To Strawberry, or not to strawberry...

  Frutillar, Chile
Sunday, February 4, 2007

Well Rutger and I heard that there was a music festival in the nearby town of Frutillar. To be honest I just liked the name of the town which, if there was such a word in Spanish, would mean "to strawberry". So after a night in Puerto Montt we hit the road again...


It is a tiny little place located on a beautiful lake with volcanic views. We found a great little camp-ground a 1/2 hour walk from town, just around the lake. So we spent the next 5 days camping, reading, sleeping, reading, sleeping, swimming. In between all that we'd walk into 'town' to get supplies.

Ernesto the camp caretaker was another inspiration to me. He is 80 years old, and works 7 days a week keeping the campsite clean and maintained. I found him nearly impossible to understand, but we managed to have many conversations which mostly seemed to revolve (at HIS instigation I emphasise) around the comings and goings of the single female campers. I found it interesting that he was about the same age that Ernesto 'Che' Guevara would have been if he was still alive...

One day we were doing some volcano watching by the lake and Rutger was saying how impossible it is to chat someone up at the beach. As we had only had one siesta so far that day he soon fell asleep. Promptly three girls appeared, apparently to tell me that he should be careful about sunburn. Just as quickly they left. 5 minutes later they were back to invite us to the pub later that night! Ahh - what studs, we thought, all we have to do is lie here and we get picked up... until we arrived fashionable late at the bar only to sit there drinking alone (the barman confirmed that the girls had never arrived). We just found that so funny that we were glad we didn't end up having to make polite conversation with the chicas.

Well after 5 days of discussing the merits of the lake, the volcano, and the philosophies of don Juan (regarding the ways of the warrior) Rutger and I really needed a break from the break. We were fully recovered from the Torres del Payne hikes and had ichy feet. So we hitched a lift the 7km to the bus stop and made plans to hike to some thermal baths...

Oh, and we never actually did find that music festival!!!