Chile Part 5: Pucon and Valdivia

We arrived late at night and hiked to the camp site area. I pitched up the tent and Marcela went out to make some friends. I was too knackered and just dropped down to sleep. She ended up finding a Kiwi stone carver to chat to with his friends. Kid of cool. Eorann has taklen up stone carving as a profession. Can't say I had come across it much before she told me about it. It was good of her to find some creative outlet though. I think like myself she is too much of an artistically, free thinking person to be doing corporate banking.

The Jets beat the Chargers. Not sure how that happened. So we had Saints - Vikings and Jets -Colts for the superbowl. Ok so it should be the Colts v one of the others. Come on you Saints. I went and found some internet and then Marcela joined me. We ended up having an expensive breakfast at this Yankee owned restaurant for 3 days in a row. Perhaps we spent too much money there, but the food was good. Almost authentic Mexican food. The town is very beautiful. You have a snow capped volcano in the background, you have the giant lake, which is surrounded by reeds and a black rock beach in the north. You could tell it would be pretty, when the bus station we had arrived at was a wood carved building. All of the town is very pretty. Looks like a Swiss ski resort or a more polished Aspen. Everything was very expensive for us though. I was not willing to pay loads to raft or climb volcanoes that weren't as good as ones I had done before. I think for Marcela it was different as she had not been rafting or climbed a volcano, so it felt more of a disappointment for her. She was pretty cold at this point so she picked up a top to keep warm. I went for a walk along the beach. Pretty cute locals and I found a shit hot dj playing on the beach. They had a club in the city, but we never ended up going there. I still think I have not been clubbing since Valparaiso. Over a month. Way too long. Oh well, I will be in Buenos Aires in a week and may go clubbing in Ushaia over the week. We took a bus to Currarehue, which is a Mapuche village. I believe Pinochet moved them all there during his reign. We met a really old woman with no legs and she invited us into her apartment to chat with her. Was interesting to gauge the quality of life and the fact that the Chilean government just leaves them to fend for themselves. Then we went to the local museum and had a fun time with the guy who runs the tours. The Mapuches seem to have got battered by the Chileans and Argentineans. While they were one of the few native groups to resist the Spanish invaders, they had a rather less favourable nineteenth century against the industrial powers. He said that a lot of tourists just breeze through the building, but if you spare the time and chat you can learn a lot more. Oh yeah. Pinera won the election. We took mate with him and chatted for around 2 hours. We got to play some long pipe instrument, but Marcela's sucking sucked. We had equal trouble with the instrument you place between your teeth and twang. It sounds like the stuff that Ennio Morricone gets for his westerns. Was a fun experience. We got taught some strange Mapuche dances, which seems to be hoping around in circles on one foot to different paces of music. Instruments are sacred in the community. One family takes responsibility for each instrument and you would train your sons and grandsons in the usage of that instrument, so it bonds the community and keeps traditions alive. They tend to stay out of politics and don't involve themselves much electorally, which seems to be the mistake of a lot of indigenous communities. We then walked 1km out of town to try to some traditional Mapuche food. Was very good and vegetarian on the whole. Was a crazy dog as well. We ended up having to run for the last bus back, but the restaurant is right on the main road. We went back to the tent and stayed in for the night.

The next day we got up and I had quesadillas for breakfast. The Mexican type and not that shithole Venezuelan cake. We set off to Parque Huerquehue. Marcela left her new jumper with the park guard and ended up leaving it behind. We met a couple of old Kiwis on the bus and got chatting. Some local woman said she liked me because I talked a lot and Chilean men don't talk as much as me. Noone talks as much as me. Well except maybe Geli lol. Or possibly Marcela. Yeah fuck yeah. Danger Zone. This Radio Bangkok is awesome. I love my phone. First music since those little bastards stole my mp3 player. We joined up with a Dutch girl (who lacked charisma of any type) and an English guy (posh yet poor and educated at Oxford. The English will know the type). None of them were spirited walkers. Indeed Marcela burned them for someone who claims they don't hike much. She powered it to the lakes at the top, which were very pretty for all 5 minutes we got to see them. Very impressive effort. On the way down, we met the old Kiwi and a couple of Israelis. They hung out together, so I took the opportunity to do some sprint training downhill and blitzed the section. I am in very good shape since I stopped drinking. Need to rebuild the upper body and I could probably take up rugby again. Still very much in two minds over that. I waited for them at the bottom and got chatting with the Israelis. The girl was very interesting. Worked for Israeli intelligence, is a dive instructor and wants to train as a medic. She suggested I should go and work in Tel Aviv. Might well do that when I get over to the middle east. Israel would be an interesting place to live. We could not go to the Asado on the way back. So I gave Gloria a ring and we chatted for an hour. Was the first time we had chatted properly since she left Colombia and was cool and strange at the same time. We still have a nice chemistry and get on well. Back at the camp site, Marcela met some Chileans and wanting to hang out with locals (and also interesting in the dude with the moustache) she wanted to hang out with them. I was late to meet the Israelis, so being English was stressed a bit by that. Its remarkable the small crap that stresses people from my country, when serious stuff barely affects us. My eyes were almost not purple by this point. I think they healed in Valdivia. She went out with the Chileans and did not have a great night. I went to the Israeli hostel and it was shit at first. Everyone was chatting in Hebrew so I understood nothing. Eventually some people welcomed me to the conversation and I went out with them. We went to a few clubs, but never entered any and still did not dance. Fucking hell. Still had a really good conversation with Ya'ana for a few hours and she is a very interesting person. Hopefully we can catch up another time. We did not manage it in Patagonia, due to my acceleration, but maybe in BA. I walked back around 5am and ended up chatting with the guards and playing with the dogs before going back to sleep.

Marcela and I had our first really big argument on this morning. We both took each others comments far too personally and it escalated from there. Anyone who knows me, knows my potential to escalate stuff. She made an interesting quote. That when people click they bring out the best of each other and when they clash they bring out the worst in each other. Very true and we were definitely bringing the worst traits out to play. Suffice to say it was a ringing clash. I left the tent and went off to chill by the stream for 20 minutes. I still love water for shutting it down. Also she had had one of her shoes stolen by the local dog. I found it in the warden's hut. We ended up leaving for Valdivia late as we had to wait for the guy to bring Marcela's jumper back. He forgot. Idiot. So we took the bus to Valdivia. Its a very cute town. On first impression I really liked it, on second impression I think it would be the best town to live in Chile. At least for a short time. We stayed in a cheap, but cool hotel by the station. Shame it had no real hot water as we could not light the boiler. I never have been a mechanical man. The jazz/blues bar only played at weekends so we missed that . We gave up on doing anything and I watched some family guy before we went to sleep.

We slept a long time and then went down to the river to take a boat cruise. We had another huge fight. This one was mainly my fault, so I could tell I was being rubbed up the wrong way as I have not instigated fights like that for a while. I think little things were niggling us. Anyway Marcela ended up storming off the boat after I was criticising her negotiating for the boat. I stayed on and took the boat tour, which was not really worth the money. A longer one might have been. They have sea lions that swim and play in the river in the middle of the town. Thats quite rare and very cool to see. When I got back, Marcela said she would spend the day with the boat crew and I was quite releaved as I fancied some time to see the town myself and have some peace after the last 2 fights. I went off the the park in town and got chatting with a professor. He told me I should check out the universitys botanical gardens. Damn it. Keyboard does not have an apostrophe. The park has a cool lake and is pretty to wander around in. It also has a good and interesting sculpture garden. It really is a postcard city. Very beautiful. I think I could live there. The botanical garden is a very romantic and pretty location. You can see that from how many couples they have wandering the grounds. I walked around other parts of the city. The art gallery is pretty shit, apart from one long underground tunnel with an exhibition of sound at the end. Quite eerie but not worth the entrance fee. I was feeling a little sick from something I had eaten and I got tickets to see Sherlock Holmes. I met Marcela again and she was going clubbing with the boat guys. The relationship was pretty broken down at this point and I suggested online that we should maybe consider splitting ways before we killed each other. She came and met me and we took coffee to chat it. It seemed resolved, so I went to the cinema to watch the film. Was quite good and fun. Came back and now she suggested we separate. Nothing is ever simple. We debated on it until the early hours of the morning and decided we could carry on as long as we avoid the big clashes, which we mainly did. We ended up getting up late and had to get a bus to push on from Valdivia.