It has been ages since I last wrote, and so much has happened, so I guess I have to start at the beginning.
The trip from Queenstown to Auckland was easy, I got there in plenty of time, had a relaxed airport lunch, then ambled down to my gate to check in. I sat down with the groups of people already massing, and I groaned at the fact it was going to be a packed flight. Five minutes later, the desk attended pages 'passanger Hicks'. "Oh God," I think "Is there something wrong with my ticket? Did the visa law change? Did my flight get rescheduled without me knowing about it?" And a thousand variations of that ran through my head as I walked up, smiled, and said "I'm passanger Hicks."
"Boarding pass, please."
I swallowed hard, feeling my stomach drop. After what seemed like AGES, including a phone call in Spainish in which my name was mentioned a few times, and much pecking on the keyboard, he looks up at me and smiles.
"You've receive a complimentary upgrade to business class. I'll print your new boarding pass in a moment. Please take a seat over there."
I laughed in half relief and half suprise. I couldn't believe my luck, a 10 hour flight in business class. That has definately never happened to me before.
After a 3 course dinner includeing smoked salmon, vension and pear salad, a 'trio' of cheeses, chocolate mouse, and amazing Chilean wine, I suggled into my fully relined massaging chair to watch "Rachel Getting Married" and then drifted off to sleep. I woke up just an hour before we touched down in Santiago, feeling great. It's the only way to travel.
Sanitago didn't charm me, it was, kindly put, just another big city. It had some nice things to see, like a few hills that gave vistas of the city (when the smog wasn't too thick) one of Neruda's homes, a winery or two, some colorful neighbors hoods and nice, european style plazas, but mostly it was just a big, not to clean, semi modern city where everyone speaks spainish. The hilight for me was meeting up with my friend Izzy, from my way back first stop of Hong Kong, who showed me around and took me to her house to meet her family, who were absolutely lovely. In fact, most of the Chileans I met were absolutley lovely, giving mom and I an unsolicated ride because we were lost, or pointing out good places to go, and just generally being kind. I guess that's what Sanitago has going for it, it's full of Chileans.
Then Mom (who arrived a day late due to a flight mishap, which I felt strangely guilty about, like I have used up all of our collective plane luck)and I headed North to Valparaiso. This has been described as one of the most romantic cities in Chile, a shutterbugs dream, etc. Yeah, I think maybe there is a secret Valparaiso that has all these things and we got sent to the dumpy, dirty crap one that sucks. Okay, maybe that is a bit harsh, and that's not to say we didn't enjoy ourselves, but I think I was was expecting a much nicer town, and was let down. I enjoyed the day trips we took to Vina Del Mar, Ilsa Negra and the Casablanca valley much more.
Vina was just what Valpo should have been, a nice beach town full of Chileans on vacation. Ilsa Negra is Neruda's favorite house. It is so creative (full of antique ship figure heads and other eccentricitys) and lovely, and it's set on a beautiful wave crashing beach. It's easy to see how he was so inspired in a place like that. Casablanca was a detour into luxury, wine tasting at two vineyards, with a little bus snafu in the middle. So, at our first winery we had 3 rather large (half a glass) tastings, paired with amazing cheese, but on a generally empty stomach. We asked them to call us a cab to our next stop, but they insisted that the bus would be just as easy and cheaper by about 2500 pesos (roughly 5 bucks). We just had to wave one down, and tell them the name of the vinyard, Vina Mar. Well, unfortunately, in the same direction as our desired destination, but about 1 hour further, lies the town of Vina del Mar. You can see where this is going. After about 15 min of bus riding and a very expensive ticket to just head 4 km down the road, we sort out that we want off. We then try to get a bus to take us back in the other direction, but they all insist that we want Vina Del Mar. Finally, after about 8000 pesos ($15) later,we just catch a bus back to Casablanca and cab it to the other vinyard. Moral of the story is: it is unreasonable to release two tipsy gringas who speak no spainish onto a Chilean highway with some vauge instructions about flagging down a bus and expect good results. At least when it's me and Mom.
Our next stop, Pucon, was as picturesque as Valpo had been disapointing. German influence meant adorable log cabin style buildings in a small tourist town in the shadow of the impossibly conical volcano Villarica, on the banks of a lake of the same name. Our adventrue in Pucon would be to climb to the summit of that volcano, 2847 meters up, across the glacier that sits upon it. We started off, and quickly became "the slow group". I was grateful to have mom requesting breaks every few minutes so I wouldn't have to ask for them. She at least has the excuse of being... not 23? The hike was tough, but bearable, and then we got to the glacier, where we put on our crampons and gators and the angle started to make it look impossible. After a punishing hour on the glacier, Mom decided that she couldn't make it up, she might not have the energy to go down. The last 300 meters were off the ice, but a basically vertical ascent climbing over volcanic rock. I was so tired after hiking up some pretty steep stuff for the past 5 hours, but I was also determined. My now exclusive guide and I powered our way up past all the groups coming back down. I would look up and see the top, and it would only be 20 feet away, then get up there and there was another 100 ft to go. "What the hell was I thinking." crossed my mind more than a few times. Finally, mercifully, we reached the summit. We were the only ones there, being the last to reach the top. The crater loomed, pumping out sulfuric gasses that burned my eyes and throat, but veiw was amazing. Worth the hours of gueling ascent and money we payed. I was a little too tired to really feel pleased with myself though. After a rest, we headed down. The guide warned me that it would be difficult and dangerous to go down hill. But after keeping up with his breakneck down hill ski-jog, he seemed glad that I wasn't diplaying any problems going down. He even sat me down to slide down the glacier, it was like sledding without a sled, it was so fun and got me down in 2 min what had taken me a hour to get up. After that, on the way down, I started to feel the glow of having climbed a freakin mountain! I was exhausted and blistered but happy. We went to the local geothermal hotspring that night to soak it out. As a girl said "A volcano you can climb with a natural hotspring a few km away, that's just good planning." The hotspring was lovely, unfortunately, it didn't save me from the extreme pain of sore legs the next day. I pretty much just hobbled around like an old lady, but every time I looked up at the mountain in the distance, I could think "yeah, volcano, you may have kicked my ass, but I kicked yours."