Frustration with Mexicana

Frustration with Mexicana

Satruday, Jan. 4, Curico, Chile

I´ve been trying to join the Mexicana online membership so I can buy a ticket to get from Mexico City to San Antonio. It doesn´t look as if it will work. I joined, but I also have to fill out the payment method. Well, computers are smart enough today that the Mexicana site knows I am in Argentina, and it won´t accept the idea that my credit card is a U.S. card if I am in Argentina!! Isn´t that rediculous!! I´ll probably have to take an all-night bus because of this hangup. What a mess!!!!!

I´ve been in Curico for two days. It´s a city of 150,000 people that is 2 1/2 hours south of Santiago. It´s a center for the fruit and wine industry in Chile. Coming here, we passed lots of vineyards and orchards. There were also lots of big fruit warehouses and packing plants. Some of the names were American--Dole and Del Monte, for two. Just outside of Curico is the Torres Winery. I went by there today, but it wasn´t open for some reason. It is one of the best known of all the wineries in Chile, and their wines are exported both to the U.S. and to Chile. It´s a nice complex that even includes a restaurant.

When I arrived yesterday, I went to the tourist office where a very nice young student spoke English well. She said he father and her brother are doctors if I need any help with my thumb while here! She suggested restaurants and places to stay and gave me maps.

I had a strange experience with the first place I went for a room. The woman opened the door and quoted a price of 6000 pesos when I asked for a room for one person. I asked if I could see the room, and she didn´t understand. I tried motioning by pointing to my eyes. She got upset. I think she thought I was trying to talk her down in price or something. How she could help but understand that I wanted to look at the room, I don´t know; everyone else everywhere has understood that pointing to the eyes and then pointing into the building means that I want to see the room. Anyway, then she had a sour look on her face and announced she had only a double room that was grand in size and would be 10,000 pesos. As I walked away, I thought two things: 1. I didn´t like her personality, so I am glad that I didn´t stay there. 2. She really was a bitch.

I found another place down the street, but there were strange things about it, too. I got a nice room upstairs with a window overlooking the back yard. In the evening when I had returned to the room, I realized that one bed was better than the other because it was more firm whereas the other sagged. I got on top of the bed to read for a while. After I while, I felt a bite and looked. I found a flea. I searched and found one other. Well, I looked at the other bed and pulled the covers back. It had light colored sheets, so I could see that it was fine. I went to bed in it, but then I couldn´t sleep because the sag was so really bad. After about 2 hours, I realized that I needed to deal with the problem. I moved my luggage to the side, lifted a chair onto the top of the bed with the fleas, and took my mattress off the sagging bed and placed it on the floor. After that, I slept well all night. Then this morning, I asked one of the two women (sisters?) running the place for a towel. As she went to get one, the other must have asked what I wanted. Then she started yelling. It must have been because she didn´t think they should have to provide me with a towel. Anyway, this town seems to have a problem with women with problems!

I had a late lunch because of the time it took to get here and to get a room yesterday. Most places had quit serving lunch by then. I found a pizza place and had a small pizza and a glass of pineapple juice. The pizza was good with a thin, crispy crust and covered with tomato sauce, cheese, ham and mushrooms. It was nice to have a pizza (and a good one, too) for a change.

The tourist office told me that Tur Bus has buses to Villarica. That´s the company that showed nothing on their computers when we checked in Santiago. So I went back to the Tur Bus office after eating. Sure enough, there were about 5 buses to choose from. They all begin in Santiago, so the night buses are LATE NIGHT buses from here. I took the earliest one. It will pick me up here tonight at 1 a.m.

It was too late to do anything else after all that but explore the town. I saw an old church from the 1700s, an ornate bandstand on the square, a modern church built inside the ruins of an old church, the shopping streets, etc. I spent quite a bit of time in the plaza on a bench watching people and reading. I bought two empanadas (ground meat, onion, gravy, olive, and boiled egg inside the crust) and ate them and went to my room around 8:30.

Today, I took a bus to Molina planning to stop at the Torres Winery. When I saw that it was closed, I just went on to Molina on the bus. We passed apple orchards with apples hanging on the trees, tomato fields where they were picking the tomatoes and then cutting down the stalks, more vinyards, more fruit packing plants, etc. Molina is a small old town. The houses are all adobe with super thick walls and old, old tile roofs. I wandered the streets, bought a pastry and ate it, sat on the square for a while, and then caught the bus back to Curico.

I ate lunch at a nice small place run by a mother and son. There were only two choices--two things I´ve had too frequently lately--but I chose one anyway. I had the sweet corn casserole with chicken, beef, boiled egg, etc. I had tomato salad first, drank melon juice, and had a big slice of watermelon as dessert. It was all good quality. I may go back and have a sandwich there for dinner tonight with a banana milk shake.

Most of the afternoon, I have been sitting in the plaza here reading. I´m just passing the time and trying to stay comfortable. It´s now 6:30, so I have about 6 hours more to go before the bus will be arriving. I may hike up a hill. I have to go back to my hotel around 9:00 and pick up my luggage that I stored there.

Tomorrow I will arrive in Villarica. That is on the northern edge of the Lake District. I´m keeping my fingers crossed that I can find a room when I get there.