Tuesday 18th Feb
Some things I may have forgotten to point out along the way.
1) I got a haircut in a bus station in Patagonia. Puerto Madryn to be exact. We had time before our bus to Trelew. The barber was obviously Italian, and took great care in slowly cutting my hair with scissors into the style he assumed was what I wanted. Or maybe it was the style he wanted me to have. Fortunately the whole world works on the ‘razor one to six’ rule, but I had asked him to just shave my head with a 2. He wasn’t really ok with that idea.
2) In Colonia Del Sacramento I went to the shop to try and acquire more washing liquid. I came back with a bottle of something that looked like it was supposed to clean clothes (not many options in that supermarket) and a bar of glycerine soap. The soap was pretty cheap. Sadly the liquid was bleach, and a few of my clothes ended up a bit tie-dyed. They were disposed of a long time ago. Ah well. Good job I only brought clothes with me that I expected to fall apart whilst I was here.
3) Sarah’s face when we arrived in Bariloche was priceless during the brief minutes when it seemed her rucksack was lost somewhere between Esquel and Bariloche. Naturally it was at the back of the hold, and our driver was nimble enough to get it (after lifted a dozen bags out of the way) but Sarah had The Fear.
I started writing this on a bus, halfway between Ancud and Puerto Montt, stuck at roadworks in the rain.
"It’s a fair shower, the sky is heavy with shades of grey, the trees are shrouded a mere hundred metres from us. Sarah is trying to sleep beside me whilst listening to With The Beatles, our first in a series of albums we are unfamiliar with, in a bid to expand our knowledge whilst travelling. Sarah is prone to vertigo, travel sickness, and the only thing she can do on these long bus journeys, apart from watch the tv in the distance, and listen to wailing children, is put on some music and try to sleep. I am lucky that I can read without problems, and type too.
Time is going faster right now. We have achieved little over the past few week, and now we are heading north to Valdivia, a university town and a brief stop before heading to the popular tourist destination of Pucón. We might get to climb a volcano. For reasons which I shall reveal below, we might not get to climb a volcano.
The cows are lying down. I hope that means the same thing for Spanish-speaking cows as it does for English ones."
Monday 17th Feb
Sarah's toe has gotten worse. Its sore, its ugly, its got a little white abscess in the top corner beside the nail. We have procrastinated long enough. It's time to go to the hospital.
Even today we dither around til 1pm, long enough that to worry about whether the surgery will be open or not. We head towards the hospital, a ten minute walk away. In Chile, like most places, superficially it looks like there is a system of buying into a particular chain of medical providers rather than simply being able to go to any clinic around you. Hospitals might be the exception. We wander in the door that isn't at A&E, but a waiting visitor points us back out to the urgencia area. There, two dozen people wait anxiously to be called. The receptionist is helpful, dealing with my pidgin Spanish, and we sit down long enough to watch a news item or two on CNN Chile.
Fortunately, differently from hospitals in Northern Ireland, when they say it might be a six hour wait they mean it could be fifteen minutes, and we make it to triage pretty quick. In and out, as they say, though our nurse is helpful. Another five minutes in the waiting room and we, with gringo priority access, head straight in and see a doctor. A brief assessment suggests a minor, superficial, infection; nothing that a course of antibiotics and fresh air won't solve.
Marvellous. We are on the path to being disease-free, why not celebrate? We wander back through the town and snag some beers in the supermarket at bargain prices (six tins for $3000? cheap!) Back in the hostel we chat away some more with the locals, but Sarah is still feeling under the weather between the infection and the ropey dinner yesterday, so spends more time in the bedroom getting her head showered.
We learn about Chile's wooden houses (earthquake-proof, apparently) and that a Chilean earthquake is slightly more powerful that an American one (they're about 2 points higher on the Richter scale down here to be considered an earthquake). We also learn about the Chilean equivalent to Spain's El Silencio, the agreement not to talk about the victims of the military junta in the post-Allende years, and how this contrasts with Argentina's willingness to air its own dirty laundry in public. A game of ping-pong and fusbol later and its time for a sleep, its an early start tomorrow.
Tuesday 18th Feb
We took that early morning bus, easing down the damp streets on Ancud, out into the well-paved roads of Chiloé, and whiled away the hours watching the LED reading of the bus’s speed exceed its maximum permitted velocity of 100km/h. Our driver was in some sort of rush all the way there. Sarah distracted herself trying to watch Captain Phillips in Spanish, as big-headed locals stood in her way. I put on my laptop and made some music.
On the ferry back to the mainland we caught a little fresh sea air, both of us feeling a little unsettled, a mopey greyness around us that comes with the weariness of travelling for 12 weeks straight, and once again being back in a country trying to drain your bank account. We are a little traveller-weary too. Some sort of ghost town, no one around to annoy us, would work a treat. Other peoples’ relentlessly wonderful lives get on your nerves. What are they doing? Is it better than what we do? Are they living some sort of incredible life that is simply closed off to us, now and forever. We are still unclear as to what our exact purpose is down here, and that isn’t helping. Plus we’re back into the routine of trying to find out where is worth visiting, why, and how. Chile is a country where hostels can be few and far between, and the price jump up to hotels can be serious. It might make us a little happier to do something constructive for a change, rather than turn up, walk around, drink and eat, then get out of town. We’ve seen a few too many places like that.
2) In Colonia Del Sacramento I went to the shop to try and acquire more washing liquid. I came back with a bottle of something that looked like it was supposed to clean clothes (not many options in that supermarket) and a bar of glycerine soap. The soap was pretty cheap. Sadly the liquid was bleach, and a few of my clothes ended up a bit tie-dyed. They were disposed of a long time ago. Ah well. Good job I only brought clothes with me that I expected to fall apart whilst I was here.
3) Sarah’s face when we arrived in Bariloche was priceless during the brief minutes when it seemed her rucksack was lost somewhere between Esquel and Bariloche. Naturally it was at the back of the hold, and our driver was nimble enough to get it (after lifted a dozen bags out of the way) but Sarah had The Fear.
I started writing this on a bus, halfway between Ancud and Puerto Montt, stuck at roadworks in the rain.
"It’s a fair shower, the sky is heavy with shades of grey, the trees are shrouded a mere hundred metres from us. Sarah is trying to sleep beside me whilst listening to With The Beatles, our first in a series of albums we are unfamiliar with, in a bid to expand our knowledge whilst travelling. Sarah is prone to vertigo, travel sickness, and the only thing she can do on these long bus journeys, apart from watch the tv in the distance, and listen to wailing children, is put on some music and try to sleep. I am lucky that I can read without problems, and type too.
Monday 17th Feb
Sarah's toe has gotten worse. Its sore, its ugly, its got a little white abscess in the top corner beside the nail. We have procrastinated long enough. It's time to go to the hospital.
Even today we dither around til 1pm, long enough that to worry about whether the surgery will be open or not. We head towards the hospital, a ten minute walk away. In Chile, like most places, superficially it looks like there is a system of buying into a particular chain of medical providers rather than simply being able to go to any clinic around you. Hospitals might be the exception. We wander in the door that isn't at A&E, but a waiting visitor points us back out to the urgencia area. There, two dozen people wait anxiously to be called. The receptionist is helpful, dealing with my pidgin Spanish, and we sit down long enough to watch a news item or two on CNN Chile.
Fortunately, differently from hospitals in Northern Ireland, when they say it might be a six hour wait they mean it could be fifteen minutes, and we make it to triage pretty quick. In and out, as they say, though our nurse is helpful. Another five minutes in the waiting room and we, with gringo priority access, head straight in and see a doctor. A brief assessment suggests a minor, superficial, infection; nothing that a course of antibiotics and fresh air won't solve.
Marvellous. We are on the path to being disease-free, why not celebrate? We wander back through the town and snag some beers in the supermarket at bargain prices (six tins for $3000? cheap!) Back in the hostel we chat away some more with the locals, but Sarah is still feeling under the weather between the infection and the ropey dinner yesterday, so spends more time in the bedroom getting her head showered.
We learn about Chile's wooden houses (earthquake-proof, apparently) and that a Chilean earthquake is slightly more powerful that an American one (they're about 2 points higher on the Richter scale down here to be considered an earthquake). We also learn about the Chilean equivalent to Spain's El Silencio, the agreement not to talk about the victims of the military junta in the post-Allende years, and how this contrasts with Argentina's willingness to air its own dirty laundry in public. A game of ping-pong and fusbol later and its time for a sleep, its an early start tomorrow.
Tuesday 18th Feb
On the ferry back to the mainland we caught a little fresh sea air, both of us feeling a little unsettled, a mopey greyness around us that comes with the weariness of travelling for 12 weeks straight, and once again being back in a country trying to drain your bank account. We are a little traveller-weary too. Some sort of ghost town, no one around to annoy us, would work a treat. Other peoples’ relentlessly wonderful lives get on your nerves. What are they doing? Is it better than what we do? Are they living some sort of incredible life that is simply closed off to us, now and forever. We are still unclear as to what our exact purpose is down here, and that isn’t helping. Plus we’re back into the routine of trying to find out where is worth visiting, why, and how. Chile is a country where hostels can be few and far between, and the price jump up to hotels can be serious. It might make us a little happier to do something constructive for a change, rather than turn up, walk around, drink and eat, then get out of town. We’ve seen a few too many places like that.
Puerto Montt = Larne
Ordinary People Doing Ordinary Jobs
Puerto Montt Bus Station.
Our journey north is going to take 6hrs; we'll be in Valdivia at 3pm. As we travel through little stops like Puerto Varas, Osorno, and eventually deviant from the main motorway spine of Chile (as you can see below), the skies slowly dry up, lose a little of the thick grey that had clustered over Chiloé, and by the time we make it to Valdivia the skies are blue and friendly, and we are feeling a little better.
Humourous Name!
Terminal de Valdivia is compact and tidy. We pick up our tickets to Pucón before we are even out the door, making sure we don't have more bus difficulties. Now a quick walk to the hostel. Valdivia centre is very navigable. On the bus here we once again expressed our longing for a familiar Chinese takeaway, something that would satisfy our cravings for something from home. What's this?! A Chinese restaurant, right outside the bus terminal in Valdivia?! We shall make a mental note of this!
Our fifteen minute walk to Hostel Bosque Nativo is uneventful, but as we get through the front door we instantly sense complications. Sure enough, this week, nay month, is Valdiviana, the celebration of the founding of Valdivia, and the hostel is booked out. Websites have crashed, disaster has ensued, and we have no beds here. Sarah whips out here laptop, intent on finding alternative accommodation. Luckily for us, the girl in the hostel is more than willing to phone round a few places to find us somewhere to stay. Not only that, she is going to pay for the difference is price! This is definitely hospitality, Chile-style. Three calls later, we are heading to Hostel Internacional, with a bonus $15000 in my pocket.
One taxi ride with the world's grumpiest taxi driver, who managed to drive us around the town and let us out without even offering a single word, and we are outside the large cabin complex of Hostel Internacional. Ring the bell, in the door, and two matrons sign us in to a very pleasant private room, with a very clean and new bathroom and glorious view of a carpark. Still, can't fault them for that. We throw our bags down and head back out, one destination in mind.
The pollo curri was very tasty, and missing the ugly blobs of MSG you get at home. The vacuna Mongoliano was also delicious, with big chunks of fresh jalapeños and tons of scallions. Nothing to complain about here, and we even had the company of an elderly Chinese gent who ate a big plate of chow mien.
After that it was time to wander the streets of Valdivia...
We walked around long enough to figure out we wanted to sit in a bar and watch some football. Well, I did anyway. We found the Ipanema Bar on the main street, populated with middle-aged men sitting at the bar drinking pints of Cristal and listening to some dodgy rock music being played on the juke box. Only on thing for it. One big bag of $100 coins later and we had that place BOUNCING! Until Sarah put on Whigfield's Saturday Night, anyway, though a balding man in a leather jacket seemed to be bopping along to it.
In Chile, it seems that every single shop / bar / restaurant / selling establishment must give you a little tiny receipt, a docket, handwritten. Not only that, but you cannot pay the waiting staff. Rather, you must go to a little booth near the door, where a little woman (always a woman) awaits you with your tab, and takes your cash through a little hole in the bottom of the glass. In Latin America, often you have two people doing the job of one. On the bus, there is always a driver and an assistant (at least one assistant), who does the rounds taking money, loading and unloading bags, keeping the place ticking over.
We have a wonderful night, and stumble back home, trying not to wake anyone with our happiness at feeling a bit more human again.
No comments:
Post a Comment