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| But Wolli Keeps on Smiling.... |
As usual the first week of the new year for me was covered by a dense cloud of euphoria, alcohol hangovers and headaches. After our unscheduled family New Year's Eve dinner the children were picked up by their father to watch the traditional big fireworks at the beach of Pucón. Inés and I stayed at home just with Lucio,her youngest son. We went to the neighbours where from you have a good overview of the fireworks as well and clinked the glasses there. After the kids had come back and brought to bed Inés and I went out in Pucón, ending up at the after hour on the shores of Trancura river right at the same nice place where we end our rafting tours. I have seen several sunsets over there. The same site in the light of the sunrise had been new to me.
For my birthday we had an asado with friends and collegues at my house. Afterwards all went out again. Although we did not see the sunrise this time it had been a good party till early morning.
Then the high season was supposed to come - but never did. There are very little tourists in Pucón this year and those who come do not spend a lot of money in extra activities. I have already heard people say that it is the worst season in 25 years. Reasons for that may be manifold. There are definitely less Argentinians and Europeans which both are struck by economic crisis than normal and even less Chileans. This probably because in the Araucanía exists a partly violent conflict with the native Mapuche population which recently took two lives. This shattering incident is now hyped by the media to a civil war in the south of the countrry. That this conflict consists since decades and is settled violently only in a small area of the province which is more than 200 km away from the touristic centres is never mentioned. So it seems many people decided to avoid the Araucanía as a holiday destination this year. How far the international economic crisis in Chile and bad touristic management add to the problem I can not say but I am quite sure those are more reasons as well. By all means the rafting season is very slow. I have just one trip a day while normally in February I had at least two if not three of them. Besides there are only very little people coming to our cafeteria. It seems we will have to end the season and move on already. Nevertheless hope springs eternal and the last days we had daily customers. Much more important than this is, that we finally got all the permits to run the business legally. This definitely was a big relief. Now we do not have to deal with close-minded paper-shufflers anymore but just pay our bills regularly. Apart from this now we can start an official promotion campaign. So we hope that at least we can rescue something of February and besides are already looking into the future yet preparing for the winter season to come. I have already started to search for contact information of Brasilian travel agencies who normally bring numerous Brasilians for skiing to Pucón. So we do not hang the head but nevertheless enjoy the summer which according to the weather conditions is really great with temperatures around 30 degrees C everyday and one single day of rain in 2013 so far.
What sadly just is sure until now is that I won´t come to Austria this year. That for the flight is just too expensive. If I will have to earn some money in the off-season I will probably go to Peru for some time to raft over there. Because I know some Peruvian guides who come allways to Pucón for the season this should not be a problem and would offer me another opportunity to travel and get to know a new country. So who knows maybe soon I will write to you from the heights of Machu Picchu.
