Maldito Canadiense

Damn Canadians. That´s right, I will speak poorly of the U.S.´s cold, northern neighbor. A recent, long-anticipated camping trip to Parque Nacional Puyehue was thwarted yet again. My friend Kristy and I took an overnight bus down to Osorno in the Lakes District about 12 hours south. We eagerly calculated food needs for several days of camping and laughed off the front page of the newspaper that described a disappeared person in the national park 1 hour away. I have been wanting to hike in PN Puyehue (pronounced POO - as in doo-doo; YAY - as in a giddy child; WAY - as in the phrase "no WAY" when someone can´t believe the splendiferous magnificence of a situation) for months now. I would describe it as one of my top 5 sites to see here. The park...no, specifically the trail that I wanted to hike within the gigantic national park that borders Argentina...features a volcano that last erupted in 1960 leaving dried lava rivers, sweeping sand dunes, active geysers, and wild hot springs (not to be confused with the geysers). Oh, and the peak of the volcano is easily reached (supposedly) with a short hike, yielding a breath-taking view. Well, neither Kristy nor I know if any of that is true because a stupid Canadian caused that section of the park to be closed as they searched for him. Apparently the police and park officials didn´t want random hikers happening upon the aforementioned disappeared idiot. On a side note, I am being so harsh only because he did live in the end, which we discovered after our camping. We still had a wonderful time seeing other areas of the park...but I was pissed. We went to Pampa Frutilla (Strawberry Field). It was a beautiful area, but the second day seemed never-ending as we hiked for about 8 hours without encountering new water sources and rationing the small amount we had. After finally arriving at Pampa Frutilla, I climbed a small hill to look for a camping spot and promptly put my exhausted and ill-tempered ass to bed. However, I was greeted by just about the most astounding thing: 2 lakes about 20 minutes away. We immediately drank as much of the remaining water as we could stomach and high-tailed it to the liquid gold awaiting us. The swimming was wonderful, although quite unusual because the lava-rock bottom immediately gave out, making it impossible to slowly wade into the icy, mountain lake. Although breathing was difficult, the swim and the following spaghetti feast made the entire day and trip well worth it. We were the only people on the trail the entire three days, minus the 2 people leaving as we first entered the trail. We had luck hitching to other areas of the park to enjoy the domesticated hot springs. Our luck ran out back in Osorno, though, with all buses back to Santiago being sold out. So we trained it north several hours Monday morning and that night took an bus back to Santiago, making me unfortunately (I can´t describe the pain I felt) miss several days of class! I have now been spitting and farting to the north in hopes that it will dampen the air quality in Canada - I´d appreciate it if you did the same.