Almost in a riot....

It was a day or two before Christmas, and while the specific date is unimportant, three things about this particular day have quite a bearing on our story. First, this was the day that we arrived in Puerto Varas. Second, it was almost Christmas. Third, the final game of a South American soccer league was being played on this day. Because it was our first day in town, Lex and I spent in wondering around, trying to get a sense for how the town was laid out while seeing some of the touristy attractions that "are not to be missed" in Puerto Varas. This lead us to the red church on the hill which is the most famous and landmarkical building in all of the municipalidad of Puerto Varas. This is where fact number two comes into play. Because of the proximity of Christmas, there was to be held, that very night, a community orchastral performance in the church. We decided to go to get into the Christmas spirit and hear some interesting music. The concert was basically a large number of youths ranging from 8ish through 18ish, who were organized by age into several orchastral groups. Each group played several pieces, some Christmassy some not, but this fact is of little consequence to the story.

After the Concert (well in all honesy, after the part of the concert that I watched) I went out side and begain taking night shots of the church and town (some of which can be seen in our photo gallery here http://lexieandjamie.com/chilepics/lake%20gallery/ about 60% of the way down). As I trapsed about I noticed more and more cars starting to circulate around the town, many with youths hanging out the windows, sreaming or singing, and all honking their horns and flashing their lights. Eventually Lex finished with the concert and we walked toward city center together. Meanwhile the stream of cars had increased until many roads in the center of town were becoming backed up and people were taking to the streets running and screaming, and waving their flags and banners festooned with the words COLO-COLO. This is where the third fact about this particular day becomes relevent, because it was not just any soccer game that was played on this day, but it was the finals of a very competitve South America league, and it just so happened that this year, a team from Santiago name Colo-Colo was in the finals.

Colo-Colo has a reputaion for maintaining a fanatical following both in Santiago and throughout much of Chile. The team and the fans are very energetic, and very contected to the games. Large unplanned street gatherings of celebration or commiseration are common in Santiago after games depending on the outcome, and are oftern broken up by the police.

What had happened on this particular night was that Colo-Colo had in fact won the championship, and now their loyal fans were everywhere cheer, chanting, and singing the teams battle song. The group grew as it ran through the streets, blocking traffic and lighting it's way with road flares. In all honesty it was a bit of an eary sight to see a large group of people uniformly clad in the team colors, waving flags, singing a victory anthem, all lit only by the red glow of emergency flares. All this was surrounded by backed up traffic with horns blaring and lights flashing, some with celebration, some with consternation at the 10 PM traffic jam.

We stayed and watched for awhile, and Jamie was even handed a flag to wave, and propted to sing Colo-Colo. As we walked back to our hotel, another bystander asked if we spoke English, and then what the heck was going on. We got some laughs, when we said that Americans weren't this passionate about ANYTHING, yet here they were going all out for a soccer game.

The refrigerator

The other day I swung the door on the fridge open to do my normal purusal of the options. But instead of the suction sound that normally accompanies such an actioin, I was greeted by a scuction, then a bang followed by the sound of glass bouncing around on other glass.

As the door fell off the hinges and toward the floor I was able to keep it from pouring out most of it's contents, but nonetheless, the refridgerator door fell off the other day.

The peculiar lock

The couple that we are borrowing this apartment from told us to be sure to always deadbolt the door when we left, because it is apparently common knowlegde that a normal door handle can be opened with a piece of plastic cut from the cross section of a Coke bottle (similar to how some people can do the same thing with a credit card)..

Fast forward 2 weeks, Lex and I are getting ready to go out for a run. Jamie unlocks the deadbolt (which they keep locked mostly when we're home) so they could leave, but since he already had a key in his pocket he left the key he was using in the door. The happy couple left, and Jamie turned around to lock the door before they went down the elevator. Here it is important to not that there is only one key hole on the door, you turn it once to open the door or twice to unlock the deadbolt and then open the door, depending of if it's locked or not. However, Jamie could not turn the key at all once it was in the lock, not to lock it, or reopen the door, it was quite a predicament. All this to say, that the key on the inside of the door in the lock was preventing us from using the outiside of the lock to re-enter our apartment.

Here it is important to note that all emergency contact numbers are on the inside of the apartment because Jamie doesn't run with his cell phone in hand, and also it was New Years Day, so no lock smith would be open. So here we were with the key in our hands but somehow locked out of the apartment.

God is however good, and Jamie remembered the Coke bottle trick, also, there was a Fanta (which is close enough to Coke for our purposes here) bottle in the recycle bin only one floor down. Using the key (at least it was good for something) Jamie cut out a cross section, and after about 20 minutes of fiddling Lexie finally popped the lock. We praised God and vowed to always use the deadbolt, and never leave the key in the lock again. And so far we have lived happily ever after.

Found Julian's rod and reel

So this may be the only story from our trip that involves fly fishing in anyway... but maybe not. Bear with me nonetheless, beacause unlike most stories that relate to fly fishing this one is not dull, boring, or pointless.

The narrative begins our first night in Puerto Varas, when we eat dinner and hang out all night with a fine gentleman from Australia named Julian. Julian is a world traveller to say the least. He hasn't been back to Australia for several years, but has spend two stint of longer than six months wondering alone through Africa. And he made several mentions of Asian and European trips as well even though he had just recently arrived in Chile from the United States. We had a great time with Julian, sharing stories and bantering about that which travelers so often discuss. The only thing that seemed wrong with Julian was that he was inexplicably hooked on fly fishing. While this fact that such a well travelled and apparently intelligent person could be interested in something so purposeless and droll was perplexing to us we nevertheless enjoyed his company.

The next day we happened to be on the same bus out into the country regions, but he got off much earlier on than we did for our hike that day. By pure chance on our way back into town, he again alighted onto the bus that we were already on. We resumed our discussion from the night before, and all was well.

Once the bus arrived in town we jumped off the bus quicky in order to snap some pictures of the volcano which was finally free of the cloak of cloads it had worn continuously since our arrival. Julian followed, and we continued talking. Eventually we parted ways, Julian to go shopping and Jamie and Lexie to take more pics. Out of the blue a man with a bike walked up to Lexie and said something to her in Spanish while holding out a black padded tube. Finally we figured out that the man had been on the bus with us and the tube was actually Julians fly rod, in its travel case. It appeared that he had forgotten it on the bus, and the man had seen it when he got off at a later stop, and had tracked us down as friends of Julian.

This story is incredible for several reasons. First, that the man didn't just keep the very valuble fly rod for himself. Second, that he had noticed it was Julians. Third, that he noticed we were talking with Julian, and fourth that he was able to find us and return the rod. Julian had already realized his error and had run all over town trying to find the bus by the time we found him and told him the good news. He had been pretty hard on himself for his carelessness and told us he didn't deserve to have the rod back. Still he took it and we had several more fun evenings and experiences together... but we'll always remember Julian for the unlikely way in which we ended up with his fly rod.

Our Bloody Mexican Feast

It was our big night. We had agreed to cook dinner for the whole family. It was to be a Mexican feast of epic proportions. We were running behind as so often happens with these things and our ten guests were milling about in the other room, and occasionally trying to offer us their help. This was unnecessary as everything but the rice was done, and that nearly so.

Another couple of minutes, and another bowl of placating guacamole for the family, and we were ready. Everyone sat down, and after some explaining about what a burrito was and how it was made, things were being passed, and beans were being flung, and everyone laughed at our "pico de gallo" salsa, which literally translated means, beak of the rooster. Things were going swimmingly to say the least and Lex stepped back into the kitchen to heat up some more tortillas. Soon after a plate crashed onto the tile floor. Jamie looked over to Mariluiz (our host mom) and said "Lo ciento para la plato". She replied with a look of slight sadness that said at once, "so is life" and "it REALLY is OK". After a few more moments of silence Lexie's voice rang out through a sob asking for help.

At that point practically everyone rushed to the kitchen to find Lexie standing over a broken plate with one foot in the air. As she stood there blood had covered the majority of the bottom of her foot and was beginning to drip onto the tile floor.

With lots of help, and paper towels and offers to go to the hospital, the blood was sufficiently pushed aside to find the wound. Pressure was applied, and Lex was moved to the bathroom for cleaning. One aunt left to get better medical supplies from her house, but the cleaning and bandaging went right on without her. Eventually, it was found that Lex had sustained a small puncture wound on the small side of the ball of her left foot. It was fairly deep but less than half an inch in length (see a picture of it in a semi healed state here). It did however bleed rather profusely, and make for quite an exciting night.

Everyone was worked into such a frenzy in fact, that the dinner was still tasty, and highly lauded by all, dispute the fact that it was now cold.

The worst time ever to do the best thing ever....

One day, not so long ago, Lexie and I sat on our bed having what can only be described as a heated discussion in which each of us was very and emotionally attached to our particular side of the issue at hand. Needless to say great care was taken with each word, and expression. Every syllable and movement necessitating perfect choreography and execution in order for resolution to be reached.

It was at this moment, during a very delicate situation to say the least, that a fly buzzed in through the window and b-lined for the air space between the disputing partners. As the insect passed directly between the two humans, Jamie reflexively raised his hand, and without breaking eye contact with Lexie, swept it through a single smooth arc like motion, closing his open hand quickly at the very apex of the arc. As so often happens in these situations when the epic becomes reality, or a man becomes a legend, time stopped, the discussion stopped, all thoughts except complete and utter amazement cease. Jamie had, in a single smooth motion plucked the fly from the air without ever even looking at it. All those present could do nothing but stand in awe at the magnitude of the event that had just taken place. After a time of silence, Jamie threw the fly back out the window, and the discussion resumed, but not without the knowledge that we had both been part of something special, an event the likes of which occurs only a handful of times anywhere during a life time.