It was almost 4am when I got to bed. We had tried some of the local rum or.... Fionnuala had advised me to try some of the local rum!! I remember Fionnuala´s spanish becoming more and more fluent towards the end of the night. I wanted to get one more round but Fionnuala advised me.... in spanish, with a certain ´je ne sais quoi´in her expression that perhaps it wasn´t such a good idea. There was a look that said ´Fran, Remember that volcano you slid down the other day? Remember how fast you came down? Well, if you get another one of those rums then you´ll be coming down off that stool a hell of a lot quicker than you ever slid off that bloody volcano!!! I.... obeyed. Claro!!, Por Supeusto!! Entonces we went home.
This morning the wisdom of Fionnuala´s advice holds true. I´m tired but I don´t feel so bad. In the cold light of dawn, however I decide that, perhaps, I should head back into Argentina and then south for Patagonia.. Its been a great few days, even more so for having spent the time with Senorita Rosie Fi.
I caught the 10.30 bus to Sam Martin. The journey back into the highlands is beautiful. The mountain scenery with its vivd colours is hard to beat. Added to this are th volcanos which just draw your gaze once you spot them. The people in Chile are lovely. The drivers in Pucon are very polite, no road rage here. We stop in a town about an hour into the mountains. As the bus passes slowly down its main street many of the locals gaze at the bus. When they see you looking at them they smile and wave.
We climb high into the mountains towards the border along a narrow forested valley. The road is no longer paved but consists of gravel. Volcan Lanin comes into view. This is a high volcano at 3,700m and marks the border between Chile and Argentina. I had seen this volcao from the top of Villaricca. The two border posts sit beneath Lanin with majestic views of its slopes and snow capped cone. The boredom of the inevitable delays at the border control are lessened by the withering beauty of Lanin. The delays on the Argentinian side are particularly long today. At the counter two elderly gents with moustaches who look like they could be brothers, appear to be struggling to come to terms with the computer as they peer and frwon at the screen, pointing out something which puzzles them and tentatively punch the correct letter on the keypad.
Slowly, calmly, dilligently almost cheerily they process each person as everybody else twitches with impatience and frustration. There is no obvious reason for the delays other than the ´Marx Brothers´ technological shortcomings. All eyes fix on the boyos with increasing irritation. Eventually we get through and the bus trundles down into Argentina.
We soon join a tarmacced road and the bus cruises smoothly through beautiful broad upland valleys, markedly different from the other side of the mountains. We stop at Junin de Los Andes, a bland looking town that had the middle of nowhere feel to it´.´ It could have been any one of a number of small towns I´d encountered in the mid-west in the states. Less than an hour later we were in San Martin.
San Martin is a relatively small town situated on a pretty lake in a narrow valley dominated by tall, steep wooded hills on either side. It has a very clean, quiet feel to it. There´s a relatively busy main street which widens out into pleasant green plazas every few blocks. Its a resort town and has that touristy feel. Its quite like Pucon in some respects. But Pucon, now holds something special for me. San Martin doesn´t.
I find a hostel and on checking in I bump in to Tomas the dutch lad I´d met in Bariloche a week earlier. After catching on our adventures over the last few days I went for a lie down.. Later I got some dinner in a chea, no frills restaurant. The dreadlocked guy who runs the place studied English in Trinity back in the mid-80´s. His grandfather emigrated from Derry in the 1930´s/40´s and he got to visit relations who still lived in the district.. Aftedr beef stew and mash I had a quick wander round town and then went to bed, tired after the adventures in Pucon.
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