Pucon

Lovely Pucon...the place you go where the one activitiy is to hike up the volcano for 4 hours and ride plastic sleds all the way back down...and what was the one thing we didn't do? Hike up the volcano for 4 hours and ride plastic sleds all the way back down, but every sinlge other traveller did! What can I say, we are on a budget, and I am talking seriously now! Not this Australia/New Zealand "let's skydive and we should go wine tasting...twice..." kind of budget, but a "we don't have enough money for 3 meals a day so we have to eat a late brunch and a late dinner only" kind of budget.
I think we now know what travelling on a shoe sting really means...and this ain't no Nike trainer shoe string either, that's for sure....it's more like a Noke (the generic Nike) trainer shoe string. With that said, we are getting to experience some very interesting free activities and eat a wide array of random bargain foods that so many travellers miss. However, this also means that we have to forgo certain more expensive activities and the Pucon volcano hike was one of them. We discussed it and felt that hiking Machu Pichu in Peru and attending a football game (Alex wanted me to say "proper football for all you Americans," but fear not, I have schooled her and beat her too for that comment) in Brazil were the 2 expensive activities that we would splurge on during our final 3 months abroad...and of course travelling around Argentina with Wendy!
Back to Pucon and the activities that we DID do insead of hiking up a stupid volcano...who wants to do that anyway? We arrvied in Pucon from Valdivia about 3:00pm and found our hostel without any problems. It is VERY easy to get around the city that is very tourist friendly with well marked streets. An old lady let us in and immediately shook the plum tree that lived in her backyard as soon as we arrived so we could gather up plums from the ground, free of charge, for snacks. How lovely you might think, but then all of sudden we met her dog who has 5 new puppies and they all came running out to piss and shit all over the ground and the plums...no thank you. Luckily we saw this, as several other backpackers weren't so lucky and just bit down on those suckers like they were tasting some sweet ambrosia; we didn't have the heart to tell them and we are pure evil...muahhaaa hhaaaa muaahha hhaahhaa (imagine me rubbing my hands together at this very moment).
We settled into our hostel and for the first night, we had the whole thing to ourselves. It was adorable...a little loft style log cabin fully loaded with television (with 3 English channels), fully stocked kitchen and it was clean as a whistle. We did have to turn on some gas thing and light it with a match to get hot water, which proved to be a huge safety hazard for us both, but we managed it in the end. We went straight the el supermercado (can you guess what that was) to get our staple foods: eggs, tomatoes, cucumber, apples, bananas, yogurt, possibly some sort of breadish thing and lunch meat. I know it sounds dire, but eating in this country when on a budget does not allow for resturants or expensive meats and fish...and we all know that Alex and I are totally off nuts at this time.
We decided to stay in for the rest of the night and watch 16 and Pregnant, a wonderfully addictive voyeristic pleasure that follows 16-year-old girls throughout their pregnancies, births and subsequent breakdowns within themselves as well as their relationships...awesome! Later in the evening, an English couple came to stay for a few nights, but they slept in a private room downstairs leaving us the entire loft all to ourselves...a real treat for a backpacker staying in only dorms for the past 9 days with dozens of strangers and some random wild dogs!
Unfortunately, the next day started off a bit drab. We awoke to a rainstorm that lasted pretty much the entire morning and mid afternoon and with a 10:00am check out and a 10:00pm bus ride, we had a long day ahead. It would have been nice for the little old lady to let us stay in the hostel's main room to watch television and just stay dry, but alas this was not to be. So, we walked around to every single shop that was open to browse and stay warm inside until there were no more shops to see. I decided to make the extreme sacrifice and buy a coffee in the local cafe that cost as much as our 2 day meal budget...but you know I made that coffee last and three hours later, the sun came out and we continued to explore the non-volcano elements of Pucon. These included more shops, a few markets, a lake with a semi-beachish type thing and a lovely cemetary on the side of a hill with a giant Jesus statue, arms outstreched of course, smack dab at the top with benches everywhere to sit and gaze at the spectacular views of the city and Jesus too. This was certainly the highlight of the day and we even got to see a funeral free of charge complete with hysterical woman and screaming babies.
I think South America is going to have many giant statues of Judeo-Christain figures throughout, kind of like the giant random 'big things' statues in Australia and Alex and I will be right there to take the quintesssential touristy photograph for your viewing pleasure so fear not...and taking photographs of giant Christian statues is another free activity to add to our list. When we returned to the hostel to pick up our bags and pay for the room, Carlos, the old lady's son informed us that the price we booked the hostel for online, $7 per person per night, was actually wrong and the price was suppossed to be $18 per person per night and the computer was wrong. Obviously, I threw a Spanglish fit and spoke words that I don't think actaully exist in Spanish or in English, while Alex sneakily took our bags outside and down the street so they couldn't hold them hostage. And, despite his BO, by the end of our "discussion" I felt sorry for the big guy and ended up emailing HostelBookers.com myself to explain his situation, as he has been unable to log onto his HostelBookers account for 3 years...and gave him a hug too.
Why do these things always seem to happen to us? Anyway, it all worked out in the end and we actually thouroughly enjoyed our volcano-less time in Pucon. We are now sitting on another overnight bus...my favourite. At least I have my trusty netbook so I can catch up on my blogs. We get to Santiago tomorrow early morning so I will be good and grumpy by then to walk a harrowing/gruelling 5 mile walk back to our hostel to wait for check in at 1:00pm, falling asleep on the dirty couch in the main room until that time. Perhaps we can get there in time for some free breakfast of toast and jam...now that would be a right treat. Oh the life of a traveller...you can't beat it.