The past three days we have been in Parque Nacional Huerquehue, which is absolutely beautiful. We arrived on Sunday afternoon and set up camp with plenty of daylight left to take a dip in the lake, dry off, and sit on a log over the water to read my book for an hour or so. We had packed minimal food, not knowing exactly how to pack for a three day camping trip where we may or may not be able to make a fire and we definitely didnt have any pots or pans or anything with which to cook. Turns out fires are illegal in this park, but we secretly made a miniature one out of twigs for about 3 minutes -- just long enough to cook our hot dogs then stomp it out before anyone saw. Those were the most delicious hot dogs we had ever eaten.
After spending the night snuggled up in our one-man-tent, which is actually the perfect size for both of us, we mozied about until we worked up the energy to begin our trek, which we didn´t imagine would take more than 4 or 5 hours. Already exhausted from our attempt at the volcano two days earlier and a 2-hour attempt at a shorter trail the day before, we were panting after the first half-hour of uphill hiking. It continued to be uphill for the next 3 or 4 hours nonstop, and as I already discussed in my last blog we don´t do so well with the uphill. We were having to stop ver frequently and let people pass us. I dont understand how they all made it look so easy. I guess we´re just really badly out of shape -- or we´ve just been very spoiled by how flat Texas is. Anyhow, we made it to the waterfalls, the lakes, then faced the looooooong last leg of that day´s journey down the other side of the mountain into the river valley where our camp ground was to be.
Just when I thought I couldn´t walk any more, we saw the sign for Camping Renahue, the destination of our trek. Basically, it was an open area with one spicket and a sign. There was a couple there, German I think, who we asked about the area, expecting to find some sort of ranger or someone to check us in and whatnot. This was certainly not the case, so we dropped our bags and set up the tent. A sign indicated that there was fresh baked bread just 15 minutes away, which we assumed was part of the refugio that was shown on the map, so we decided to check it out. The other reason we wanted to check it out was because we had seen hoof prints on our way down the mountain, and hoped that perhaps we could ride horses for the steep climb back up the mountain in the morning, sparing our aching feet from that arduous part of the journey. The timing was all wrong, and we quickly realized that we would be coming back to the camp ground in the dark, armed only with my handy head lamp (thanks maya!!! i love that thing). But trek on we did, and finally - after walking in circles a few times and having to decide what we thought was a trail and what was not - we came upon a small building, which turned out to be a barn. A group of sheep stared us down as we neared, then began bleeting our arrival as we rounded the corner towards the house that was nestled behind them. I knew this couldnt be the hostel. This was either something out of a horror movie and we were about to be kidnaped never to be seen again (other than the German couple there was nobody around for miles) or something magical was about to happen. Once again under the mentality of "we might as well, we came this far" we walked through the garden to knock on the door. A short older lady was bent over a wood-burning stove, and turned to greet us. We could hardly understand a word she said, though we managed to gather that the Refugio on the map did not exist, this was her private house just beyond the park boundaries, and that she does, indeed, make fresh bread if we want to buy some or a cold beer. After much confusing rambling, which may or may not have resulted in any level of understanding on either side of the conversation, we bid her farewell and sought out the trail again. I wish we could have stayed with her for a while just to hear her story -- why she lives there, if she lives alone, what she does all day. It is obvious that she devotes a good deal of time in her garden, which was an orchestra of bright colors arranged perfectly in that wild-yet-planned fashion. The walk back to camp should have been one of the most frightening experiences in my life, but I kept singing praise songs in my head the whole way to remind myself that I have nothing to fear because my God is protecting me. And let me take this opportunity to pause and say how extravagant He has been with grace over this past week. So many situations that could have potentially been disasterous He has protected us, and then gone further by blessing us in so many ways we could have never even asked for. I have always felt most prayerful when I am in nature, and the entire hiking trip I felt as if I was in conversation with Him -- whether it was me begging for mercy on my throbbing feet or praising Him for His masterful artwork all around me. And He was and is faithful -- we got out of there alive and all the better for it. Praise God!!!!
Anyhow, we made our way back in the dark, which took us about 20 to 30 minutes, tripping over things and trying to share the one light between the two of us. We even managed to see a huge spider that was likely the Chilean version of a black widow. When we got back to camp we were all business because we both wanted to sleep so much. We made our little twig fire again and cooked our pitiful yet absolutely delicious hot dogs, wrote in the journals for a while, then snuggled up in our little tent.
We woke in the morning and got our things ready to go, and soon we were back on the trail going up instead of down this time. It was still painful and my little toes -- which by this point were literally just two giant blisters instead of two small toes -- were screaming at me to stop and just sit, but we pushed through with many grunted prayers. The trek back was mostly uneventful, and went faster than the day before. At one of the checkpoints we saw a spider called an Aracna Pollito, which was about 3 inches across but that apparently can grow to be more like 5 or 6 inches across. When we finally arrived at the park entrance around 3 in the afternoon I thought my feet were going to fall off, and after I sat down I never wanted to stand again. Ironically, we had to stand for the first 20 minutes of the bus ride back because everyone else rushed to get on before us when it finally arrived. South America doesn´t really have the same concept of order and fairness as we do in the states -- the fact that we were the second people to get there to wait for the bus meant nothing in getting us a seat. Oh well. Shortly after a few people got off, so were were able to take their seats.
When we got back to Pucon we were hoping to stay in Hostal Backpackers again for the night, but they were full so we found two beds at a hostel nearby. It really made me appreciate Backpackers, where we felt at home since the moment we got here. In fact, we spent more time at Backpackers last night than we did in our own hostel -- just hanging out with the friends we have made here. In fact, I am in Backpackers now because we decided to stay another night tonight. I will be sad to leave the friends we have made here.
We had asked one of those friends, Gustavo from Uruguay, to come get dinner with us last night. We were going to celebrate the fact that we could finally eat real food (instead of hot dogs, cheese, and fruit) by having an all-out feast. When we came to meet him to go out, he informed us that his boss, Claudio, wanted him to come to dinner with him. So, instead of splitting company, we all dined together. Claudio, Gustavo, Boris, me, Molly, and two women who also work at the hostel. Claudio is one of those men who just seemes to own everything he looks at. Walking to the restaurant he would cross diagonally at the instersections just to show that cars would stop for him in all directions. When we got to the restaurant, which he picked, he made it clear that his seat was the head of the table, and he promptly told us that it wasn´t necessary to look at the menus becaue he was going to order for all of us -- appetizer, drinks, and the meal. When the brought out the bread he forcefully tore off his portion, tossing the rest aside, then gnawing on it like a man. He is unmistakably the jefe around here. We had pisco sours to start, then the food arrived -- two platters piled high with meat. There were probably 4 or 5 different animals represented on each platter, accompanied only by a half of a tomato and a few potatoes. We all dug in, sawing off our hunks of meat then slapping them on our plate, washing it all down with the wine that Claudio ordered for us. It was the most perfect meal I could have asked for -- especially after 3 days of eating hardly more than bread for every meal. As the vino flowed so did our conversation, and we all listened and laughed along as Claudio told his stories of climbing the volcano over 1000 times, of flying over the farther point of the earth, and of the numerous people he has met over his years of working at the hostel. When he had a really good story that he wanted to make sure that Molly and I fully understood he would slow down and throw in random english words for emphasis. It was all fantastic, and really characterized much of our time here in Chile so far. The people are so welcoming and accomodating, and they just want to hang out and tell stories, and there should always be some vino involved.
Later on Molly and I hung out with Gustavo at the hostel for a while, then I went with Boris and another guy named Rami from the hostel to a club, which was a lot of fun. Again I got to experience the lack of order that is here -- there was no line to get in, simply a mass of people and whoever pushed the hardest to get to the front got in first. We danced for a while then came back to our respective homes around 3 in the morning. Besides the intense smell of cigarette smoke that followed me into my bed, it was a lot of fun.
Anyhow, this morning we checked out of that hostel and came back to Hostal Backpackers to re-check in here, and we´ve had a relaxing day of writing post cards, doing laundry, and being generally very lazy. Tomorrow we will leave and go probably to Puerto Varas, though we are still not sure. Sometimes it is really good not to know.
Praise God!
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