Visit from Home

With Bernd on the Top of Volcano Villarica

Soon after we had come back from San Martìn de los Andes, Bernd, a friend of mine which I know from my studies at Leoben university, came to spend his holidays in Chile and stayed in Pucòn for about ten days. It was a great pleasure for me to meet a friend from home, speaking Austrian dialect and warming up old stories of student times. Weather had been unsettled the first days but then it changed to sunny, warm summer weather so we could do some nice things together. Of course we had been on the river doing rafting as well as hydrospeed. (This is to swim down the river in a thick neoprene suit, with fins and a kind of bodyboard.) Doing the hydrospeed Bernd had to serve me as a guinea pig because I was practicing for the exam to become a hydrospeedguide which took place a few days later. We made a tour of the region trying to visit a classical open air concert organized by an Austrian tenor living close to Pucòn. Unfortunately we just could leave Pucòn in the later afternoon and when we arrived there the concert had already been over. Obviously they had given us the wrong time of its beginning. Nevertheless we had a nice trip through the lovely landscape and were recompensed with an amazing sunset over 'Calafquèn Lake'. One evening we had a delicious asado at our house and highlight of the visit for sure was climbing active volcano 'Villarica' (2847m above sea level) just out of Pucòn. The first day we tried it we already could see the top from the starting point of the tour but could not ascend because wind was blowing all the smoke of the crater right into the ascending route. So we had to turn back to Pucòn and that for did canyoning that day. The next day we had been lucky and could make it up to the top. Over there we made a turn around the whole crater with its diameter of 200m so we had an amazing 360 degrees panoramic view over all the surrounding landscape with its numerous volcanoes, lakes, mountains and glaciers. Like the first time when I climbed that mountain again it was quite an impressive experience to stand on the top of an active volcano looking into the crater and thus inside the Earth. The funniest thing about the whole event is going down what you are doing sliding on your bottom through the snow.  So we spent some really relaxing and amusing days and to be true I got a little sentimental when I left Bernd at the bus station the morning he went back to Santiago.

Anyway their had been things for me to do. I had to practice more for the hydrospeed exam. Which I did but unfortunately without success. On monday I loused it up quite badly. It had been a day on which literally anything went wrong that could go wrong. So far I do not have the official results but if they let me pass I strongly had to doubt the competence of the examiners. Well, so I just will keep going down the river in my rubber boat which isn't that bad neither.

Inès meanwhile opened up the restaurant and I already had some delicious meals over there. So far they do not have cuisine a la càrte but only one or two daily set meals. Their speciality is grilled lamb and they serve a very interesting and unique to Pucòn mix of Chilean, Mapuche and Mediterranean kitchen. Frequency of guests already had been okay and they have quite some reservations for Christmas and New Years Eve. So we are hoping that one works well and with it our shop inside.

So far the latest news from the end of the world. I wish everybody of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Take care, take your time and keep on laughing!!!

Short Holiday in Argentina

Argentinian Pampa with Volcano Lanin

A long time you have not read of me because I was quite busy with lots of things. First of all I (almost) finished our bathroom tiling, installing a bath tub and the wash basin and terminating the floor. As well I renovated the children´s bathroom where from I removed our bathtub. The children now have to be content with a shower only. What for I had planned about two weeks took me more than one month. When living in Chile with Inés and nine children European mind based timetables do not work. Now there are just some details like a towel rail missing and I can´t see tiles anymore. At least those not installed yet.

Because Inés is also quite busy with the restaurant and season is coming soon - which means we hardly won´t have any time together - we decided to take some holidays of house, kids and work. Only the two of us together a few days without any things to do. We had planned and postponed the trip for almost a months. One time Inés had to work, another time someone got ill (actually first Inés´oldest son Pablo then Inés and finally myself had been caught by an influenza virus) or there accured any other problems. Finally we managed to travel to San Martín de los Andes in Argentina right across the Andes range for two days.

San Martín is the Argentinian equivalent to Pucón situated right in between the Andes on a scenic lake. We started the trip with a delay of almost three hours because that day there had been a simulation of an eruption of the volcano in Pucón what for all public travel in the morning had been postponed. We went to the 'Mamuil Malal' pass on the food of volcano 'Lanin' which marks the border to Argentina. The road up there leads through the 'Villarica National Park' where it is just a gravel road meandering through dense native forest coming around scenic lakes and waterfalls. Suddenly in the middle of nowhere you come to the border stations where you have to do all the bureaucratic routines first to leave Chile and then to enter Argentina. Waiting in the line you can enjoy a tremendous view of nearby volcano 'Lanin' (although from the height of the pass there are still more than 2500 metres of altitude to the peak missing). When you passed the border controls and crossed the Andes range the landscape changes drastically. The Andes work like a meteorological divide and while on the Chilean side rain fronts coming in from the Pacific Ocean are caught and rain down creating that evergreen dense forests on the Argentinian side there is the 'Pampa' a dry grassland with only few low vegetation. You keep going down a nevertheless awe inspiring valley on a soon again well paved national highway that is only interrupted by adventurous weak looking bridges now and then. Finally we arrived at San Martín found a nice room and went to discover the town. We had our first Argentinian steak accompanied by ´Malbec´ the most typical Argentinian red wine.

The next two days were really relaxing. We slept as long as we wanted to in the morning and did just typical tourist program as we had been in the mood to do. We made a boat trip on 'Lácar' Lake to a small deserted beach area called 'Quila Quina', where you can find a restaurant, a Mapuche settlement and a scenic waterfall. After a walk over there we went back with the boat going for dinner, having venison this time another delicacy of the region again accompanied by a rich 'Malbec'. The next day we made a city tour with an original old London double decker bus some young guys are running over there. We had not been sure what it will be like, boarding the bus with just couples of rich Argentinian retirees but where positively surprised. That guys really showed you the town in an interesting, amusing way reviving town's early days and history as well as introducing you to the surrounding giving you a lot of interesting facts about the region and its history, geography and biology. Once again we ended the day with a delicious dinner of meat.

We came back to Pucón really relaxed and a little sad that it just had been two days of vacations, starting a vegetarian diet after that enormous amounts of meet we have had these days. Now we are awaiting the season and what it will bring to us. Let's hope nothing bad!

New Blood

Kittens about one week old

It is spring. Spring is the time for animals to reproduce. So all our cats got pregnant - even the one of which we thought it is a male one. First 'Diavola' my crazy cat got four kittens. She tried to bear them on the sofa in our living which we fortunately spotted early enough to prepare her a basket. So she gave birth to the kittens in our room and we were watching the astonishing although a litlle disgusting event. An amazing thing to see a new life being born. Her kitties meanwhile have more than one month and are very funny, curious, clumsy and playful. Passing the terrace you really have to take care these days not to scrunch them because they seem to be everywhere at the same moment.

The two other cats got their kittens about two weeks later within only a few days. Interestingly while they seem to be irritated by Diavolas' kitties they bread their own in the same basket and made a kind of kindergarten over their, alternating in breastfeeding and caring for them. Sometimes they even did it at the same time which led to an unclear ball of cats. So right at the moment we have all together 13 cats around the house. When the kittens grow old enough we are going to give them away. Two of them are supposed to hunt mice in the restaurant where Inés is working. The grown up cats we are going to sterilize that we do not open a factory of kittens.

Apart from having young cats Inés one day came home from work with five chicks. Three females and two young cocks. A new try to bread our own chickens and making our hens more happy. Unfortunately these days have been quite cold and so three of them died in the second night of hypothermia. So we had to save the remaining ones, one of which was a young cock fortunately, by bringing them into the house where it was warm enough. I constructed them a small cage in the corner of our living under the oven where they lived the last month. It was quite funny to wake up everyday with their neverending beep-beep-beep. Last week I finally moved them into the cage together with the other hens where I installed them their own small, isolated hut that they will survive any cold snap to come. Let's hope they will grow up well and the cock soon is going to make the hens luckier.

Apart from taking care of lots of young animals Inés and I went to the '1st Pucón Chili Cook Off' two weeks ago. It was a competition of who cooks the best Chili in town. Organized by our favourite pub twelve pubs, restaurants and companies participated. Each of them with their own chili creation from classic ones, over vegetarian chili up to chocolate chili. You had to pay an entrance fee and that for could try as much as you could of all the chilies. They even served sweets and side dishes and offered cheap beer. Each participant had his own decorated stall, music played and in between recurrent rain showers everybody had a lot of fun and laughter and ate until he was totally feeling sated with chili. Visitors could elect their favourite chili and for sure when the winner was awarded party went on in its restaurant until late evening. Well, out of season when their are not that much tourists in town you have to be creative to make business and to amuse yourself. This time it worked quite well.

The Art of Relaxing



Miniature Golf Course

The last weeks have been quite turbulent and relaxation from our Santiago trip did not last too long. After a lovely springlike period weather turned rainy and cold again. The children were quite uneasy and so Inés and I got stressed again for a while. For being stressed is not exactly the best thing to do living in an extended family we decided that this has to be changed and each of us needs his time to relax - either for himself or the two of us together. After some weeks of recurring discussions we managed to do it and now the whole system seems to be stable and calm again. One of the reasons for it may be that Inés found work as administrator of a restaurant a friend of her is going to open. That gives her the chance to earn some money herself and we now can be quite tranquilized about our shop and how it will work. At least for the season we will have a proper income. Our plan now is to shift the shop down to Pucón and run it beside the restaurant, which will bring it closer to the customers.

Nevertheless the opening of the shop, we celebrated on 26th of October, the Austrian national holiday, still took place at our house. We invited some friends and made an Austro-Chilean Barbecue. Lots of meet with lots of salads. It was quite a success and funny evening that lasted until after midnight.

I myself will have to work as well quite a lot this season because I started guiding canyoning  too. Because I have a waterproof camera I serve as a photographer in the canyon as well. So I already had my first canyoning trips. It is, as meanwhile I was not that surprised anymore about it, quite different of what we understand under canyoning in the Alps. You follow down an amazing gorge at the foot of the volcano and in four hours of activity you have three waterfalls to transcend. The rest of it I would call ´jungle hiking´. It is a tramp through dense thicket of ferns, spiny bushes and trees. The most important tool is a big machete we have to take with us and the faces of the customers when they see it the first time is one of the most amusing things. But that for you are rewarded with four hours of pure, awe-inspiring nature. Sometimes the gorge is just one metre wide but thirty metres deep just to abruptly open up into a broad valley with rainforest-like vegetation. A tremendous scenery!

If I do not relax working Inés and I do regular ´relaxation-exercises´ now, to stay calm in between our small turbulent world. So one day we went to the sauna which is just a small wooden hut in a private lot. We had the whole thing just for ourselves and so it really was convenient walking out into the rainy night in between, breathing the weeping air. Another day we went playing miniature golf on one of Pucón's courses. Or we just have a romantic dinner in a restaurant with a good bottle of wine and an amazing view of the volcano or the lake.

What really mainly affected anyone here in Chile these days was the drama of the 33 buried miners and their rescue. For weeks the media hardly did report on anything else. ´33´ was the new ´word of the year´ ,the number most frequently marked in the national lottery, printed on t-shirts and being used for far-fetched comparisons. When the last miner was rescued (which for sure was broadcasted live in all major TV and radio stations) sirens sounded all over the country and immediately people started to sound the horns of their cars and wave their Chilean flags which they seemed to have prepared already. The miners itself  now have to undergo their next martyrdorn being handed from one talk show and interview to the next undergoing a real running the gauntlet. While scenes during the rescue have been really touching and you just could not be not affected what is going on now is partly far away from quality journalism. Hopefully for these traumatized people there will soon happen anything that takes them out of floodlight.

Vacations in Santiago

Skyscraper in central Santiago

Living together with nine children means living together with nine children. This indeed can be very stressful and to be honest I just can cope with it sometimes for two reasons. First Inés supports me with her patience (often more with me than with the children) and her 18 years of experience. Second I can always leave to a bunch of lovely places close to Pucón to relax whenever I want to. So it happened some time ago when I was fed up with anything and already even started to discuss with Inés (what we sometimes do for several reasons like the children, Chilean manners, etc. but fortunately never for ourselves). I took my bike and went to 'Río Plata' just across the big bay of Pucón on the northern shore of Lake Villarica. The journey first led me to 'Pasarela Quelhue' an amazing hanging bridge crossing River Trancura due to its appearance called the 'Golden Gate of Pucón'. (See my photo link to the right to understand why.) From there you follow the mouth of River Trancura which is a lovely swampy area overgrown with thousands of willows. Finally you reach at 'Rio Plata' where from you have got a lovely view over the lake and the surrounding hills. I had a small picnic over there and went on following 'Río Plata' upstream on a small path that soon lost itself in dense thicket of  'coligue', the Chilean species of bamboo. I bushwhacked throug it to finally reach a small waterfall descending into a pool of amazingly green-turquoise water surrounded by serried vegetation of coligue, ferns and other bushes. In summer one can take a bath over there but these days it was still to cold. Anyway I surely will come back when conditions allow it to take a bath. Maybe in a sea kayak rowing over the lake, which is the second way of reaching there. When I came back to my bycicle I was calmned again but still worries went on this day. Driving back to Pucón I soon had a flat tire which meant I had to drive back about nine kilometres on gravel roads with a broken front tire. Besides it already got dark and for sure I did not have lights. It was quite an exhausting trip and reaching the paved main road I entered the first restaurant to satisfy my hunger. It was a fish restaurant and so I ordered swordfish which tasted well but obviously wasn't because it caused me diarrhoea later on.

You may imagine that sometimes you really feel ready for a holiday which Inés and I decided to take in Santiago for a week. The plan was to look for a car over there whith which we could carry all the children, goods and even tourists to make some extra money. We went with Lucio, Inés' youngest son, to her sister, living in 'Puente Alto' a southern suburb of Santiago. We searched for a car a few days but did not find anything convenient. It is interesting what people here call 'very well maintained'. For any of the 'very well maintained' cars we had seen, in Europe you would have to pay something to dispose it of. Fed up with that we decided to postpone the buying until we saved the money to buy something proper and finally to enjoy real holidays. The following days we lingered through Santiago, ate in nice restaurants, visited comfortable cafès and bars and when we where in the mood to we bought materials for our shop we needed.

One day we went to the zoo with Lucio. Because I have been there before with Inés so the zoo itself wasn't that overwhelming for me but it was a nice, relaxing day and anyway very interesting and funny to watch Lucio, who saw most of the animals over there the first time in his life in reality. He almost went crazy about all the lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, zebras and so on. In my photoalbum you can watch some animals you (at least theoretically) could find in Chile's great outdoors. Among them the 'Pudu', the world's smallest hart, which lives in the woods around our house. (Although the chance to see it over there is close to zero because it is almost exterminated and on top of that very shy.)

The rest of the days we spent relaxing with Inés' family, visiting the new takeaway of her sister in another suburb of Santiago, having common dinner and just staying together without any appointments and things to do. So finally we had our holidays and relaxation. Now back in Pucón we are motivated again to work for our shop and the daily routine with the children. Apart from that I have already been rafging on the river once these days which definitely is one more reason why I am here because each time it is a great, tremendous adventure.

Happy Birthday Chile!

Villarica Volcano seen from the port

On September 18th Chile celebrated its day of independence and this year it was not just one more of that but the 200st anniversary. That for celebrations already lasted the whole year but accumulated the week before September 18th. The whole week there had been celebrations, festivals, events and parties. The media nearly reported on anything else, showed documentaries and films about Chilean history and the whole country seemed to glare in blue, white and red which are the Chilean national colours. On 18th finally everything peaked out in a big nationwide party. It is the only day of the year at which you are allowed to drink alcohol in public and everybody does so intensely. Pucón got crowded and at night there had been parties in all of the bars of town apart from lots of private festivities. We used the night to go out as well and ended up like everybody first drinking, than dancing, than drinking and dancing and finally quite drunk. When we went home at half past three in the morning there were still a lot of celebrations going on.

On the next day we went to a 'fonda' a typical fair hold on these days all over the country. Children fly kites over there and make competitions out of that, hunt young boars, eat a lot of sweets or make go-cart races while their parents are eating traditional food at lots of food stalls acompanied by typical 'chicha' a must made of apples or grapes. It is something like the typical Austrian 'Sturm' which you are drinking these days over there as well so I liked it quite a lot. In the evening there play folk music bands and people start dancing, young and old ones all together now.

We used the holidays in which Pucón usually gets crowded with tourists to open our small shop of natural products and handicrafts. To convince people to come over there we baked fresh bread and announced it with a white flag as they use to do it here at the signboard we recently constructed at the entrance to our lot. It was a little bit illegal because we do not have a permit to sell bread but it worked out and some people came and bought. Let's hope their will be coming more in summer.

To inaugurate the shop and to celebrate the anniversary of Chile decorated the shop with flags and made an 'asado' the typical Chilean BBQ with the kids. It was the first time we could eat outside and really enjoyed that.

If there is nice weather and we do not want to work we make small trips with the children, for example rowing boat excursions at the lake.

When it is still raining and cool we try to warm up ourselves once for example in one of the numerous hot springs close to Pucón. Those we have been to are really nice and relaxing, existing of several outdoorpools on the riverside that are opened almost 24 hours a day. You can bring your own drinks and food (which officially is not allowed of course) and enjoying them warming your body up in the pools while the cold raindrops are dripping on your head. Changing the pools you either walk through cold puddles of rain water or warm ones of thermal water. Very relaxing!

For we worked a lot the last weeks and celebrated intensely the last days I will take it more easy the next time probably traveling a little bit to get holidays from the family as well. Anyway there is some time left until summer season starts so let's take it easy.

Back in Pucón

Villarica Volcano seen from city centre

While we already had some springlike days in Santiago it had snown in Pucón the night before we arrived and we set our feet on slush leaving the bus at the terminal over there. Since then I experienced south Chilean winter for the first time and I am really happy I had been in Austria the last few months. Cold rainy days changed or came together with lots of stormy wind cooling down to almost 0 degrees C in the nights. Only when the sun came out which just happened for a few hours in between it already had about 15 degrees and was a bit comfortable. I got my usual cold, which I am already used to from the years before but at least this year we can warm our house. So it is still cold but bearable and you get used to sit in the living with two pullovers at night. Nevertheless I enjoyed returning as did the kids and the animals all ahead 'Diavola' my crazy cat which was quite confused the first two days but then started to show her usual mad behaviour.

The last weeks I cut a lot of fire wood and made further improvements in the house which Inés in the last months had furnished nicely. Apart from that I got my 'residencia temporaria' the one year visa which means I can stay in the country at least until next August. Normally once you got that you can always renew it. To sanctify this I will have to start business with the company I founded last year. I am going to import clothes and handicrafts from India, using the connections I have over there to sell them in our shop. Seems I am really becoming a business man. ;-) Who would have thought of that? Right at the moment we are fathoming possibilities as well as rules and laws according to this which is quite complicated but interesting as well. Anyway I will not get bored the next months.

Finally when I woke up today sun was shining down from a cloudless blue sky and it even warmed up to almost 20 degrees C. As it seems spring finally had arrived because weather will go on like this the next days. What a relief! Now I am going outside to have my first lunch in the outdoor dining area. Enjoy your meal!