Zapala 1

Hotel Pehuen, Elena de Vega y Etchulez, Zapala, 02942 - 423135

Am so glad I booked into this hotel! It couldn´t have been easier to find once I got to the bus terminal at Zapala - a very different story to yesterday´s clueless wandering. I was up at 6 this morning ready to get my bus from Temuco to Zapala, over the Andes. Maggi, the lady at the hostel very kindly phoned for a taxi for me, which was only about 2,000 pesos - just over two quid - and two quid well spent as the bus went from a completely different terminal to the one that I arrived at from Santiago, and would have gone to otherwise. I knew there were a few terminals, and had asked a couple of people whether Igi Llaima (the one I had to go from) was the same one that I arrived at, but obviously hadn´t been making myself understood... oops!

Anyway, despite having to pass through two lots of customs, this journey was a lot less stressful than the previous one. I had a very entertaining converstaion with the lady sitting next to me, Eva, who was also going to Zapala. A combination of charades and looking things up in the dictionary meant we actually managed to have a reasonable chat. There was a lot of discussion between her and two girls in the seats next to us as to whether or not I should attempt to eat my four ciruelas (plums) before we got to the Argentine border crossing, where all fruit is confiscated. In the end it was decided that it wasn´t a good idea as the sign on the toilet door on the bus said that you were only allowed to urinate in the toilet - nothing else!

Anyway, I'm now holed up in my hotel room and it's about 6pm. Feel like I should be out and about exploring Zapala (it´s not very big) but I don't have a map of the town, and to be honest, the last few days have been hard work just getting from A to B, so I'll leave it until tomorrow. I'm hoping that I can just get some food in the hotel tonight, and pay when I pay for the room tomorrow as I've got no Argentinian money yet, the bank is shut as it's Sunday, and I was hoping to change some of my US dollars so I'm not carrying them around all the time.

Must also try to learn some more Spanish, as, even in Santiago I only met a couple of people who spoke good English. Since leaving there on Friday, not only has nobody spoken any English whatsoever, but I haven´t even seen anyone who looks like they´re anything other than Chilean or Argentinian, which is great, but scary at the same time as I'm not only having to be very self-reliant, but also rely very much on the help and kindness of strangers, something I rarely need to do in London.

The bus ride through the mountains was great - on the Chilean side it started off as farmland that could have been southern France, or maybe even England in places, except the trees are different. Saw someone cutting hay with a machine pulled by cattle, and then as we climbed higher there were lots of pine trees and rivers. On the Argentinian side of the Andes it looks much, much drier, a vast landscape broken only by outcrops of rocky hills, and clusters of what look like poplar trees. There are also lots of monkey-puzzle trees, which from what (I think) Eva was saying, is where pine nuts come from. It certainly looks as though it will be really hot for riding.