Al took the opportunity to dry his laundry a little bit more, while Chris and I chatted with 2 men from Buenos Ares who were heading to Chile to mountain bike.
Claudio and Mike seemed pleased to get the opportunity to use their english, which they both spoke quite well. Charming people who gave us their take on the economic status of Argentina. Apparently after WW2 Argentina was one of the wealthier countries in the world, with vast natural resources, but after years of poor government and giving their resources away to others, the country is on a downward spin. You can see that too, as it always appears the infrastructure WAS there, but is now in a state of decay. Something you can already see the start of in the United States, and one can only hope that it doesn't continue further down that path.
Once of the ferry, we drove another 40 kms of gravel, and then the road changed back to pavement. We quickly rode the remaining 70km to a town for lunch. We are now in the chilean lakes district, and it seems in every valley lies a fantastic lake.
Al with a volcano in the background
After lunch, we continued on toward Pucon, every couple of turns, a snow capped volcanic peak would appear. Unfortunately for is, the road again turned to gravel, and we bounced around for another 50k. Once pavement re-appeared, we blasted off the last 100k into town in no time flat. Pucon is a resort, lakeside town in Chile, with a still active volcano looming above it. When you drive into town, a road side even warns you "danger, active volcano zone".
Once in town, we find a nice little campground that costs $8 per person (it seems in south america everything is "per person", hotels, campgrounds etc), and get our tents set up for the night. We then head the few blocks into town and the waterfront. We walked around a little bit, through a few street markets that look much like those in Mexico, except all the stuff for sale here seemed to be authentic crafts. We also noticed that unlike Mexico, here nobody approaches you to sell you stuff.
We then head down to a spectacular beach, and go for a quick swim. While I am in the water, 3 kids swim over towards me. A cute little girl, probably about 8 or 9 looks at me and says in English "hello", i loom back and say in spanish "ola", Then she says "what is your name"? I replied , Andy, com se llamos". And she replies " my name is Nia". I spend a couple minutes talking to my 3 new friends, me speaking Spanish and them speaking English. Apparently they have learned some English in school and they saw the redhead swimming and thought it would be a good chance to test it all out.
After the swim be browsed around town a little longer. this town is amazing, and of more people knew about it, i would imagine many north americans would skip Mexico and come here. Even with the long flight it would be worth it, you could easily spend a week vacationing here. All the charm of Mexico but absolutely spotless and safe. Also, with all the higher end construction going on, definitely doing well.
After our time in town, we head back to camp, cooking and fiddling around with things. Once again the little expanding towels my daughter gave me served their purpose, helping me clean my shield so I could see more than just shapes. Headed off to my tent for sleep.
As mentioned before, Chile has exceeded all expectations in every way. About the only reason I could find to not want to move here is the lack of peanut butter in this county. On one of the first days here I found a tiny jar, but the lid came off and in the heat most of it oozed out into my food bag. since the. I haven't been able to spot a single jar in any supermarkets. What are the odds that i find the only jar in all of chile and then end up losing most of it (for those of you that don't know, I have a peanut butter dependency). They sell peanuts here, and they seem popular, so you would think that someone would have tried crushing em up by now. Perhaps the reason is that Nestle isn't in the peanut butter game? After all, when you are in a mercado, all the coffee is Nescafe instant, and it seems Nestle makes almost all the stuff in the market, not just coffee. That would end up being the other negative i suppose. In Santiago they have many Starbucks, but outside of Santiago it is all Nescafe. At least when camping i can make my Starbucks instant singles.... Imported from Canada,
I may add Chile to my future travel destinations rather than Mexico. You give it a good recomendation.
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