Pueto Varas

Not too much has happened since my last post, although I´m aching to maintain some sort of contact with a place I call home -- whehter that be the United States, Texas, Nacogdoches, Austin, St Ed´s, Hope in the City..........

We left Pucon yesterday, which felt strikingly similar to leaving home. We had made many good friends who we will miss, and we had begun to know which fruit stands had the best plums and which panaderia had the freshest, softest bread. On our last afternoon our friend Gustavo took us up to a giant wooden statue of Jesus that overlooks a cemetery and the entire town. He has the best view of the bay and eveything that goes on in those streets below. We spent a good deal of time up there, talking and laughing and singing. Gustavo said he was amazed by our views about God. He had always assumed that all Estado Unidenses (united statesian? this doesnt really exist in english so i use spanish) were Christians and did the whole church thing. But he also said we were the first ones of our kind he had met in the thousands of people he has met in working and traveling in hostels. We talked about how church is so much more than a building, and took moments of silence to marvel at the beautiful sanctuary that God had built around us -- with walls made up of mountains and skies of the clearest blue. It was a sweet moment. Later that night we cooked together, which actually ended up being one of the most disgusting meals i´ve ever had, but we washed it down with some vino and everything was ok. The next morning we bought our bus tickets and hugged Gustavo goodbye at the station, wondering where our adventuring might land us next.

It turns out that a bus to Puerto Varas isn´t exactly a bus to Puerto Varas. We had tickets from Pucon to Temuco and from Temuco to Puerto Varas, but we missed our bus in Temuco and after much confusion and complete failure on our parts to understand and/or speak Spanish we bought another pair of tickets and waited for the next bus. 6 hours later we were dropped off on the side of the highway, with instructions to cross the footbridge over the highway and wait for a minibus to Puerto Varas. We had no idea where we were, and the only thing nearby was a Shell station as the sun settled in below the horizon. I said jokingly as we were walking across the foot bridge "The only thing that could perfect the hilarity of this situation would be rain"... and sure enough, only a few minutes later we were standing in the dark in the rain on the side of the highway hoping that a bus might come sweep us away. We decided that God was laughing at us so hard he started crying. After 20 minutes of standing in the rain to absolutely no avail, we crossed back over to the Shell station and put on our most pitiful wet puppy faces and asked the guy working there what in the world we were supposed to do. He told us we had to stand on the side of the highway and flag a bus down. That´s right, they don´t jus stop when they see someone waiting, you have to flag them down from the side of the highway. So we treked back across in the cold rain, laughing hysterically at every aspect of this ridiculous situation, and stood in a puddle with our hands waving wildly at any pair of headlights that we suspected might be a bus. Finally about 10 minutes later a small bus stopped and, although it was full, we boarded and piled up our soaking wet backpacks. (thank God for waterproofing!!!) A few minutes later we arrived in Puerto Varas just two blocks from our hostel (which I was so glad we had reservations for). Again, this hostel makes me appreciate Backpackers. We are staying in a shared dorm area, which is a large room with 12 beds and 2 bathrooms. We each get a locker that is about 3x2 feet in which to store our valuables.
We´re having a hard time knowing what to do with ourselves here. It is definitely a touristy town, and there are tons of older Canadian couples around town taking pictures of the flowers and sporting their fanny packs. Most of the options for things to do are expensive kayaking, rafting, or horseback riding trips. And since we havent made any friends here we are almost entirely left without a clue as to what we should do. I think Molly and I have both hit the funk part of the trip, and it is a miriacle that neither of us ended in tears after yesterday´s shinanigan. God has been taking great care of us and I am so grateful. I have faith that He´s got more in store for us, so for now we´ll just keep on keepin´on and keep our eyes opened for a new adventure.