Not long ago – though long enough ago that it was still hockey season - trying to watch the news, I was startled awake from a slumber induced by a seemingly endless report on the hockey playoffs: my subconscious, obviously more awake than the rest of me, had caught the words ‘volcano eruption’ and ‘Chile’. It was just a short mention, and by the time I was fully alert it was over, but a check of Google quickly brought me up to date: Puyehue volcano in south-central Chile had indeed erupted, for the first time since 1960.
The photos were spectacular: a 10 km high cloud of gas and ash against a deep blue sky, others with volcanic lightning putting any fireworks to shame. Normally I would have read it with interest, maybe thought briefly about the effect it might have for its surroundings, vaguely relieved that nobody had come to harm, but it would soon be forgotten.
As this volcano, however, is in a region where we travelled not even six months ago, these news touched more than the surface: we had seen this volcano and many others, seemingly at rest, had become aware of their steady presence in the lives of the people of this beautiful yet geologically troubled nation. They have dominated the landscape since long before any humans roamed their slopes or tilled the fertile soil enriched by their ashes, asleep, sometimes for long periods of time, but unpredictable and always there.
When we saw it last, we were not thinking of the potential danger it could pose; our minds were on other things, and we had just begun to breathe a little easier after overcoming the last hurdle in an unforeseen obstacle course.
In my last South America blog entry I talked about our stay at Gretel and Nikita’s on the shores of remote Lago Vintter in Patagonia. While the last leg of the journey to get there was quite an adventure we had found the bus system in Argentina as well as in Chile excellent: busses were modern, clean and comfortable – and very reasonably priced. For the most part we just went to the bus depot and bought our ticket (this was a bit of a learning process in the beginning, I have to admit, mostly to do with the language barrier, but with every new part of the trip it got easier). Only once we had the feeling that it might soon be difficult to book a ticket for a certain time, and that was right before Christmas when everybody went someplace for the holidays, often using the bus as mode of transportation. Other than that we never had trouble to book a seat, usually had the choice of where we wanted to sit.
With that in mind, and after conversations with other travellers who had crossed the border west of Bariloche where we, too, wanted to cross, we weren’t worried about the last part of the journey, the way back to Santiago. Everything had gone so smoothly, and we didn’t give it another thought. We had bought our tickets from Temuco, where we had left part of our luggage before going south with our friends, back to Santiago for Sunday morning, with enough time to get safely to the airport Sunday night; that we had decided not to leave to chance.
Nikita was going to take their daughter Monica and grandson Jan to Esquel on Friday; they wanted to catch the bus to Buenos Aires from there, and there was room enough for us to come along to this bigger town with good bus connections. Perfect!
We said good-bye to Gretel a little before six on Friday morning, after a last breakfast together. Would we see them again? Last time we were quite as unsure about that, and yet not even two years later we were back. Now that we had eaten the fruits of the Calafate bush we were bound to return, if the Tehuelche legend can be believed.
We had last driven this road on our way to Lago Vintter in February of 2009 with our little rented Opel Corsa, and it had taken us forever: ripio, the Argentinean version of gravel roads, is very hard to negotiate with a small car. With Nikita’s ‘Rodeo’, a kind of SUV, it seemed to be a lot easier, and this time I actually got to enjoy the beautiful lush landscape instead of keeping my eyes on the road the whole time: Nikita knows this stretch of road like the back of his hand, and big rocks sticking out in the middle of the road pose no problem to him.
A little before ten we arrived at the spacious modern bus terminal in Esquel, and while Monica and Jan got ready to board their bus Johann and I immediately checked which bus companies went to Bariloche, our last stop in Argentina from where we would take the bus west across the border, to Osorno and from there to Temuco. There were several, as we found out, so we had a good choice and could compare prices.
This was not going to be our main focus for very long, however; soon we would be concerned with more basic matters. To Bariloche? Yes, at about four in the afternoon, the lady at the first bus company told us. And from there? Monday afternoon. Monday afternoon?! This didn’t help us at all, and we went on to the next company’s counter. This time, however, it was even worse: the next bus with available seats would leave on Wednesday. By then we had planned to have overcome our jetlag already! No more luck anywhere, it turned out: we could get to Bariloche, but not across the border to catch our flight home.
Now what? Which options did we have? According to Nikita there was a flight service available; he had used it a few years back. When I checked it out online it turned out that this airline wasn’t operating any longer. LAN, however, was, and when Nikita inquired on our behalf they were very helpful: of course we could get a flight from Esquel to Temuco! Big relief – until we found out that we had to fly to Buenos Aires first and from there to Temuco, for a lot of money and much too complicated.
What next? Nikita’s sister Nina lives in Bariloche, four hours north of Esquel, and he thought she might know of more bus companies. When he talked to her on the phone she named several we hadn’t tried yet, but upon inquiry they, too, turned out to be booked out. Also, Nina said, Bariloche was full to the brim with tourists, hotels totally booked out, and she, too, had no room in her house because she had visitors. She called several friends with hotels or B&Bs, but the same reply everywhere: no room in the inn.
What were we to do? We were getting ready to call Air Canada and postpone the flight till the middle of the week, trying, without real success, to get enthusiastic about extending our holiday: as much as we liked it here, mentally we were now homeward bound. Once again I got a booth at the locutorio, the internet place, and was in the process of opening the Air Canada site when Nikita received another call from Nina.
This time there finally were some good news: Nina had found a way for us to cross the border. It turned out that there is a taxi service specializing in this endeavour, where a taxi and driver are hired for a certain distance – in our case to Osorno on the Chilean side – for a set price. These taxis, while expensive, were available for the next morning, and she had also found two beds in a hostel in Bariloche, another difficult feat, as we had found out. Thank goodness!
We booked the bus ticket to Bariloche for four in the afternoon, Nina made arrangements with the hostel and the taxi company for us, and we said goodbye to Nikita early in the afternoon. How fortunate we were to have such helpful relatives! This would have been very difficult without them. (To be continued)
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