Being good in Pucon, Chile

The view from our hostel room, Villarica Volcano, Pucon

We took the new overnight direct flight from London to Santiago on 11 January, and spent the day loitering in the city, where a couple of ladies tried to have a go at dipping their hands into my handbag while we were at a café.

It was right next to me, so was quite flagrant. I spotted an odd movement, so checked, and kept a closer eye on it, which obviously stopped them. Then the waiter came over and suggested moving all of our bags, so clearly he had his suspicions too. They left just after that.

Emma and Olivia, Pucon

Aside from that, we had a pleasant enough day in a very hot Santiago, and then got an overnight bus down to Pucon. Having expected not to get much sleep on the flight, we had treated ourselves to a cama bus, which has seats that recline into a fully flat bed. We had a very comfortable night, and slept far better than on the plane.

Villarica Volcano, Pucon

In Pucon, we arrived at a hostel we had used before, where we were pleased to find that not only was our room ready for us, but they also had recently got two gorgeous little kittens, called Emma and Olivia. We soon settled in, and allowed ourselves to go out for a meal and a last beer that night, before starting our healthy regime in earnest the next day.

Fire Station, Pucon

In the morning, we hit the supermarkets, and bought ourselves plenty of healthy meats, fruit and vegetables, and set about planning our menu. We have opted to do the Slimming World plan, which is a little easier to do when you're on the move as we will be, and we know a few people who've had good results from it.

Not wanting to end up with any excuses for not sticking to it, we had made sure we were staying in places with decent kitchens, but we also supplemented this by bringing a few items that wouldn't normally be included in our travel kit. One is a large silicon collapsible microwave steamer, that can also go in the oven as a casserole dish; we have used that almost every day, and in fact we are considering making a regular part of our luggage. Another is a spiraliser, which is much less essential than the steamer, but it has encouraged us to eat more courgette in particular, as that works really well, and it has certainly been a talking point with our fellow travellers!

Olivia, Pucon

Then on Monday, we joined the gym in town and did our first session there. I knew I was unfit, but my goodness it was hard work. Still, we stuck to the plan for food and regular gym going, gradually increasing the time and effort spent there over the weeks.

We were both so exhausted after our gym efforts, and spending so much time cooking up healthy foods to try to keep things interesting, that we never really got around to doing anything much else. We concluded that taking bikes out wouldn't really get us that far and would just leave us too achy to do the gym the next day, and we were burning off more calories in there that we would have done cycling. So we decided to stick to the gym.

Emma, Pucon

We spent a lot of time semi watching the TV screens while we pounded away on the cross trainer etc, and one of the main things we were seeing was the horrific wild fires that were raging through the country further north. Whole towns had been destroyed in some cases, and it was heartbreaking to watch footage of people literally seeing the fire creeping up to their homes, doing everything they could to create firebreaks and divert it, but knowing that in all likelihood, their home would be destroyed.

When we saw the fire brigade in town doing a collection, we stopped and made a donation. The guy we spoke to was interested to hear we were from the UK, and quickly got his smartphone out to show us a photo. It was of him and his brother, as young boys, presenting flowers to The Queen when she had Prince Philip visited Pucon in 1968.

On our two days off per week, we walked into and around the town, and stopped off in one of the cafes for a well behaved cup of tea, virtuously resisting all of the rather lovely looking cakes.

And the good news is, albeit that it is slow, we are losing weight. I had hoped for one of those wonderful first weeks that you hear other people talking about, where you hop on the scales to find you've lost huge amounts. Sadly that was not to be, but we're not doing badly.

Aside from never-ending shopping and cooking, and being in the gym, we spent a lot of time enjoying the company of those two lovely kittens, whilst looking at the rather splendid view of the 2840m high Villarica Volcano, the closest of the three volcanoes in the area. It is an active volcano, and last erupted on 3 March 2015, albeit only a shortlived one. 

When we hit our first milestone target, we treated ourselves to a meal out at what we had heard was the best parilla in town, La Maga. We weren't disappointed. We treated ourselves to a fillet of beef, by which I mean the whole 1.5kg fillet, and it was delicious. We even had a drink to go with it.

We needed that treat, but we were right back on the straight and narrow afterwards.

If you're in Pucon for normal tourism, rather than chained to the gym, there is plenty to do here. Last time around we had a hike in Huerquehue National Park and went kayaking on the Lake. There are also plenty of bike rides out to waterfalls and other sites, there are thermal springs that you can go to, and of course, you can hike up the volcano if you feel so inspired.

We may not have seen much of Pucon ourselves this time, but it was certainly a good decision to come here to do this. It is working.

Santiago stopover

After Christmas in Mendoza, we took another overnight bus back to Santiago to stopover there for a couple of days before moving on to our next destination.  It left Mendoza at 10:45pm and was due to arrive at 5:45am, and as there was a border crossing en route that had taken us two hours on the way to Mendoza, we knew that sleep would be limited and disturbed. But we had booked good seats on the bus with the hope of giving ourselves some chance of sleep, and they were comfortable so that was fine.  However we had a couple of girls in front of us who didn't stop talking and giggling all the way to the border, so no sleep up to then.

Santiago viewed from Cerro Santa Lucia



Three hours later, at just after 4:30am, we finally left the border.  Separate grumpy posting to follow on this point, but we guessed that the 5:45 arrival was now unlikely.  Thankfully, the girls in front had obviously decided it might be a good idea to get some rest themselves, and they finally shut up, so we could get some sleep.  And we actually arrived in Santiago at about 7:30am.

Luckily though, having been in the city before, we knew where we were headed and how to get there, so by 8:30 we were at the hostel -sadly no more fancy apartments or hotels now!  Having checked in, the guy took us back outside t use some other stairs which he said were better for us with our rucksacks.  The stairs were fine, but nothing special so we wondered what the issue was.  When we saw the stairs inside, we saw the problem.  They have a very steep and narrow spiral staircase for normal use.  I am not the only one who found this a bit of a bugger just carrying a small bag, and I reckon that getting up it with a large rucksack, plus a daypack would have been highly challenging.

I seriously hope that we can leave by the other stairs too because  I think getting down will be even worse.  The steps are almost vertical behind you when you go down, so with a pack on you would be leaning forward at a very precarious angle!


Cerro Santa Lucia Santiago



Having got over the shock of the stairs, we also found that there was an Intrepid group booked into the hostel too.  Intrepid is a sister company to Dragoman.  They do similar trips but don't have the trucks.  They have a tour leader who sorts out all of their accommodation and transport, but they use public transport all the way.  That said, their intrepid rating dropped a few notches for us when we discovered that whilst they get the buses etc between cities, they use taxis to get to and from the bus stations.  We figured that particularly in a city like Santiago, if we can get the metro and walk, they should be too!   And yes I  know we have used some taxis too but that's not the point - they are supposed to be intrepid, we don't have to be!



But taxis transfers aside, it was good to have a chance to chat with some of the group about their trips.  Most of us signed up for the hostel barbecue in the evening, which was excellent by the way, so there was plenty of time to get to know what everyone was doing.  Some of their group were just starting on the trip here, some were but already had done a bit of travel first, and a few had been on the trip since Quito in Ecuador.  They had followed broadly the same route as us in reverse, so we compared experiences and our views of the different places we had been.  Between us I think we managed (unintentionally of course,) to create a bit of anxiety amongst some of the newbie travellers about the standards of toilets and food they could expect along the way.  Oh well!



Cerro Santa Lucia, Santiago

We also discovered that one of the girls is going to be joining a Dragoman truck up to Rio for the Carnival after this trip, and we reckoned it was quite likely that she would be on with the same crew we had.  We told her to say hello for us, but decided against warning her about their peccadilloes - it seems more fun that she should find out for herself.
Whilst in Santiago we had one practical task and one sightseeing activity planned to do.  The practical was to send a package back to the UK.  We figured that as we were heading back to the cold weather, I should send my panama sun hat back rather than keep carrying I around, and we had a few other bits and pieces that were no longer needed.  Thankfully the queue at the post office here was rather less than it was in BsAs (if you can remember that far back) and once we had acquired a couple of boxes from a local shop, we were well on our way to ticking that off.


Darwin plaque, Santiago



The sightseeing bit was only a small one, but we had missed doing it first time around and thought we should out that right.  There is a rocky hill in the old centre of Santiago called Cerro Santa Lucia, which is referred to as the lungs of Santiago.  On the way up there are some little plazas, a fountain, a church, a little castle and then at the top a lookout point over Santiago.  It was fairly simple, but quite pretty and the view was good.  This seems rather ironic as Santa Lucia, or Saint Lucy, is apparently the patron saint of the blind.

Charles Darwin apparently visited Cerro Santa Lucia when he was in Santiago in 1831 and was quite taken with the view from the hill.  The locals must have been quite proud of this as they named one of the plazas on the hill after him and have embedded a plaque in the rock that quotes him on the fact.
So having accomplished our two tasks, it is goodbye to Santiago for the third and final time.

Santiago de Chile

Park in Santiago de Chile

 From Bogota we flew down to Santiago de Chile, which took about five hours.  Because we were staying here over our anniversary, and again over Nic's birthday when we were back from Easter Island, we had booked ourselves into a nice Aparthotel instead of a hostel. Whilst neither fancy nor overly expensive, it was a nice treat to have our own space, a bath and a hair dryer. And having our own kitchen meant we could get up late and do ourselves a late breakfast.


Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



Mind you, even we weren't expecting to be quite as late as we were the first morning.  Having arrived at the hotel at about nine thirty pm, we only got back from dinner at around one am and got to bed sometime later, so we set our alarms for a leisurely ten am, and then stayed in bed while Nic watched football and I did some blogging and reading.  It was around midday when we realised that in fact it was really two pm.  We had put our watches forward the two hour time diference between Colombia and Chile, but not our phones, which we use for alarms.  Oops!  Never mind though, it was a nice relaxing start to our time in Santiago.  

 

Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile


 We spent our time in Santiago catching up with some more of our practical tasks, wandering around the city and finding nice places to east and drink.  The practical stuff may be tedious at times, but it can make you see parts of the city that you wouldn't normally go as a tourist, and that can help you learn something about the place you're in.  In Santiago we visited the industrial area of the city to get the ipad fixed, and were surprised to see how pretty it is.  Generally the industrial area of a town is exactly as it sounds, concrete, grey, dull and ugly.  But here the industrial area was nicely laid out, with smart buildings, and had little garden areas.  Not sure that it makes much difference in the long run, but does it perhaps suggest a greater sense of pride when you want to make the places in the background of city life look good rather than just focussing on the highlights?  I don't know the answer to why, but I like the result.


The area we are staying in, Providencia is just away from the old town and tourist areas.  It is new and modern, and is clearly where the locals go out in Santiago.  We found all kinds of places to eat and drink.  There were upscale places like Astrid and Gaston.  There was a great tapas place and a little place where we had tea (proper tea mind) and scones. There was the quiet little pedestrianised street with a few cafes and bars including the comic themed one and the one called the Phone Box, where the door to the place was actually a red phone box with the back cut out.  Then there was the 'trying to be North American' place which was open very late and was very popular with the local 20-30 year olds, and the pedestrianised area crowded with bar/restaurants that was the party area.  And all sorts of places in between.  We tried out a number of those mentioned and some were very good.  Just don't sit under the windows in party street as people have a tendency to throw things out of the upstairs windows as we discovered; we moved table quickly and were given free drinks by the staff as an apology though, so all was well.





Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



Aside from visiting the bars, we did manage to fit in a visit to the tourist area around Plaza de Armas.   On the plus side, there were some decent old buildings around the square, and it was nice that it was a 'working' square.  What I mean by that is that the square really is used by the locals.  We saw the usual toy horses waiting to be ridden by children, an art sale, a man preaching to those nearby who were doing their best to ignore him, people sat out chatting with friends, a Christmassy Santa's Grotto type thing sponsored by Coca Cola, a band stand full of people playing chess, and lots more of life going on. We also saw a rather silly looking poodle dressed in a santa suit.  But aside from that, the area was just a bit dull.  The shops had moved in to the areas around and with the tourist slanted hotels and restaurants, it just felt lacking in soul.  It didn't inspire us to spend long there.





Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



There was a nice little area nearby in Lastaria, which had a pleasant group of bars and restaurants with outdoor seating, and we made use of that a few times.  We were joined a few evenings by some friends of Nic who are also travelling and their time in Santiago coincided with the end of ours. The four of us paid a visit to the Bellavista area one evening, which is the pub and club part of town.  We didn't do the clubs, but  still when we left a bit before 4am we found we had again outlasted most of the locals.



Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile



It may sound like all that we did in Santiago was eat and drink.  To a degree that would be right; we didn't really do tourist sights, but we did get to see quite a lot of the city, including places that often only the locals would use. It wasn't the most exciting or most attractive city we've visited, but I can imagine that it is a good place to live. And when the clouds eventually lift enough to see them, the sight of the Andes mountain range surrounding the city is pretty good.



Plaza de Armes, Santiago de Chile