Free Thumb, But Not Very Opposable

Free Thumb, But Not Very Opposable

Tuesday, Feb. 7, Villarica and Valdivia, Chile

I managed to pass the day on Saturday waiting for my 1:00 a.m. bus from Curico to Villarica. I spent the last 3 hours on a park bench (9:30-12:30) across from the bus station. There was an overhead light, so I read from the novel I´m reading now to pass the time faster and shivered as the night got cooler. Around 1:00, bus after bus came, but mine wasn´t one of them. The bus station wasn´t open, so I had to stand outside. Everyone else waiting took one of the buses that arrived. A guy who was cleaning up inside the station finally invited me inside to wait. He turned on the computer to check on my bus and told me it was on its way. It didn´t arrive until 2:00! Then it was rather uncomfortable. The seats were not nearly as nice as the buses I have ridden before. So I twisted and turned as the hours passed. Finally, we arrived in Villarica around 9:00.

I walked directly to the tourist office, and the two people there spoke enough English to help me find a room. Actually, what I got is a cabin. Almost every house in the town has 4-5 cabins built in the backyard to rent out. They aren´t complete cabins with kitchens--just bedrooms with an attached bath. Mine was quite cozy. There were two beds with a rug between them. A window let in plenty of light during the daytime. One bed was firm and another was sagging. Maybe a sagging bed is a preference for many Chileans, since I have now run across them in several places. Whatever the situation, I took the firm bed and slept well.

The area around Villarica is wonderful and the town is very nice, too. The area has the feel of Colorado, or of Danish summer with mountains. The air is fresh, everything is green, there are wildflowers in many fields, there are wonderful forests, etc. The town itself is quite nice, too. The houses have a European look to them. The downtown buildings are more like in Colorado--much pine in their construction with most of it being rather contemporary in appearance. It´s a very clean city, too. The streets are well paved, and there are designated bicycle lanes on them. The main attraction is the lake with a huge snowcapped volcano in the shape of a perfect cone behind it. Almost all activity is around the lake. There are boats that can be hired for tours on the lake. There are grassy picnic areas along the shore. There are several beaches, including one on the end designated as a nudist beach (although everyone there was clothed).

Chile is the most modern and most advanced of all the Latin American countries I have visited. I am impressed everywhere I go. It is more like Canada or Europe than like the U.S. If you dropped anyone here, only the signs and the spoken language would cause them to have a second thought in terms of it being either northern North America or northern Europe. They seem to have adopted all the little things that we think represent an advanced society. For instance, even the man picking up the garbage in an office yesterday was wearing plastic gloves to do so.

I found a local place in Villarica for lunch. It was full of people, and I was the only tourist. I particularly chose it because one of their specials was ravioli with meat sauce. I am tired of the usual Chilean dishes, so Italian sounded good. The meat sauce was obviously homemade. The food was tasty. And the bread wasn´t the usual Chilean hard bun, it was freshly cooked sopapillas--much like the Mexican kind, but served plain as a bread rather than with honey or sugar-cinnamon as a dessert.

I spent the afternoon walking around the edge of the lake there in town. I watched for opportunities to get a good photo of the volcano, since, like it is with most volcanos, the clouds tended to cluster around the top of it. I watched the people swimming. I sat and read from my book. I visited briefly with a man who approached me while his son was having a lesson at a tennis club across the road. For some reason he knew I was a tourist. He has lived in Vancouver and was here visiting his wife´s family. I got the impression he is a go-getter who changes jobs often trying to get ahead; he has also worked in Banff, and he is returning to Miami, another place where he has worked. I wonder if he does all this illegally? He said he had been though San Antonio driving. Why would he have done that other than to enter the U.S. in an easy way (before 9/11)?

I wish I had a car here. I would see so much more of Chile with one. An independent traveler likes me seeing the cities and the main sites near them, but this area is filled with national parks that cannot be explored via public transportation and are too far away to hike to them. If I ever return, it will need to be with someone else so we can rent a car and explore on our own.

Yesterday morning, I checked out of the cabin to head to Valdivia. I was surprised to see that the woman with the cabins had a wood burning cookstove in her kitchen. It was all fired up. She said that is how she provides the hot water to the cabins. I mentioned it would be good for baking, too.

Valdivia is on a river bend and is also where two rivers come together. It´s a very old city, and there is a tower remaining from the walls that once surrounded it. This area had natives the Spanish were not able to bring under their control. Valdivia was a lone Spanish outpost among this large area the natives controlled. Today, it is a city that has lots of old wooden buildings that are not very attractive. But the riverfront is nice. And there is a nice plaza. There is an outstanding chocolate shop where you can see the chocolates being made. Apparently many people come here just to buy their chocolates!

But I didn´t arrive until 1:30 p.m. Then I had to get a room. I was lucky to find a house with a room for rent upstairs with cable TV and the bath next to it. And it includes a great breakfast which today consisted of rolls, cheese, butter, jams, and a slice of cake! The cake was like a lemon pie with a thin cake on the bottom rather than a crust. I think I might trying making one when I get home--layer of cake (about 3/4 inch thick), layer of lemon pie filling (about 1/4 inch thick), and layer of merringue and baked until the merringue is lightly golden.

After getting the room, I went to see a doctor. The x-rays showed that my thumb is probably healed enough. The doctor took an intermediary step. He removed the splint and cleaned the wounds around the pin endings. Then he wrapped me up again only in a flexible gauze bandage. He told me to start exercising the thumb to get my movement back while waiting 2 more weeks to have the pins removed. The thumb doesn´t move much right now, but I am making progress. I can touch the tips of my index finger and the one next to it. It´s taken lots of work to get that far in the past 1/2 days. And it goes stiff again as soon as I don´t do that moment after moment. Hope I can get it back to normal. I can´t write with it yet, for instance.

It was already 4 p.m. by then, so I headed out to eat my first and only meal of the day. I found a small place with a roasted pork special. It was two pieces of pork about 1 1/4 inches thick. It was so good. And it came with a yellow rice that had mixed vegetables within it and with a salad. I was so full, I knew I wouldn´t need to eat again. Therefore, I went to the grocery store on my way back to my room and bought a bottle of wine to celebrate having my thumb back. It is Missiones del Reino and is a Reserva Carmenére 2003 from the Valle de Rapel. I had half of it last night, and it is quite good.

Today, it is drizzly. I will go to the bus station to try to make plans for traveling tomorrow. And if all goes well, I will make a trip up river this afternoon and report on it on my next entry.