tim fell off a cliff!

I got home around two hours ago from an amazing, wonderful, fantastic, insert-laudatory-adjective-here vacation with Rosie and Tim B. Really it could not have gone much better than it did. We saw beautiful and interesting places, ate great food, did a ton but still managed to relax, and took about 500 pictures. About 482 of them are of Volcan Osorno, but more on that in a bit. Here comes the day-by-day breakdown, which I will write over the course of the day in pieces, so the two hours in the first sentence might turn into ten by the end:

Saturday night, I left for Baquedano, where I was going to meet Rosie so we could ride the rest of the way to the bus station. I left plenty of time, which turned out to be a terrific idea because I left my ticket on my desk. Realized this around Los Leones, started to panick, called home, got David on the line and told him what had happened. Before I even suggested anything or asked him, he told me he'd find it and drive it to me, and to get off at Baquedano and come up to meet him on the street. This host family...unreal. Wow. So anyhow, Rosie had gone on ahead to the bus so she wouldn't miss it even if I did, David and I met up without a hitch, he passed me the ticket through the window and I more or less sprinted down into the station, got on the metro, got out at U de Santiago and again sprinted to the platform, where they were just closing up the luggage doors and Rosie and Tim were about to get on. Made it, but with zero time to spare. So, that little melodrama past, we settled in for the overnight ride to Puerto Varas.

Sunday morning, we arrived in Puerto Varas, which sits on Lago Llanquihue across from Volcan Osorno, which is almost a perfect cone, around 9 and walked downtown to find our hostel, which wasn't hard because Puerto Varas is small and compact. Upon arrival, we found out the electricity was out in the whole town, so our room wouldn't be ready and they couldn't even confirm our reservation until 3. But we left our stuff there and went looking for breakfast, which we found in the form of apple empanadas (delicious) and yogurt and such. We sat by the lake and ate and watched a bunch of men fish with line wound around cans. Afterwards we went back to the hostel, moved our stuff into the triple they decided they could give us, and went for a walk with the goal of climbing the hill, topped by a huge steel cross, that overlooks the town and the lake. After a little wandering we found our way up and then kept going, a little trail started behind the cross and then led into a meadow with what was less a trail and more a narrow path of beaten-down grasses. We wandered along it for a while, stopping periodically to look at the gorgeous views of the lake and volcanoes (Osorno and another one whose name I forget but is also across the lake) and admire the plants and allow the gigantic bees to pass. We sat in the shade of some trees for a while and Rosie made some nature art before heading back into town. We found a bus to Puerto Montt, which is the biggest town in the area and the main port to all points south in Chile, ate lunch at a little place under a hotel and walked around. It's not a very lovely place, but some of the craft stalls we walked by had cool things and Rosie and Tim bought some stuff. Back in Puerto Varas, we got dinner at a REALLY nice place (it was expensive as HAIL, but almost worth the price) called Sirocco, went back to the hostel, where people were playing guitar (well) and trumpet (badly), and crashed.

Next morning we got up, ate, paid for the night, and caught a bus to Saltos del Petrohué, which are spectacular and crawling with retirees near the end of their Patagonia cruises. We found a secluded spot down the river a ways, though, and sat separately for a while before walking a little farther back into the woods to find a spot to eat the stuff we'd bought in the grocery store that morning. It was all delicious and pretty and we were all in pretty high spirits when we headed farther down the dirt road to the "town" of Petrohué, on Lago Todos los Santos. This lake, my friends, is stunning. So gorgeous. It was windy enough to whip up whitecaps on the lake, but I really wanted to go kayaking, so we got three kayaks for 7 bucks an hour and put into the water. Rosie and Tim were game but not as prepared as I was to have a good time regardless of the circumstances, which ended up being soaked and exhausted from battling the wind to get back to shore. I had an absolute ball, and Rosie had fun enough, too, but Tim was not happy. Still, the day was warm and we went to the black, volcanic-sand beach and sat for a while. Tim laid out while Rosie and I threw rocks and pushed each other around like 8-year-olds. It was fun. The bus back to Puerto Varas would have been more fun if we weren't all still wet, but it wasn't so bad. Back in PV, we got on a bus pretty much right away to Frutillar, a tiny hamlet (I can't believe I just used the word hamlet) 20 or 30 km north on the lake. Checked into our hostel there, which was run by a very cute old lady who Rosie decided we should refer to as "Nana." And we did. Found a restaurant as it was getting dark and realized just how German the whole place is. Tons of good beer, German words on the menu, etc. Rosie and I got an amaaaaazing crab dish and Tim got locos, for which I forget the English name. Little shelfish of some kind. Anyhow Tim and I got a little microbrew called...something. But it was good. Tim and Rosie kept the labels from the bottles.

Slept like rocks that night, but Rosie's and my room faced the sunrise and we had white curtains, so we were up reeeeal early. But that was all right, Nana's breakfast was probably the best we had the whole trip and afterwards Rosie went to finish writing one of her finals (yeah, she wasn't done and still isn't, poor girl) and Tim and I went to the native forest preserve run by the U de Chile that's right on the outskirts of Frutillar. It was really impressive, lots of interesting foliage and a great map/guide to the trail through the park. And a 700+ year old laurel tree. We found Rosie sitting where we'd left her, on the beach, having mostly wrapped up her writing, and went to catch the bus to Chiloé. Sat in the bus station for a while, I went in a colectivo (shared cab, like a bus but in a car) back into town and got some sandwiches and drinks, got on the bus and were on our way to Castro. The ride was, as all our rides were, spectacular. Once in Castro, we parted ways because Rosie's and my hostel didn't have enough room for Tim, checked in and were very disappointed in our hostel, which had gotten high marks in one of the guides we read. If you're ever in Castro, do NOT stay at Hostal Kolping. Just don't. Then we met up again to explore the city a bit. Which brings me to the title of this post. We wandered down to the water and saw a muddy little path that some Chilean kids were walking out of, and decided to walk along it. It was very wet and slippery and I, who was in the front, paused at one point to examine a particularly treacherous-looking spot before going across it. Tim said something along the lines of, "It doesn't look that bad," and I crossed the spot. Next thing I knew Tim said, "Oh, no!" and burst out laughing as he went backwards-somersaulting over the 85 degree drop for about 12 feet! Once we made sure he was okay, Rosie and I could barely contain our laughter. Especially her, who had seen the whole thing. I'd only heard and caught the very end of it. It looked like he was stuck, too, surrounded as he was by overgrown foliage and an almost-vertical, muddy slope covered in shallow-rooted grass unfit for handholds. He found his way out eventually and was miraculously practically unhurt, but quite muddy. Good story. We walked around Castro a little more, found a place to eat that was in Lonely Planet as having the best curanto (local seafood specialty) in town, but didn't actually have it. Still, it was a good dinner, and we parted full and happy for the hotels.

The next morning, I called another hostel to make reservations there, both so we could all be in one place and because all three of us were unhappy with our current hostels. We paid and moved our stuff to the other place, which is run by a super-nice woman, is clean and well-lit and has a kitchen you can use and very comfortable beds, none of which were true of the first hostel. It's called Hospedaje or Hostal Cordillera, I forget which. Anyhow if you're ever down there, DO stay at that place. It was great. Rosie went to an internet cafe to type up her paper and email it to her professor, and Tim and I went for a walk around Castro, which was nice. He's really an interesting guy and I wish I'd had more time to talk to him about things; we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, as I found out in Bs As a few months back, but we both seem to have the attitude that pretty much anything is interesting and worth talking about. We bought tickets back to PV, because that's where our round-trip bus tickets were for, and went to the cafe to check our email and Rosie. Then we found a delicious-smelling lunch place, got some food (quarter chicken and fries for me, deep-fried hot dog and fries for Tim) and then picked up a little more for Rosie and met her by Castro's main church. She was relieved to be done but exhausted. We found the rural bus station (which has big vans that go all over the island and actually the whole Chiloé archipelago) and found one to Dalcahue, the point of departure for Isla Quinchao, which has on it Chiloe's oldest church, Santa María de Loreto de Achao. I don't think I mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning now: Chiloé is famous for its churches, 15 or 16 of which are UN World Heritage sites. They're wooden and covered either in shingles or painted corrugated steel, and they're unique and beautiful across the board. Anyhow, Isla Quinchao was nice, and we came home and went to the store and got stuff to make dinner with in the hostel. Bowties, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, oregano, sausage, avocado, cucumber and tomatoes, for pasta with meat and a salad and beer. The kitchen was great and we were a good team, the dinner turned out delicious. We were all tuckered out and ended up in bed pretty early, after Tim and Rosie got some time in watching E!...not my favorite channel. Oh well.

The next morning, Tim had to leave bright and early to go meet his friend, who had been studying in Argentina (but not Bs As...Mendoza instead) and traveling around Chile a little, to take the bus back to Stgo together. Rosie and I got up to say goodbye to him and eat breakfast, but we were exhausted and went back to bed after he left. We lazed around a little and then took the long walk to the Mirador Ten Ten, which has a great view of Castro and the Castro Bay. It started spitting before too long, so we headed back down and back to our hotel, where we lazed around some more while it poured all around us. The rain had slowed up a bit by the time we went to eat dinner, around 8:45, at Años Luz, a really cute little restaurant around the corner from our hostel, which is also in Lonely Planet (along with our final hostel and the first place we ate in Castro, Sacho). Lonely Planet was spot-on in Chiloé. We had a bit of an argument at dinner, but cut it off before it got out of hand or dragged on too long, which our arguments tend to do (drag on, that is). Back in the hostel, we turned in early again, anticipating our 11:45 departure for Puerto Varas.

We got up at 8 on Friday, ate breakfast, and I went to go withdraw money for both of us and get some lunch food for the bus ride while Rosie showered. Somehow that took until 11:30, and we paid the dueña (owner) quickly and hightailed it to the bus terminal, which thankfully was exactly one block from our hostel. We had a few hours to kill in PV, so we ate lunch at a little VERRRRRY German restaurant (tri-lingual menu) and found an internet cafe and Rosie discovered she'd lost her wallet. Sucks. We went back down to the lake for a while, where Rosie sat and journaled and I wowed the little Chilean kids with my rock-skipping skills. There was a black lab stray that tried to chase down my rocks when I threw them! It was cute and kind of sad, someday I think I'd like to have a black lab. We got a little more snack food for the overnight ride home and went to the bus station and caught our bus. Things were going without a hitch, except that I was having my typical trouble sleeping in moving things because you can't lie down, until our bus stopped by the side of the road about 2 a.m. and we were told to get off. Apparently it broke down or something, I was a little too groggy to tell or make much of a fuss. Most of our bus got on the next one that passed, another Ejecutivo, but Rosie and I and a couple others had to wait for the next bus, which was a Salon Cama! So I finally got to lie down, and the bus stopping was a blessing in disguise as I got six solid hours of sleep.

Got into Stgo only an hour later than we'd thought to and went home. I showered, checked my email and facebook and so on, and started writing this bad boy. And now I'm done. No meditations or thoughts or anything on the trip, methinks, I'm too tired from typing this much and this post is already super long. A few pictures will also come, but later. Those with facebook can check out my new album, and sometime soon I'm going to get a photo site account so I can share my photos in large volume for free. Blogger is just too hard to upload to. Anyhow, I'm going to cut myself off and go find some lunch, I'm starving.