A Place to Stay

Having crossed from Chiloé to Chilean Patagonia, I really start to feel removed more and more from "civilisation". This area is called the "Carreterra Austral": Small towns with wooden houses amidst huge wilderness, rough roads and sporadic public transport. Well, there are worse places to get stuck for a day or two. I did the wildest white water river rafting ever on the Rio Futaleufú (try saying that a few times) and visited the temperate rainforest of Parque Pumalin yesterday where I was introduced to a 3000 year old "Alerce" tree ... no you don´t have to guess the words :-)

I am staying in an interesting place now in Chaitén: a hexagonal house built by a German origami wizard. He apparently made his fortune folding animals out of paper and decided to spend it all in Chile. Great place, and he´s an excellent guitar player too.

I have lost count of the places I stayed in the last months. Most of them were nothing special; not good, not bad, just a place to dump your stuff and sleep at night. Some of them were pretty bad; unfriendly people, noisy, dirty, crappy beds. Sometimes you take a room, sometimes a dormitory bed for some snoring fun, and if you want to enjoy some of the nature you will find yourself waking up in a tent now and then. You might get a breakfast (in varying quality and quantities...), or you can use the kitchen. I like it if there is a common room, where you can sit and chat, read a book or watch TV a bit.

But there are places that just feel right. They might be beautiful, have a welcoming atmosphere, conveniently located, relaxing, the owner might play beautiful guitar music (already had that twice) and if you´re lucky you meet really good people ... or fluffy puppies :-D