Of a Sunday afternoon

I almost didn’t go. Saturday afternoon, all afternoon, I waivered back and forth, finally deciding that I should wait to go down south until I have at least a full day (ideally, more) to enjoy the [un]Santiago[ness] of it all. But as the cold night air crept into my bones, I suddenly found myself bored and lonely in a too-lofty apartment in a too-smoggy city and I had to get out.
It’s a crime in Santiago to go out not-bien abrigado, i.e. without a heavy coat, gloves, a scarf, (etc.) wintertime accessories. And, compliantly, I triple layered, zipped up, wound round, pulled on, and snuggled into myself.

10:50pm. All set.
All set?
Am I all set?
Do I have my keys?
Do you really want to sleep on a bus?
... 10:54pm. …

Metro closes at 11:00pm.
No chance.
I’m not going to make it.
I could try.
I’m not going to make it.
I’m going to bed.

And right at that moment, my friend Andrew sent me a text message saying that he had changed his mind and ¿vamos? Fuimos.

The bus ride wasn’t supposed to be the focal interest of this trip, but it was eleven hours, each way. Breakfast was included, so…it doesn’t really get much better than that.


The bus from Santiago went to Temuco, which is a fairly large city. There was a large fería (fruit/vegetable/cheese/clothes market) close to the bus station, so we walked around for a bit. We tried some mote (i.e. about a pound of wheat berries, boiled, and then served elegantly in a plastic bag). We found a nice accompaniment for our wheat berries in a panadería close by—white bread rolls. Let me ask you a question: When you’re walking around Temuco on a Father’s Day morning with no intentions but a bag of boiled wheat and a couple rolls of bread, what do you do? We did what anyone would do—found a nice park bench, ate our grains and grains handful by handful, and then played a bird game.

The mote experiment:



The birds were more or less uninterested (dull birds). So we sought out the buses JAC to Pucón.

On the way, I caved to the temptation of a delectable dose of Nescafé from a sidewalk cart. I confidently ordered a cup of coffee…not difficult, I’m proud to say. And then Andrew came along and asked for some hot chocolate. Again, not hard. The (very nice) man selling us welcomely warm drink sputtered some sort of Spanish response that neither Andrew nor I could make out, at all. … This always makes things slightly awkward. The man asked us where we were from, and we confessed. And he said something along the lines of—“I don’t speak English. … You don’t speak Spanish.” That’s not fair!! I just told you what I wanted and you understood with no problem! No, I can’t decipher your Sputter, but that doesn’t mean I don’t make a valient Spanish effort. Geez. I just wanted something warm to hold.

Pucón, for the seven hours we were there, was nice. Quiet. Clean, more or less. We ate tasty pizza and shivered while the sun went down behind mountains behind mountains behind mountains.

Downtown Pucón:




At the end of the day—rather, at the start of the next, when we arrived back in Santiago—I was quite glad I got out of the city for a bit. I still have Santiago Lung, but I’m reminded that Chile isn’t all grey.