More time in Chile!

On Sunday July 25th we sadly leave Easter Island and arrive back in Santiago, Chile in the evening. We get beds at La Chimba hostel, in Barrio Bellavista and call it an early night.


The following day starts out slow for us as neither one of us has the desire to be tourists and go sightseeing. We finally get ready and head to la Plaza Caupolican, where we take a funicular, cable car, up to Parque Metropolitano (Cerro Cristobal), where we are able to see amazing views of the city! Laura and I are just hanging out, taking pictures and enjoying the view when all of sudden this guy, James, hears us speaking English and happens to approach us, asking if we can take a picture of him. Turns out he lives in Minnesota, Uptown to be exact, just a couple miles away from me!! Crazy! James has a job where he travels to various countries doing computer training and he happened to be in Santiago for a few days. After chatting and getting to know him a bit we realized we had the same goals for the day so he decided to tag along with me and Laura. We walked around Cerro Cristobal, got some empanadas at a sidewalk cafe and then headed towards the central part of town, making stops for carmalized nuts and to take pictures along the way. We reached the Plaza de Armas by dark, giving us a beautiful view of the cathedral and surroudning buildings. The plaza was filled with magicians, jugglers, painters and street performers. We stopped for what was going to be 1 beer (at Shoppe Dog Saloon), but found ourselves bar hopping around Patio Bellavista until early morning! He was a bad influence on us, or maybe us on him... as he was the one that had to give a presentation the following day! Either way, we had a blast with him and have already made plans to meet up in Mpls!


The following day Laura and I had planned to go paragliding but due to a lack of wind nobody would take us out. We instead decided to finish our Santiago sightseeing, checking out Barrio Brasil and doing some shopping before hitting up the local fish and fruits market for lunch (with free pisco sours, yummy!)! We totally lost track of time and realized we had to hurry if we wanted to catch our bus to our next city, Pucon! We rushed back to La Chimba, had the cab wait while we grabbed our stuff and then raced to the terminal, which is located within a mall. We ran up 3 flights of stairs, up an escalator and through a mall with all of bags! Luckily everything in South America runs late, a lot like me, so we just made it! Time for an overnight bus!


We arrive to the cute little town of Pucon on the morning of Wednesday July 28th and get a room at El Refugio, a cute little cabin-like hostel in the middle of town. Pucon is known as the ¨mecca¨ for adventure sports and we were super excited to be here! It helped that the town is adorable, giving me the feeling of being up north in a log cabin! We planned to hike it´s amazing volcano, Villarrica, go river rafting, and do a zipline through the canopy! Unfortunately, just like in San Pedro, weather/time-of-year permitted us from doing these things. We were not able to do rafting because there weren´t enough people and none of the volcano tours were going due to rain, safety and poor visibilty. Bummer! We were told to hang out for a few days and wait for the weather to improve but we don´t have time to wait, as we are crunched for time with all that we plan to do this summer! So after being denied for rafting and the volcano we finally got a yes for the canopy tour! It was awesome! The ziplines may not have compared to ones I have done in Costa Rica, but it was still a blast and I did have a couple seconds of fear as we ziplined over a river with flowing rapids! After the canopy tour we take some time to walk around Lake Villarrica and take a $3.00 row-boat ride from a local old man we found on the beach. So much for our crazy rafting adventure, instead we´re riding in a rowboat, going 5 miles per hour! We are so cheesy!


After the rowboat we walked through a couple souvenir shops and bought some icecream before taking a trip to visit the hot springs, aguas termales, that night! We took a van with some local Chilean college students who are on a break from the University. We had a lot of fun with them at first, but after too many drinks the guys all got really annoying/over flirtacious. Laura and I still enjoyed ourselves, having cocktails, star gazing and relaxing in the different hot pools, one of which reached 120 degrees! The springs consisted of six different pools, all of different temperatures. We started in the least hot and worked our way up, ending in the hottest pool so that coming out of the water and having to change back into our clothes, in the frigid open air, actually felt good as it was sooooo hot!!

After an amazing time in the hot springs and a crazy van ride back, we arrive at our hostel around midnight, where we had a slight problem. I had forgotten to bring our key, and therefore were locked out. Nobody was at reception and the place was pitch dark. We knock for about 5 minutes, but nobody comes. We do manage to wake up the dog, Blanca, but unfortunately she cannot open the door! After knocking a bit more we finally decide that we need to pound super hard if we want to be heard, otherwise we will be sleeping outside, which didnt sound like fun having wet hair! So with us pounding and Blanca whining we finally wake up Evelyn, one of the girls employed at the hostel . We apologize for waking her up, try to calm down Blanca and head to bed. Blanca actually decides she wants to sleep in my bottom bunkbed, so I guess I get the top. Buenas noches! Tomorrow we are off to Argentina!