Off with a bang!

Thursday night we left Santiago to begin our spring break. The bus to Puerto Varas was a comfy, overnight bus, and as the sun was coming up the whole green valleys were covered with a mist. When we got to PV, we went and had a coffee near our hostel, and the whole town seemed eerily quiet for being a Friday morning. But, while we were waiting for our 2 friends at the hostel the sun came out, and surprise surprise from the edge of the big lake you can see 2 snow capped volcanoes!! The sun made all the difference and the town transformed into a sunny, german-esque adventure sport town. We rented bikes and headed out on a road alongside the lake, riding towards the volcanoes. The landscape was picturesque, with green fields, flowers, horses, and burnt orange cattle dotting it. I was also suffering from serious house/property envy for all the people who live on the edge of that lake. We pulled off on a dirt road and went all the way down, and tadaaa a beautiful beach on the edge of the lake with the volcanoes in view!! We sat there drinking our cervezas bien heladas, took out the paddle boats without the permission of the lifegaurd. The water is ice cold but so clear, and the whole lake was dark blue with some light patches. So pretty. After that, the boys cooked rice, veggies, and fish. After sitting on the pier for a few hours, we decided to call it a night and we went to bed around 2;30 and fell fast asleep.
In my dream, the walls were shaking and things were crashing down, then I heard JJ screaming and yelling for us to get out of our beds and get under the door frame. I got up, disoriented and half blind, and they pulled me to the doorframe where we huddled for what seemed like forever as everything was shaking and rumbling. Having never been in an earthquake, I really had no idea what was going on, but it was super scary, although tommy says I was laughing the whole time. The funniest part is that while all of this ruckus was going on in the dorm room, William and Cassidy remained peacefully sleeping, and we didn´t even think to wake them up. So we woke up without power and were talking about the earthquake, William and Cass had no idea what we were talking about, they thought we were kidding..

SATURDAY
Since we woke up with no electricity, all we knew is that there had been an earthquake, and that we felt it pretty strongly. We got a hold of someone in Santiago who told us that the earthquakes epicenter was near there, but that they were fine in Santiago and just without power or water. So, since we didn´t know any reliable information (someone said the earthquake was a 14.5..), we continued on with our plan to go canyoning. We drove 1 hour to a national park, and hiked up to the top of the start of a series of waterfalls. We had to wear full wetsuits with a head covering because the water was coming straight from glaciers. The different pools of water that we were jumping and sliding in to were beautiful, from light green, turquoise, dark blue, and the water was so pure and clean that we were drinking it straight from the pools, best water ive ever tasted. So we were frolicking in the mountain streams and jumping off cliffs, with no idea as to what was going on in Santiago or anywhere.
When we got back to PV the power had just returned, and we opened our emails and saw that tons of people were very worried about us back home, and we hadn´t even seen any of the news yet so we we really had no idea what was going on. But as we read, we realized that the situation was prettty bad, and if we had felt it as strongly as we had 12 hours south of Santiago, imagine how bad it felt up there. We got a hold of most of our friends and host families in Santiago and everyone seemed ok.
I had an early flight the next morning, so I went to bed early.

SUNDAY
I woke up at 5 so that I could catch my flight to Patagonia. When I got to the airport, it was basically deserted except for people sleeping in their sleeping bags, and it was literally freezing inside. The airport people didn´t even show up until 7 am, and before that no one knew anything and none of the departure screens had been updating. Maybe I was dumb to think that I could still fly out the morning after an 8.8 earthquake, but I figured we were so far south that it would be fine. The airport people basically had no information to tell us except go home, call this number, and I dont know anything else.
So, 60 dollars later I was back in bed at the hostel. That day, we realized that our plans were not going to work out like we thought they would, so we set off to figure out what the heck we were going to do. Of course, it being Sunday, all of the bus company offices and airline offices were closed, no matter that the country was in disaster mode. So we finally found a bus company that was open, and we waited in line for an hour only to hear that the next bus for patagonia wouldn´t be leaving for a week. The airline companies weren´t picking up the phones, and when they did, it was ¨call back at 2, call back at 5, call back tomorrow, at 12 we´ll know something¨, very frustrating. So, what else is there to do except go drink ron piñas at the beach? we went to a beach near the nice one where we were the other day, and drowned our sorrows and swam in the lake. A while later, we tried to hitchhike for about another hour, finally convinced a taxi to take us to... the mexican food restaurant!!!!!! Never have I anticipated food so strongly before.. My enchiladas were amazing, with corn tortillas, salsa roja, mushrooms, and black beans!!! oh so so so good!!!! So that was a beautiful day, and after that we went out with our new Scottish girlfriend and had a great night in PV.

MONDAY
We still needed to figure out our new plan since the airlines didn´t give us any new information and they still had no idea what was going on. We were searching online for several hours, getting more and more anxious, trying to figure out how to get to Patagonia or anywhere for that matter, but none of the websites worked, none of the phones were the right numbers, etc. Then I talked to my parents and they gave me good advice and said that i´m already in paradise, so stop worrying about it and trying to get to another paradise. After hearing that, we went to the beach again to relax and enjoy our time in PV. Tommy and JJ cooked dinner, then we had a laid back night.

TUESDAY
We decided to flip our schedule, and go to Barioloche, Argetina first. We took an awesome tour to get us there, that started at 7 am on a bus where we went to Frutillar, then Puerto Octavo, both cute German towns, then through the misty forests across the border to Argetina! Then, we got on the catamaran on this incredible lake to continue the journey. The scenery was absolutely incredible, the water was emerald green to turquoise, to dark blue, all different shades. This area is almost disturbingly beautiful. It was a seriously great ride, and we got off twice on two different islands to walk around. One island was full of giant sequoias, and we frolicked around there, went down to the beach, and had a cup of tea. It was really very nice. Then, we got to Barioloche which is on the same beautiful lake. It is a very posh ski town, and we walked around, and William got his meat fill finally, a huge platter of it.

Now, wednesday, we are boarding a bus at 2 pm to go to Buenos Aires. The bus ride is only 24 hours long...

It is super strange to be here in a country devastated by an earthquake, but we are so far removed from it right now with our limited access to the news, and how far we are from the epicenter. So im sure it will be a shock when we get back to santiago.