Waxing all the skis and snowboards as well as cleaning all the boots for them in my work was like a journey through history of development of winter sports. There are different types of skis and bindings and especially the development of boots was intersting to watch. I found ancient leather snowboard boots, ski boots with just one buckle, back entrance, inflation system and many more of the trends that existed in the last 30 years. Sometimes I feel like in a ski museum at my work.
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| Winterwonderland a the skiing center |
Meanwhile we overcame the two weeks of high season during which I worked 12 hours and sometimes more per day. It was a tough time but now winter holidays ended and it is much more calm again. Anyway working twelve hours here is not the same like working 12 hours in Europe. There had always been time to watch the matches of Chiles national football team at the Copa America and now and then I spent afternoons waiting at the skiing center to bring back tourists to town, bathing in the sun, enjoying the amazing outlook, reading a book or simply taking a nap in the car. For the winter here is quite cold and with lots of snow, I trained my winter driving style including mounting snow chains quite regularly these days. Sometimes I also could get out of the shop to do funny things like snow shoe trekking or - which so far was the best of it all - a tour with a snow quad in the Conguillio National Park. That was quite an adventure. I accompanied four Brasilean youngsters that they would not get lost in the snow. We went to the small town of Mellipeuco about 100 kms north of Pucón in car where we met Fernando the owner of a hostel over there and organizer of the quad trips. He is a likeable guy although at ten o´clock in the morning when we arrived he already had a good blood alcohol level. A quite wrinkled face with a big red nose in it, the typical smell of his breath and a damned slow articulation for a Chilean showed that this does not seem to happen only that day. We drove with the quads on a hanger to the national park where we unloaded them and started the trip. When we reached there it started snowing heavily and so we drove through an amazing winterly volcanic landscape. Unfortunately visibility got worse and snow even more so that we had to turn back after about one and a half hours. Half way back the crawler of one of the vehicles came off and we had to fix it in the windy snow flurry, lifting the quite heavy quad on one side. It took Fernando quite a while to fix it with his cold numb fingers. Finally we reached totally frozen but impressed by the winter wonderland we had seen at the park entrance again. After that we went to the Truful-Truful falls, a beautiful cascade of the river by the same name nearby. Finally we got a Pizza at the Hiostel before we went back to Pucón. On the way back we came into a snow flurry again in which driving for the young Brasilean was quite an adventure. When snow kept lying on the road he asked me: "This is snow now?"
In July Inés' mother and sister visited us. We spent some nice days together, cooking Austrian food, eating in fine restaurants and visiting the Huife hot springs. They are said to be the most noble hot springs in the area but I was quite dissapointed. It is a big thermal center with spa, sauna and restaurant. The problem with it is that Chileans hardly know to offer service, so the best infrustructure is useless if you can´t enjoy it however for the total absence of any service. Nevertheless the women enjoyed and I will just go back to my beloved rustic, basic natural pool hot springs the next time.
Inés due to all the kids being at home for their winter holidays for two weeks got quite stressed after her mum had gone back to Santiago again. So we decided to sent her on some holidays herself. These days she is at Bahía Inglesa a noble beach resort in the north relaxing from home at early summer like temperatures while I am sitting in the office with a cold staring into the rain outside.
