Tuesday Dec. 2/ Wednesday Dec. 3., Thurs. Dec. 4 - spent most of Tuesday trying to communicate with Pamela from the freight forwarders office - and this was not an easy task. With my limited knowledge of Spanish (and patience) and her limited knowledge of English, Im not sure what Ive agreed to except that my bike is flying home on Monday, Dec. 8. The price, even though agreed upon, may yet still come as a nasty surprise for me. I will probably have to throw away my saddlebags, trunk and tank bag to make the price at all sensible. Next Monday Ill find out the real number when I pay for it!!! IAE, the bike and I are flying home Monday, arriving Vancouver mid-morning Tuesday, Dec. 9. Wed. am had a final conversation with Pamela, felt reasonably comfortable with how things were left, booked my flight home, checked out of the hotel and headed South! The first 100 miles or so were fairly uninteresting. Mostly flat, lots of city to go thru (Santiago is a very large city) but the freeway makes it very drive able. Came across a lineup of cars and trucks on the freeway that lasted for 10 miles or more. I was able to scoot by it all by riding the right hand shoulder (pretty dicey at times) and found the cause of it all was a fender bender and having that one lane closed by the carbineres (police) was enough to line traffic up for miles on that very busy freeway!!! Got into the Maipo wine region and wasnt that impressed. Lots of fields of grapes growing along with lots of other fruits and vegetables being grown but still the dusty brown hills off in the distance and regular little farms, small industrial small towns with their agriculture businesses and large fruit processing plants - Dole etc. lots of billboards and another piaje (toll booth) every half hour or so. My fee was 600 pesos or about $1.00 - a real nuisance having to stop, lineup, dig for my money and go, many, many times. The further South I got the more it felt like I was in Southern Alberta, or the Okanagan, or any farming area. Houses and churches looked quite normal with a slight European look. Nothing out of the ordinary looking at all. Spent the night in Chillan, a rather ordinary, busy small city. Thursday am got a good start heading down to Pucon - a trekkers small town located on a lake at the base of a sporadically active volcano. As I got to Villarrica on the lake and followed the shore for 30 km to get to Pucon, I could have been on any lake front in North America with the lodges, beaches, cabins and homes so familiar. The only real difference was this large, snow covered Volcano that dominated every view! When I got to Pucon, it turned out to be a tourist oriented, outdoorsy small town with the streets lined with restaurants, sports stores, adventure companies offering zip lines, white water rafting, volcano trekking and all other outdoor activities. I checked into a hostal located in a persons home. Comfy and cheap. Tomorrow?? I need to be back in Santiago Sunday so Ive got a few days to fill. Ive checked into another has real for tomorrow night so will be here in Pucon area for tomorrow. I hear their hot springs are pretty nice! Pictures of Chillan from my room, volcano and Pucon.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 01:33:54 +0000
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