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!

Santiago, here I am

Inés and I

The journey to Chile was quite an odyssey. Already on the airport in Rome I was informed that my flight to Buenos Aires would be delayed about three and a half hours which meant that I would not reach my connection flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago neither. For I had lots of time in Rome I went to the city and roamed around the Roman ruins over there which are indeed quite impressive, had a last original pizza and enjoyed some last rays of hot summer sun. At least I already could change my connection flight to Santiago at the airport to the next possible flight but the rest of the journey was quite a horror. I would not really recommend fly with Aerolineas Argentinas to anyone. The plane was damned old, some parts sticking out of the inner covering, the seat rows horribly close to each others, without screen for entertainment program. The stuff either unfriendly, old, ugly or any combination of these attributes.

The plane finally departed 4 hours late. I was sitting next to an Uruguayan who had the same problem as I with his flight connection from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. We came to talk (what for you have a lot of time on a 14 hour flight) and he told me that he is going to visit his home for the first time after 24 years that he had been living in Italy. Because both of us had to change the airport in Buenos Aires, right from one end of town to the other, we took a taxi together. When we arrived at the second airport there were 15 minutes left to the departure of my flight. The monitors already announced the 'last call' for it. I ran to the check-in counter just to hear from the lady over there that the gate recently had been closed. Damned! I was already travelling more than 24 hours and just wanted to arrive. Well, at least I got a free meal from Aerolineas Argentinas (as I already had in Rome for the delay) and was without any problems rebooked to the next flight but had to wait for it three and a half hours more. I called Inés - who already was at Santiago Airport - as I had already did from Rome to tell her I would be late some more hours. The waiting time I spent with Horacio the Urugayan which abated my own excitement and agitation because compared with the 24 years he had not seen his home my three months of 'loneliness' seemed to be ridiculous. So we were taking some beers and cigarettes talking at cross-purposes - he from Uruguay and I from Chile and Inés - nevertheless understanding one another quit well.

Finally I arrived in Santiago more than 7 hours late and after a journey of more than 36 hours.

At the house of Inés' sister where we stayed there I felt asleep almost immediately. The next days we enjoyed finally being together again, strolling through Santiago, meeting friends, having first beers, asados, pisco sours, hamburguesas and all that Chilean stuff together again, bought some things for our shop and just enjoyed.

One day we went to the 'Cajon de Maipo'-valley right out of Santiago where a friend of mine is working as a rafting guide and ran the 'Maipo' river. For it was the first time on white water for Inés she was not that convinced about it at the beginning but finally we all enjoyed it and had a lovely day with another closing asado.

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