Costs pp: Ferry from Chaiten to Puerto Montt 20,500 6pm to 6am on the Pincoya.
We were allowed onboard the ferry around 4pm and they stowed our packs in a hold near the vehicle entrance. The Pincoya is primarily a vehicle ferry with an area for passengers with reclining seats, small shop and most importantly a tv screen for DVDs. The weather was cool and overcast and the sea completely calm. We watched a couple of movies, looked outside a bit at the passing views but not that great and fell asleep for the night.
We arrived at 6am which was an hour earlier than expected, we had come here to meet an old friend of Carols from her childhood, Tony, who she hadn't seen for over 30 years. We made our way down to the bus terminal to hopefully find an internet cafe that was open early to call Tony and tell him we had arrived. At the terminal the cafe was closed so we plopped ourselves down outside and prepared to wait. A man came to open the office next door and spoke to us and offered us the use of his computer. Carol explained that we needed to use a program called Skype and when he realised what it was he said he has a sister in England who uses Skype and could we please install it on his machine. This we did then Kent helped him set himself up as a user and we searched and found his sister. As soon as we sent her a message from him she called. Well such excitement! She had a video camera and he was beside himself with being able to see her and talk to her for free. Luckily some clients came in to speak to him so we were able to use it for a moment to call Tony otherwise we may have had to wait quite a while haha. His reaction after all this was not to thank us but to ask us please to come back in the afternoon and install the microphone, earphones and camera he was racing out to buy. Luckily we managed to convince him he would easily install those himself.
Tony came straight away to pick us up, he lives in Temuco a few hours north but had come down to visit his partners family and to see us. He took us out for breakfast in the local mall while he and Carol caught up on the past. The next step was amazing, he took us to a local seafront hotel and put us up in a room for the night as his treat! Wow, blown away, what a cool gift. We made ourselves at home in the room which had a view out over the plaza and ocean, filled up the bath and dived in there for about an hour! In the evening Tony took us to meet his lovely partner Patricia and her family and have a bar-b-que with them. It was a very enjoyable night and we got back to the hotel in the wee small hours.
Next destination Temuco.
