el alemán y su mapa

I haven`t written in a few days because I´ve been staring at my computer a lot at work this week, but that doesn`t mean I didn`t have a traveling weekend full of ridiculous stories. Anyway I´m actually at work now, but kind of pissed at the office so I´m going to start being productive after I write about my weekend.

After plans to go hiking with a friend fell through, I decided at the last minute to hop on a bus to Puerto Varas. Puerto Varas is the Lake George that I thought I was visiting when I went to Puerto Octay (the one with the empty hostel). Its on the same lake but on the other side, and LOADED with tourists. All I wanted to do this weekend was to do a little hiking. My plan was to arrive in Puerto Varas on saturday afternoon and find a hiking activity for Sunday. As predicted, there was an extensive tourist info center (they have on in every city in Chile) that was full of books of guided adventure tours. After a frustrating 45 minutes looking through books to find that no one was answering the phone, and all the tours were foolishly expensive, I decided to find my hostel. The hostel was the answer to all my prayers. It was cute and colorful and the woman at the desk talked to me in spanish even though I know she spoke english. Little did I know that it would also be the source of all of my entertainment for the weekend. After settling down in my colorful bed, I asked the woman at the desk for advice for a day of hiking. She informed me there was a German guy named Marcos who used to be a guide, and he would know exactly what to do.

She pointed me outside where there was a punkish looking guy (think Teddy Lyttle, circa 7th grade) dressed in all black with a bandana around his neck, drinking a beer. You used to be a guide? I asked. What? It was quite common for people to not understand me and my accent sometimes, so I continued on to the next question. Do you have any ideas of what I should do tomorrow? Sure, he told me. Canyoning. Canyoning is some silly outdoor adventure thing where you pay a company a lot of money and then you put on a wet suit and slide down waterfalls. OR something like that. I was not interested in this activity, but it seemed to be all he could offer. Instead of useful information, he offered me a beer and I obviously accepted. One beer and a half hour later, we were buddies. Him and his friends seem to have just graduated from college, and had bumming around Puerto Varas for over a month. He said I spoke spanish well, and I understood him without a problem (this always makes me like someone). After we finished out beers, he invited me to spend the afternoon with his friends.

Hey, do you want to hang out with us for the afternoon?

Uhhh what are you going to do?

SKATEBOARD.

Uhhh, I totally would, but unfortunately I didn´t bring mine.

Oh well we have extras.

Yeah but I don`t know how.

But we´ll teach you!

Uhh, I think I´m going to go lay on the beach.

Hahaha. I thanked him for the beer, and went to do some more research about where to find a nice walking trail. I found a map and some information on where to hike and spent the afternoon laying on the beach and bumming around town. I ran into my friend who had picked up some more skateboarding buddies. We picked up some supplies at the supermarket (more beer) and went back to the hostel. As I was hanging out and enjoying their company, I considered why I had been told that he was a german tour guide, when he seemed to be neither german, nor have any information about the area. As I was considering this, I heard my friend say that Marcos was on his way back to the hostel. Marcos? ¿Cómo te llamas tú? I asked him. Javier. Hahha. I lost myself in my typical bought of giggles and they all looked at my like I was insane. I explained the mix up and they joined me in my laughter. You can´t complain, he argued, I offered you a beer!

Later, a tall germanic look man named Marcos showed up, and was the answer to my dreams. He immidiately took control of my handy red notebook and drew me a serious of maps with options for trails to take (wonderfull reminiscint of a map a man from Alabama drew me to help me and Jacob and Seth find a castle in the golan heights-- informative, but not to scale). He gave me directions on how to get there, landmarks along the way, and time estimates for each section. The next morning I woke up bright and early and took the hour long bus ride to Petrohue upon his suggestion. This led me to another lake that was more isolated than the first, and surrounded by beautiful mountains and volcanoes. I spent the day walking a few trails between two volcanoes, and then wandering around the beautiful beach (where I took my first chilean butt picture with the self-timer on my camera, now don`t know how to explain it to my chilean friends when I show them my pictures). I felt like I was mostly all alone all day, but much to my surprise when I returned to Petrohue in the afternoon I found it also to be bustling with english-speaking tourists. I stopped on the way back at the Saltos of Petrohue which were overpriced and overrun with tourists, but very beautiful. Another very successful weekend....