Beer, Big Cities, and Our Rented House

The morning in Hornopirens we woke up to a flat tire. Greaaaat. Another broken piece on our car. After jacking up the car, removing the wheel, and carrying it to the closest mechanic, he inflated it and told us it didn´t have a flat. The valve must have gotten pinched that night or something.

We put the wheel back on and headed the hour and a half to Puerto Montt. I was immediately overhwhelmed when we got there. Huge city! Especially after 2 months in Patagonia. Driving was stressful, and finding a mechanic to check out our car seemed impossible. After speaking with an English speaking tourist information employee, we followed his directions to the area of town with mechanics. Within an hour we had a mechanic working on replacing the radiator and CV joint. In the meantime we sent some mail, and Acacia´s taxes finally! We also bought 6 ears of corn, myself a fanny pack, a dulce de leche covered soggy waffle from a street vendor, and some Chinese food. When we went back to get the car, the mechanic said they didn´t have the CV joint so we´d have to wait until Monday to get it fixed. Still, a new radiator in 3 hours start to finish seemed impossibly fast compared to our previous experience in Coyhaique.

We drove the 20 minutes to Puerto Varas, and after drivng in a few circles trying to navigate the one way streets of the town, found a hostel. It was pretty fantastic. Huge kitchen, dream catchers, the receptionist was working on an art project, large wooden steps and bunk beds, a nice back yard, book exchange, etc., etc. Serious, the best place we have stayed I think. It reminds me a lot of the Faulkner house. Plus there are trees stenciled on the wall!

 I checked out the casino in town while Acacia read at the hostel. We got in contact with Jeff, who was also overwhelmed by Puerto Montt and just flown right through to Puerto Varas, albiet getting a flat tire in town.

We basically just sat around this huge hostel all to ourselves in the morning, drinking coffee and reading until about 2pm. We then headed to the Chester Beer event. Stoked! It was a couple kilometers out of town to Chester´s house where he also brewed beer. It was an awesome setting; surrounded by apple orchards, cow pastures, with views over the lake, it seemed kind of like a Bennet Valley family gathering. All the rural neighbours all got together, brought their kids, and drank beer (not wine), and ate great cheese and sausage. And somehow we had managed to hear about this? I was impressed with that. Anyway, Chester is from Philadelphia, had come to Chile while fleeing SARS when teaching English in China, and got into the brewing scene about 10 years ago. He brews out of two shipping containers in his backyard.  There was also a guy selling cheese at a booth, and another selling sausage. 6 bucks got you in and a full sample of each table´s offerings, and then another 2 bucks for round 2s or 3rds...or 13ths... The crowd was surprisingly foreign, although we were some of the only travelers because most of the foreigners lived there. There was the US/Hungarian family--Vince, his wife, two kids, and nephew Chris, the British guy Brian, his wife and their daughter, an Irish dude named Shane, Jane from Maryland, another from Philadelphia, another American who was a 'serial entrepeneur', a Dutch guy (who also thought that just about everything came from Holland), and a few Chileans who had lived in the states for some number of years. Quite the international crowd, with Jeff of course. 6 hours of such an event was enough for some serious social lubrication. We chatted with everyone there who spoke any English pretty much. This included meeting our friend Carlos who was a rafting guide trying to start a community/cultural experience at his home for a better way to travel to the area with the option of cheap accomodation in return for helping to work the land. I also discovered that Chris had just graduated from structural engineering at UCSD in March and had lived in San Diego his whole life. He is down here to help out his uncle and get some experience because his uncle runs a construction company or something. Also, the cheese guy had graduated from University of British Columbia in 2008?, worked as general manager at the Waldorf in Vancouver (super crasy for Vancouver folk according to Acacia) and ended up getting into cheese sales after a project with some family member had fallen through in the area around Puerto Varas. What!? Two UBC grads, and UCSD grad(ish)s at this gathering of like 50 people a hemisphere away? That blows my mind. And, trust me, we drank a lot of beers. We caught a ride back to town with Chris who was DDing for his uncle, and hung out at the after party at a bar in town. Although we got back to the hostel around 11pm, it felt way later after 8 hours of partying.

 Chester, the brewer

 The sausage man

The last few days have been spent hanging around Puerto Varas kind of chilling. We went to a murta, a local fruit kind of like a currant, festival with salmon empanadas and hella desserts. I got dragged into dancing Cueca when one of the lady dancers pulled me onto the dance floor for what seemed like the longest song of the festival. All the other locals had the dance down, but I must have seemed retarded. We also did a lot of reading, and watching movies for me. We made a trip back to Puerto Montt to get the CV joint replaced, hung out for a while at Carlos´s awesome cabin with great decorations and furniture made from local wood where we made pizzas and hung out with his dogs and lady friend from Venezuela.  Tomorrow we are off to Chiloe!