I i flew to santiago with much anticipation, looking forward what will be the second part of my travels around the world with stops in South America, New Zealand, Australia and back to Asia,....though at the moment i am stuck in this little town in the very south of Chile, after a horriffic riverrafting accident that could have easily killed me (e.g. Roger's close encounter with death #2 and counting). But let me not jump ahead.... one after another...
I was warmly welcomed in Santidago by Sandra, a friend from Switzerland, who organized a room in a nice cozy student house, where mainly Chileans are living during the school year. Within one busy day I had organised everything I needed, and even got a nice city tour from a friend of Sandras before the first marathon-day was over. I decided to study spanish for three weeks, which seemed to cut out a big part of my travel time in South America, but studying diligently at this phantastic language school I chose, along with getting to know some locals, really propelled my spanish which was pretty much inexistent before, to conversational in no time. I not only studied hard but befriended our dorm's cleaning lady, whom I talked to all afternoon usually, she was supposed to clean the dorms but with most students out for vacation she chose to rather sit at the kitchen table and talk Spanish, smoking hundreds of cigarettes in the process.
Camping trip....
Hiking at Siete Tazas
That by itself would have been a good way to learn Spanish, but the fact that I met Marcela whom I spent most of my last four weeks with, really made the difference. Through her I became fluent in no time, and it was sad to leave, but I wanted to go on travelling, she needed to stay and work, oh well....
Santiago, by the way is a phantastic town for tourists, hot and sunny at this time of the year, clean (in the touristy parts of the city at least!), cheap, and wonderful people, but much, much more south-european looking than i thought...
My last weekend it was planned to spend a weekend with Marcela and some friends at Siete Tazas, seven beautiful pools connected by seven waterfalls, i got in the bus at seven in the morning, and santiago bus-drivers, who work on commision, drive like madman across town, this guy does not look on the road while giving out tickets, all the while speeding up like damn Michael Schumacher, had to make a mad stop, people fell over, and me with my backpack ended up falling and tearing my ligaments... and i thought that was enough bad luck for the year...hehehe, so I though.
Well i ended up limping across town for the last few days in santiago and once I started travelling and ended up in Pucon, this wonderful picturesque town with lakes, mountain scenery and a huge volcano covered with snow... i was already able to walk again and hiked some national park there.
I ended up meeting some friends I met way back in 98 travelling through china, Guillermo and Macarena, who have an adorable daughter only 9 months old, and hung out with them not only back inSantiago, but also in pucon, as they were down there on vacation the same time....
Guillermo, Maca and Baby
And just like life's stories are better than any movie ever made, so started the misery in disguise... Maccarena, who was staying down there with her mom and sisters that also have kids,were looking for a babysitter, I offered and had a blast looking after 4 cute chilean kids from 9 months to 7 years old, speaking only spanish, great experience. Everything went well and afterwards Maccarena would not have no for an answer when they offered a riverrafting trip the next day for me as a token of appreciation. The river was type 4-5, very hard, but not stupidly dangerous usually... I was excited to do it, but previous torrent rains had made the river swell too much, much more than normal.
At the worst (Type 5) place, our boat collided with a big rock at full speed and I fell out along with one other person, the rest were able to hold on to the boat going through these tremendous currents and clifs, i did not..
The next 60 seconds were the worst of my life, I got slammed around rocks, sucked underwater, and then my leg somehow got stuck between two big rocks... there was no way to get out, and I was getting worried I will drown. As live will have it, the guides though I was swept downriver so they sent the rescue boats there, while they sent the next boat down the rapid.. how stupid is that?? Well it saved my life... the boat overhead must have created a shock-wave that ripped my leg out of the rocks, and I finally got up to breathe again. I had a torn wetsuit, even the zipper of the one leg got ripped off and i lost both my booties... that s what I was worried about...
Broken Roger
Darth Roger....
Since then its been a mess.. doctors, hospitals and lots of calls to the insurance. My foot was broken (not a big deal really) in two places but worse my muscle tore off my shin at the back, creating a gigantic hematoma, I lost about 2 liters of blood in my leg, which created a gigantic swelling, threatening to cut off nerve and arterial blood supply to the leg, which would have needed amputation. It hurts so much I can only sleep when i take morphine-based pain relievers... bad luck man!!
I was stupid enough to have the riverrafting company drive me to the firs two doctors, which both told me I was fine (yeah, right) until I got to Puerto Natales 7 days after the accident... meanwhile I was in bad pain stuck on a 4 day cruise, on a big barge, fortunately surrounded by two med students from Switzerland that helped some.
On the boat.. never too wet to play some chess
Stranded ship
On the upside, there are worse towns to be stuck in than Puerto Natales, with its beautiful mountain scenery, the sea, and good restaurants to go to... additionally i got to know a lot of people on the 4 day boat ride who are really nice and though trekking in the nearby national parks will return in a few days and hopefully help me to get to the nearest pub to forget the pain for a while....
The woman at the Hostel is amazing, brought me to the hospital, keeps a room of 4 free for just me, at no extra price, so i can relax, drives me to the internet cafe 200 meters down the road just so i dont have to limp around, and goes shopping for me as well, man either she s the nicest person i have ever met or i must just look soooo pathetic limping around here that she cannot help but help..... probably both...
A more upbeat report will probably follow soon once I am all healed up!
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