Latinalicious: The South America Diaries (8 page)

Sometimes I dream that I’m a lumberjack’s wife, living in a little house my husband built. Every night he comes back from a hard day’s work in the snowy forests with a sack full of logs, dumps them by the fire, takes off his checkered coat, his checkered shirt, his checkered neckerchief, pats the dog and seduces me on a sheepskin rug. It’s a simple existence, but we like it.

When Autumn and I rolled into the tiny mountain town of Pucón the other day in our hellish bus (never, ever ride overnight through Chile with the company Condor — their vehicles do not glide through the journey like a bird), I felt all my lumberjack dreams coming true.

‘I want to move here,’ I announced, wheeling Winnie up the pavement and zipping myself into my Tyre Man costume.

‘Me too,’ Autumn said, donning her Marshmallow coat and pointing into the distance with her tripod case. ‘Look!’

And there it was. Villarrica. Chile’s most active volcano and the one that most people come to Pucón just to climb. It shone magnificently and icing-sugar-white, all 2847 metres of it, against the blue of the morning sky and my jaw dropped. My eyes bulged. I forgot the way the bus had bumped my arse into numbness on the ten-hour sleepless journey from Santiago and saw instead the joyous future I would have living in one of the little wooden houses that are absolutely everywhere in town, petting German Shepherds, stoking the fire, learning to ski.

Of course I would excel at skiing and bag a hot ski instructor/ lumberjack boyfriend and we’d marry in a snow-covered cabin by a lake. My dress would be as white as the perfectly triangular

volcano. Our bridesmaids would arrive on llamas.

‘I’m here now,’ I thought. ‘I’m home.’

Gazing at the clouds rolling lazily across the distant hills, I even saw beyond the death of my heroic husband, who’d meet his end saving tourists in a dramatic avalanche/landslide sometime in the 2030s, before he had the chance to get all shrivelled and unsexy. I saw myself growing old here, baking beef pies and growing fat and rosy-cheeked and knowing all my neighbours, wearing a knitted poncho, probably with tassels. Perhaps I’d even start a women’s club or a cooking group.

‘I’m here now,’ I thought. ‘I’m definitely home.’

Perhaps part of the charm here in Pucón is that it’s winter now and the hordes of tourists who flock here in the summer months are nowhere to be seen. It’s mostly locals now, and bad travel-planners, like us.

‘Aay, it’s not really peak season, eh,’ said Dave, the Kiwi manager at our hostel of choice, the tiny Paradise Pucón. The housekeeper nodded as she put Adele’s album on repeat for about the ninth time (does anyone on this planet not have this album?) and continued to sweep the ashes from the floor around the open fire.

An ex-snowboarding instructor, Dave’s been in Chile for almost six years and his cozy little hostel is yet another Waltonesque wooden cabin, sporting a porch with a barbecue grill and a small garden with a hammock stretching between two trees. He also has a collection of bikes, which he hires out to guests, and he’s planning to start his own cycling tour company soon.

We dumped our bags in our room and noticed there was no heating anywhere, apart from the fire. If you’re looking for rustic, this is it. The place is so cold you literally have to sit a metre from the flames to warm your bones before legging it to your room and burying yourself for the night under at least seven blankets and the thickest duvet known to man. I could barely move in bed, such was the weight on top of me. And it still took an hour for my teeth to stop chattering.

‘Aah, rug up and get over it, eh,’ Dave said, when I mentioned for about the tenth time that I was permanently freezing. This is why I like Kiwis. They’re very down to earth. They’re also very outdoorsy. Kiwi Dave has a whiteboard on the dining room wall listing every single type of activity you can do in Pucón and its surroundings. In the mornings he dances into the kitchen shouting the same mantra: ‘Come on, team Paradise! What are we gonna do today, eh?’

What are we gonna do today? I looked at Dave with slightly less enthusiasm as I smeared Vegemite on my toast and yawned. Well, for a start, I thought, I am not climbing the volcano. Sorry, but no.

Villarrica’s original name is Rucapillán, which in the Mapuche tongue translates ominously as ‘house of the devil’. As though the devil must constantly remind people of his presence, he’s lit several firework displays in his house over the last few decades, the most recent of which occurred in 1984. Prior to that, he held quite a party in 1971, when an eruption caused 200 casualties and a ten-metre-thick and 200-metre-wide torrent of lava to gush towards Lake Calafquén, destroying everything in its path.

My fear of scaling the thing has a bit to do with not being a mountaineer and a lot to do with the fact that we read a review of one person’s experience with a Villarrica climbing tour on TripAdvisor a few days back. The girl wrote that two Swiss boys died in front of her on the tour by falling off the volcano. Apparently the weather was just too bad and the paths were slippery. How awful is that? It’s the wrong season now, apparently.

Still, Autumn and I don’t really mind being here in winter. Having the place free from
turistas
gives her more room to take photos without all those giant backpacks backing up in her lens, and me more freedom to imagine I’m a Walton. There’s also more space for us both in the hot springs — one of the very best things about being in a land so volcanic.

On our first night, at Dave’s suggestion, we headed to Loz Pozones, which is probably the most popular
termas
to visit if you’re staying in Pucón. There are six thermal pools altogether, which start really hot and get progressively cooler as you move along. There’s nothing quite like the rush that comes with stripping down to your bikini when it’s six degrees outside and running barefoot — across mud so cold it makes your feet hurt — to a steaming natural stone pool. Lowering ourselves into the waters, we realised the sky was also star-splattered, chock full of twinkling constellations. It was like being in a steamy little winter wonderland. Or a sexy planetarium.

Technically you should be able to relax here; quiet your mind with the sound of the gushing Liucura River close by. On our evening visit, however, we couldn’t relax completely. The pools may have been relatively empty compared to how they are in summer, but it seems the extra space in winter attracts the more amorous of Chile’s lovers, looking to rub their bodies against each other where no one they know will see them.

Autumn and I had to sit there, trying our best not to stare, as the pool filled up with more bumpers and grinders than a Playboy mansion hot tub. We could hardly look away, though, when a lady with a boob job stood on a rock and started posing for her boyfriend’s camera in a neon yellow bikini comprising two thin strips covering her nipples, and a g-string. At one point, I think we were the only two females not straddling a man. As we busied ourselves searching for the Big Dipper, I’m pretty sure about nine couples had quiet, steamy sex in this body of water we shared..

‘What are we doing today, eh, team Paradise!’ Dave exclaimed again the next morning as we smeared even more Vegemite on our toast, much to the disgust of our new Chilean friends. ‘Horse riding? Cycling? Skiing? Ah yeeeeah, you girls should totes go skiing. Powder’s great up there. If you want, you can climb up Villarrica and ski down! Wa-hey!’

We shook our heads politely again. The volcano story scared me and it still seemed a bit risky. We opted for some rafting on the Trancura River instead, which was pretty hair-raising in itself, and then we went vintage shopping. That’s right.

What most people don’t realise when they arrive in Chile’s adventure capital of Pucón is that this little town, populated largely by poncho-wearing gauchos (also of the older, wide and greying variety), is a vintage clothes shopper’s heaven. Here we found spectacular dresses from the 80s and 90s that would cost a fortune in other places. We stocked up on some truly gorgeous knee-length floral skirts, which will look lovely when we finally come to strolling through a park that isn’t covered in icicles.

At another recommendation, we borrowed Dave’s bikes and cycled to the Hotel Antumalal, which involved a heart-hammering puff uphill. It’s the place where Queen Elizabeth stayed when she visited, and Neil Armstrong, too, at one point. You can see their photos in the lobby.

Even more open fires welcomed us into this posh hotel, along with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking an azure lake, pretty lawns and gardens buzzing with bumblebees, pink shrubs and lilac flowers. Bushy trees nuzzled the earth like furry green sheep on the distant and almost perpendicularly steep hillsides. Autumn and I paid to use their super-posh spa for the afternoon (highly recommended for a treat) and finally took advantage of a hot tub with no people having sex in it.

That afternoon, we took another bike ride round the outskirts of Pucón with Dave and a few others. We rode out to see Villarrica from a rickety old bridge, which looked as though cars probably shouldn’t be driving across it, even though they were, and along the way we stopped by rivers of the sort you might expect to see bears catching salmon in, in a
National Geographic
photo spread. It made me want to see the volcano up close.

So, the next morning, when Dave announced, ‘What are we doing today, eh, team Paradise!’ I looked up from my Vegemite and told him I’d like to get inside the ‘house of the devil’. He rubbed his hands together and told me he would drive me himself.

Dave, a guy from Brazil, Pecos (Dave’s equally enthusiastic dog) and I spent the morning stopping to throw (or chase) snowballs as the sun sizzled in a blue sky above a road that quickly turned to thick, thick snow the further we climbed. Walking up to the volcano felt like we’d stumbled onto the set of a Christmas movie and getting inside it was pretty cool, albeit with a Spanish-speaking guide I couldn’t understand at all. I know it wouldn’t exactly be authentic but someone would make a fortune giving English tours in some parts of South America. My Spanish is improving every day, of course, but it doesn’t help much with seismic monitors and geothermal energy tracking.

I did manage to learn that, while no one can really know when Villarrica will erupt again, judging by its ‘pattern’, it’s probably going to happen quite soon, which wasn’t exactly comforting to hear as I was standing inside it.

I should say that Autumn had had every intention of joining us on this volcanic jaunt, but something strange had happened. Just as she went to get in the car with us, she said she felt like she was seeing two of me. Funnily enough, a guy in the hostel had spent the night before experimenting with some local acid he’d bought from an old lady dressed as a teenager, which we think he may have laid on the kitchen’s chopping board … just a few hours before we sliced some bread on it for breakfast. Suspicious.

Whereas I think it would have added to the experience, Autumn didn’t much fancy heading to the ‘house of the devil’ on acid, so she went to sit down in a quiet place while we sped off to inspect the devil’s homemade geomorphological miracles. Underground ceilings dripping with brown minerals made the caves in Villarica’s belly look like they were composed of melting, brown chocolate.

When our guide turned the lights out to show us what total darkness looks like, I couldn’t help imagining what those Chilean miners from Copiapó must have gone through not so long ago, when they were trapped for over sixty days in the blackness; the sound of dripping and heartbeats and shoes shuffling on grit the only noises they could hear when voices fell silent. It’s amazing to think of their first three weeks after the collapse, when everyone presumed they were dead — until a drill hole was made and the drill came back up with a note on it.

It’s enough to give anyone sleepless nights and I was glad at that point that Autumn hadn’t come. It wasn’t the right place to be tripping at all.

It turned out she was fine, of course. I found her in a cozy cafe drinking coffee, and after I ordered my
vino tinto
, we went back to scouring the town’s slim-pickings for potential hot ski instructor/ lumberjack husbands from our place by the fire. Bliss.

‘What are we doing today, eh, team Paradise!’ Dave called out the next day.

‘We’re leaving now, so we’re giving you a koala bear,’ Autumn replied. ‘Would you like one, or two?’

26/09

One thing you can’t fail to miss as you drive the incomprehensible distances across these South American countries are the shrines erected every few kilometres in the wilderness. Every now and then you’ll be admiring the vast landscapes, the way the pampas grass sways and how its colours merge one into the other through your window, when you’ll see one, sticking out like a sore thumb: a tiny house with a little pitched roof that looks as though it might be home to a family of religious elves. Oh, there are shrines along some roads in Australia too, but they’re nowhere near as elaborate as these.

Often at night these miniature houses will be lit, shining like beacons thanks to an abundance of flickering candles. In the daylight, as you whizz past in a bus or car, you’ll notice the Virgin Mary smiling serenely as the wind slaps her face like a savage.

On the drive from Punta Arenas (a rather dismal, cold city in which we did nothing, really, except visit a cemetery and eat some nice seafood before bunking down in our hostel) to the EcoCamp Patagonia in Torres del Paine, we saw a fair few of these houses by the roadside. Our friendly driver José explained in Spanglish their significance.

‘They are called
animita
,’ he said, ‘and each one is a memory of the dead.’

A lot of people die on these open roads in unpredictable weather conditions, and when fatalities occur, the families of the deceased maintain a roadside shrine, keeping the memory of their loved one alive by visiting often with gifts and prayers and, quite obviously, lighters and matches. We stopped to take photos of a particularly impressive one built of brick, like a pizza oven featuring three glass cases inside it. Smashed up tail lights and fake flowers decorated the base of one case. In another was a white marble statue of the Virgin Mary, two framed photographs of smiling, dark-haired men with crossed arms and a container brimming over with cigarettes. José explained that it was built to remember an accident between a bus and a truck in which a father and son, the men in the photographs, both died.

These shrines are beautiful and must cost a fortune to both build and maintain. That’s not even taking into consideration the distances these families have to travel in order to pay their respects on a regular basis. Until you’ve been driven overnight from big city to big city on a bumpy bus, or felt hour after hour after hour pass with the same unchanging views, it’s hard to imagine the vast expanse of wilderness that must often be covered before you reach your destination. Of course, many Aussies will know the meaning of a ‘long drive’. But Chile in particular is huge.

In Southern Chile, there are small towns like anywhere but these aren’t places you’d want to stop overnight with a backpack and a can of tuna, speaking in broken Spanish about locating a plug for your hairdryer. Often you’ll see solo homes at the foot of rocky mountains or on flat windswept plains, with no electricity cables connected anywhere. Not only is there no satellite TV, no wi-fi and no nightly happy hour to appease the spoilt glam-packer, here the land is wild and so too are the people, I’m sure.

It all looks very romantic, watching strong men on horseback rounding up herds of nervous sheep in the late afternoon sun with the help of four glossy-coated dogs, but that’s from a car window. Get up close and your much-admired gaucho has skin like leather, breath that smells of burnt beef and no interest whatsoever in discussing anything that isn’t related to his flock of domestic alpacas.

Autumn and I totally underestimated how long it would take to reach each place in this country. Distances are deceiving on maps, especially small maps, like the ones on our iPhones (ahem). We had no idea it would be a twenty-three hour journey from Pucón down to Punta Arenas via a night bus, two taxis and a plane; nor that it would
then
take almost another full day of travelling from the atmospherically challenged Punta Arenas to get to the EcoCamp Patagonia in Torres del Paine.

Usually this particular journey takes four to five hours, but José had to stop to let us take photos, let us get lunch, let us get lost on the way back to the van from the toilet, etc. At one point, we saw no less than three ginormous eagles in the space of ten minutes. We pulled to the roadside each time to try and capture them on camera and, each time, watched them soar away over the scraggly trees before we could take a picture.

Long rides have their highs and lows, but if you’re planning to travel Chile, I would definitely advise you to book your transport as much in advance as possible, especially plane rides and
especially
around public holidays, else you’ll be backtracking like we had to do from Pucón back up to Santiago in order to fly back down south. Error.

Anyway, I suppose most journeys, although long, offer the chance to reflect on what’s happened so far and also to think about the people who make these lonely trips on a regular basis, either for work, leisure or to pay homage to a loved one who never got to make it to their final destination at all.

28/09