..... Pati's sister Gloria and her lovely big family was waiting for us to take us in- that fine first day of the year.
They picked us up at the Plaza and escorted us to their house where we had dinner with the couple and their five daughters (between 14 and - I think - 28 years old) and some grandchildren running around in between.
I surely was impressed by the happiness and comfort those people moved around in- the girls seem to do all the cooking and house work while joking and poking around with each other....mom and dad sitting and watching this happy crowed they had created. When ever I pointed out how lovely those girls are, Gloria's eyes would just light up with joy and pride. It was a gift to spend the time amongst them, be taken in by them.......One of the girls offered us her room and we slept like babies surrounded by stuffed animals and other girly stuff indicating a happy childhood.
The youngest girl Valentina "biked" us out of town on her little "clunker bike" the next morning
(but not after a good breakfast) and back to ruta 5 - back on track to Puerto Montt another 700km to go with no "date" in between, just a boring highway.
Ahhhh, not true, we did have a date: We had stopped at a rest stop to fix James' flat tire and eat some lunch. As usual there were a lot of people and we were the attraction and answered a lot of question, telling stories and so on. One young man and two of his friends devoured in a cantaloupe melon and even though cantaloupe isn't my favorite it looked like that particular one was a good one and I envied what they had and I didn't. I watched a little from the corner of my eye.....I could almost taste it.... It was hot and dusty on that parking lot and we were done eating our fruitless, but none-the less tasty lunch, ready to go, when the young man who had shared the melon with his friends, came over to us and started a conversation....next thing we knew he had invited us over to his house in Valdivia at the coast a few 134km from where we were. He said he absolutely loves to cook, has an extra bedroom for guests and the town is worth a detour/visit. To make his point clear he went to his car, picked up another cantaloupe and handed it over to us along with his cell phone number. I couldn't believe our luck.....I REALLY NEEDED THAT MELON RIGHT NOW! and that date, of course....
Well, I said, we'll be there tomorrow - promise! They took off waving and we were thrilled - another date, another place and a cook who wants to cook for hungry cyclists. Judging from the taste of the fruit he had giving us saying: "this is a good one" we knew we had it made "he knows what he is talking about" and we had a good excuse to detour off Highway 5 again and take a trip to the Pacific - last seen in Northern Peru, last touched in Ecuador.
We camped our butts at a Copec gas station
(which turns out to be a very easy and cheap way to spend the night - hot water, food and a level, clean place to camp) and then off to Valdivia - excited!
We rolled into town, straight to the Plaza - not very impressed...
Doesn't matter, we came here to play and eat with the locals.... I pulled out the phone number of our accointance from the flat tire parking lot and some friendly young man on a park bench offered to call - no answer. A little later: no answer. Hours later: no answer. We left messages after messages and after a beer (for James) and a nice big and expensive ice cream (for me) we gave up and felt "stood up" and a bit sad... neat less to say. We sat around for a while longer and were greeted excitedly by Ana and her daughter who had seen us at the Copec station the night before. We all sat and talked for a while. They were tourists from the States and able to cheered us up.
But at the end we had to find one of those expensive hotel rooms (Chile is EXPENSIVE!!) - it had gotten dark and dark means 10pm around here. So much for our detour and the dream of a home made dinner - really? See how spoiled I am?
