couple hours east. It was really really cold (like below freezing at night) but it was sunny and clear all the days we were there except Saturday. We left late Wednesday night and got there on Thursday morning. Thursday was spent getting settled in to our cabins and exploring the town. The cabins were nice, considering they were in the middle of the woods. Each cabin held 8 people in 3 rooms and a couch with a trundle bed, so we split up into small groups of whoever we wanted to live with for a couple days. One of the best things about Pucon was living with a small group, cooking together, trying to start a fire (our only source of heat...), hanging out in our little living room. Since we are living in a hotel in Santiago, we don't get to do the everyday household activities we are used to, and I think a lot of us were missing that.

Anyway, on Thursday, Desiree, Tricia and I went to the market and bought ridiculous amounts of food to cook for everyone that night. While the rest of the group walked all the way into town (our cabins were about a 45 min walk away from the actual town of Pucon) and planned out the activities for the weekend, the three of us came back and cooked spaghetti with meat sauce and vegetables. It worked out because we got to have a restful afternoon after the long and mostly sleepless bus ride the night before, and by the time everyone got back dinner was ready for them.

Since I didn't go with the giant group to sign up for Friday's outdoor activities, they took the liberty of putting me on the list for zip lining. I yelled a lot when they informed me of this, since I hadn't planned on swinging like a monkey 40 feet up in the air. I was kind of scared to go, but once I got up in the tree it wasn't scary at all. At least I wasn't in the 3rd group, who got started so late in the day that it was completely dark by the time they were done. Really though, I am glad people signed me up for that activity, since it was probably the most fun activity I did over the weekend. Another bonus was that the zip lining didn't start till 2:30 so I got to sleep in nice and late. After zip lining we came back and ate some leftover spaghetti and loafed around for a few hours. We eventually realized it was Friday night and we shouldn't waste it loafing about at home, so we took a taxi into town and went to a pub called Cypress. It was a cozy bar with a ski lodge sort of feel to it, with videos of snowboarding on a big screen on one wall and a DJ playing passable music all night. It was only the 4 of us who went - Desiree, Tricia, Cristhian and me - which was nice because we all fit in one taxi and we didn't have to take care of drunk little kids who can't handle their alcohol. That is one interesting thing I've learned on this trip, is that it's possible to have a nice quiet evening in a bar with a couple of friends. I'm not sure it would be the same in the States, but that's a pretty typical weekend-night activity for Chileans.

We didn't stay that late at the bar - only about 2 am, so we got up on Saturday with enough of the morning left to have a nice day in town before it started raining. Cristhian and I walked around Pucon exploring all the little touristy shops, parks, and the lake. It was freezing cold though, so before too long we found somewhere to eat lunch. I tried some Chilean clams called machas and had a pizza with cheese, olives, salami, and artichokes on it. Neither were things I would normally eat but they turned out to be really good. I guess Pucon was a good weekend for trying new things. Anyway, after lunch we went to the supermarket in town and got food and supplies for a barbeque. The barbeque ended up not happening exactly as planned because we couldn't get the stupid fire started outside on the grill. I have to say, I'm not sure how our ancestors survived the caveman days without charcoal and lighter fluid. After an hour we just gave up and cooked the hamburgers in a pan on the stove, and that worked out just fine. That night our whole group went to a natural hot springs up in the mountains. It was absolutely freezing outside of the springs, but inside it was nice and warm and very relaxing. I kind of wanted to go to bed after that but we couldn't waste a Saturday night so we went back to Cypress again. This time, about 20 other people came too, so we kind of took over a small section of the place and there was much drinking and dancing until 5 in the morning. Definitely not as cozy as the previous night, but still fun in its own way.

We slept in on Sunday until around 11:30, then went horseback riding at noon. We went in groups of 7-8 people because there weren't enough horses for everyone at once. Our group rode the horses along a road, then on a trail in the woods, then up a little mountain. We parked the horses by a stream and hiked a little ways into the woods where we came to a big waterfall. Everyone took pictures and then we hiked back up to the horses again and headed back down the mountain. My horse went insane on the way back down and kept bolting for no apparent reason. It seems that it also annoyed the other horses in the group, because one of them walked over to my horse and kicked it in the leg. It jumped around and ran away up the side of the trail and I almost fell off. So although I am still sore from all that nonsense 4 days later, it was still a fun trip and I would probably ride a horse again if I had the opportunity. Before leaving Pucon that night, we went back into town one last time for dinner. I ate the biggest hamburger I've ever seen in my whole life (yes, I ate the whole thing) and then went and waited for the bus to come. Our trip back to Santiago took 10 hours, and we arrived in the middle of subway rush hour about 30 minutes before we were supposed to be at school on Monday. It was a rushed and not very fun morning, but it was worth it because the weekend was so good.

On Monday we didn't do anything since everyone was still recovering from the weekend, but on Tuesday we went to the Polenesian Cultural Museum which is a few blocks from our hotel. It was pretty interesting, with lots of stuff to read about how the Easter Island and other Polenesian islands were settled and how the languages in that area mixed and developed. It was also a good challenge because there were no English translations on any of the exhibits. If only I could converse as well as I could read. I went to dinner last night at a popular soda fountain place that has sandwiches. Their claim to fame is their homemade mayonnaise, so I had to try it even though generally avoid mayonnaise whenever possible. I may have mentioned this before, but in Chile, mayo is not merely a sauce but is in fact a major food group in its own right. 99% of the time, this is most unfortunate, but even I have to admit that last night's mayo was pretty good.

Today we are going to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which judging by the name, is a fine arts museum. Hopefully it's a good one.

One last thing, I uploaded a lot of pictures from Pucon and Buenos Aires to my photo album, so if you want to see make sure to visit the link on the right side of this page. I don't think you can click on it and go there, but if you copy and paste into your browser it will take you there.