Rendezvous @ PUCON-1

I was getting too much exhausted by long tedious software implementation working hours at office in Chile. Day by day our office timings kept increasing and so as my frustration. I wanted a break badly. That’s how idea of visiting PUCON, awesome tourist place located in Southern Chile got highlighted in my ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind.

Even after making so much of advertisement and efforts of luring my colleagues to join my trip of Pucon; nobody agreed to come with me. Going all alone on a tour of 3 days in Spanish speaking country where you are totally stranger was not at all a comfortable idea. Above all hardly could I communicate a single sentence in Spanish. But my irresistible ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind was pushing hard to go ahead and accomplish the tour alone.

Next sequences of events are narrated as follows:

Scene: 1[Telephonic conversation with my parents—Wednesday night]

Me: “Mummy I managed to get one day leave from my work so I have finalized a trip to southern Chile this week end.

Mom: “Great. I was telling you that don’t work like donkey there. Find out at least sometime for yourself. Explore the countryside and roam around. I am happy that at last you have executed my words. Go beta have fun.”

Me: “Thank you ma.”

Mom: “How about your food? Have you enquired whether vegetarian food is available there? Who all are coming with you? How far that place is from Santiago?.........” [Long list of motherly questions kept on flowing from other side of phone… for next 5 minutes…]

Me: [Intruding my mother’s questions session] “Ma please stop all these questions… I have planned everything. I am going to stay at one of the youth hostels in Pucon. There kitchen facility is also there, if I will not get vegetarian food outside I will make vegetarian noodles and will have it. I have bought many of it.”

Mom: That’s good. But you have not answered my question. Who else is joining you on the trip?

Me: There is little catch here ma, actually I am going alone. Nobody has time or interest from my team to come with me. Above all our boss is not ready to give leave to all team members at the same time as work will get hampered. But I have planned everything. I will take bus ticket from nearby station. I will do youth hostel booking online for my stay there. So all arrangements are well in place and I will not have any trouble even though I will be alone. You just don’t worry.

Mom: [Speaking to my father] Look your daughter has gone fully mad. This Ghanchakkar wants to go all alone to a place which is around 800 km away from Santiago. How is she going to manage it? She has never gone to that place ever in life, not knowing local language as well. You better strictly stop her right away.

Papa: “What I have heard from your mother is true? If yes than all plans you need to cancel right away.

Me: ”Not fare at all. This is not fare at all. You both were teasing me that after coming here I have seen only my hotel room and office. Tell mom when once we went to market and saw one young foreign lady roaming around, how nicely she told me that she is proud of youngsters like this girl who has the courage to explore unknown land and ability to go beyond horizon on their own, I want my daughter to inculcate these abilities… now what happened…. why you and mom are stopping me.. ”

[Bingoooo…right words at right time… and it worked.]

Papa: When are you going and coming back from your trip? And when will you send us photos? Can’t you extend your stay beyond 3 days? As this place seems to be far away; make sure you visit all the important tourist attractions there, don’t miss any. But yes send me itinerary and your hotel address of Pucon as well. Don’t go for any trekking adventure else ligament injury of your knee will get worst.

Me: “That’s like my father papa….I will email you my itinerary…”

[That night I kept on dreaming about my trip. Now I had only 2 days in my hand before departure. ]

Scene: 2[At office—Thursday morning]

Mani: What are you doing Hetal?

Me: I am booking my hotel stay in Pucon. In lunch time will go to book bus tickets as well for Pucon.

Mani: Ohh… so you have finalized you trip is it? Are you going alone?

Me: Yes...I will start on Friday night from Santiago and I will reach Pucon on Saturday morning. I will check in to youth hostel same day. Then for 3 days will roam around Pucon leisurely. I will start return journey on Monday night will join all of you in office on Tuesday.

Mani: Great plan. I wish I could have joined you. But go ahead have fun and take care.

Me: Thanks Mani.

Scene:3[At hotel room—Friday evening around 7.30 pm]

[I was packing my bag and having last look at itinerary suddenly phone rang it was Mani on Phone.]

Mani: Hey Hetal what time is your bus?

Me: It is at 11.30 pm. I will prepare dinner and quickly rush to bus station. How is your health Mani? [Mani was suffering from severe headache since morning that day and had to go to doctor for the same.]

Mani: Oh... I am extremely alright. Doctor gave good therapy so I am absolutely ok now. Where you bought your bus tickets from? Till what time those ticket counters are open any idea?

Me: Well I booked it from Universidad De Chile Metro Station. But I have to board the bus from Terminal Alameda located at Metro station Universidad de Santiago. No idea on till what time the bus ticket booking counters will remain open. What happened but?

Mani: No nothing happened. I was thinking that if we can get ticket for me as well then I want to join you on tour.

Me: [Screaming at top of my voice out of sheer happiness] what??????????????? You are coming with me? I can’t believe it. Now whatever will happen we both will go by hooks or crooks. I am so happy. Frankly speaking even though I was showing off that I will go alone and I will manage but I was also so nervous from inside about this trip. You have exactly 30 minutes to pack your bag. We will go early to bus station to grab your ticket. I know being a week end it will be difficult to get last minute ticket but we will surely take chance. Hurry up girl….

Mani: I have already done packing. We can start within next 15 minutes. You don’t prepare dinner, I have already made for you come to my room and have it here itself.

Scene: 4 [At hotel room—Friday evening around 9.30 pm in the Metro]

Me: Mani I think our metro station has come, we will get down here and will enquire from where we can board the bus for Pucon. We can get tickets from boarding point as well.

[Station comes, Metro’s doors open, and I am about to get out from train.]

Mani: Hetal stop wait for me. One of the flaps of my bag is stuck in the seat here… it is not coming out.

Me: Come fast train is about to depart we need to get down at this station itself. If we will miss this than getting down at next station and coming back to this station will eat away 30 minutes, which surely we can’t afford. Wait I will come there and will help you.

[We both started pulling bag out of the metro’s seat but it was badly stuck. Our efforts went in vain. Our struggle with bag was a means of free entertainment for fellow passengers in train. Bipper of metro’s door closure started to ring…we had exactly 5 seconds to get out...]

Mani: Ahhh here are the scissors; leave the flap in metro only if it does not want to come with us to Pucon. I will cut it right now. Nobody can stop us to escape…

[She cut the flap and we rushed … literally jumped out of the metro at last moment of door closure.]

Scene: 5 [At overcrowded Alameda bus station, Santiago—Friday evening around 9.40 pm]

Me: Who says that India is only crowded place? Look at this bus station; it is just similar to Mumbai’s local train station during pick hours. There is no place to stand also here Mani. At every ticket window such a long queue how we would manage our tickets?

Mani come this side I can see tour bus Pucon counter there and queue is also bit smaller as compared to other counters. 

[Rushing towards the counter…. To the clerk] I have got one ticket to Pucon for 11.30 pm bus. I want one more ticket in the same bus can you please check availability?

[After 10 minutes of pause….]

Ticket booking Clerk1: @@@@#####%%%%%%%% [All in Spanish.]

Me: This guy does not know single word of English Mani. Decoding his Spanish answer would take longer time. It is useless to talk to him. Why government here can’t make Basic English knowledge mandatory for all citizens?

Mani: Right now we don’t have time to discuss this stupid proposition of yours for Chile government. Come we will go to next counter and try our luck there.

[She rushed to next counter snatching my bus ticket from my hand. The bus stand was so overcrowded; I couldn’t find Mani anywhere nearby. Now another pain started along with ticket we need to search each other as well in that crowd. After 10 minutes of running here and there I could locate her.. Sigh of relief on face of both of us]

Me: Where were you? Ok no time for that question now we have got only last one hour. Hurry up could you get any information on ticket?

Mani: I enquired at other counter all the buses to Pucon for today are fully booked. No chance of getting ticket. Are you carrying your passport with you now? Flight rate for Argentina looks cheaper shall we drop idea of Pucon and head towards Argentina? What do you say? They are telling no need of visa and all, we can get on arrival visa after reaching there.

[Now this was a real ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind of Mani showing its presence.]

Me: Ok I don’t mind going anywhere in the earth apart from our office and hotel for next 3 days if Pucon tickets are not available for you.

[Meanwhile we heard one English voice passing by. From this person we got information that apart from Alameda Terminal there is another bus stand called ‘Terminal Los Héroes’ as well for buses going towards Southern side of Chile. It is at only 15 minutes walking distance. We decided to try our luck to get ticket for Pucon there. We started to run towards Los Héroes Bus stand thinking that if we will get two tickets for Pucon from there then we will come back to Alameda Terminal and cancel my single ticket.]

Scene: 5 [At Los Héroes Bus station—Friday evening around 10.40 pm]

Mani: [To ticket counter clerk] Two Tickets for Pucon please.

[Clerk didn’t understand. Now it was our time to exhibit our so called working knowledge of Spanish without single grammatical correctness. I took out my ticket to Pucon and showed it at counter.]

Me: Otro ticket.. Dos… Dos..Dos… [Other ticket…2...2]

Ticket counter clerk2: Senorita… @@@@#####???????

[Looking at our strange looks towards each other, a fellow tourist standing next to us in the queue came to rescue us. He knew English and told us that booking clerk is telling us to go to directly platform no. 10. One of the tour operators’ are planning to put extra bus at 11.45pm for Pucon looking at rush. If we were lucky then we may get ticket in that bus.]

Mani: Otro ticket... dos… dos...dos… Pucon…

Bus conductor: Si Senorita….@@@@####??????

[He kept on speaking something but along with that he gave us two tickets as well. Our joy was out of the world. At last we conquered the Chilean crowd and got the ticket to Pucon around 11.15 pm. Bus was destined to depart at 11.45 pm.]

Me: Mani I can’t still believe that we have the tickets with us. We have still 30 minutes with us. How about rushing back to the Alameda Terminal and canceling my spare ticket?

Mani: Ok let’s run again. Come this side; we have to take left to reach to that station.

Me: No Mani we have to go straight. I think you forgot the way to that station.

Mani: Ok than run fast…not much time left.

[After running for 3-4 minutes]

Mani: I sense that we were running in wrong direction… actually both of us have lost the way to Alameda Terminal.

Me: [I am still running though…] No no Mani we are in correct direction only….

I kept on running towards unknown direction carrying in one hand a bag full of food items and in other the water bottle. Mani had no option but to chase me.

Suddenly the plastic bag in which I was carrying biscuits, chips and other food items got tarred. Whatever Mani had stuffed inside it at last moment all went down on the road. Now it was compulsory for us to collect all the things as without those food items our stay at Pucon was going to be miserable. So we withdrew idea of cancelling my spare ticket and happily returned to our Bus Platform.

Although I lost around 70000 Chile pesos by not cancelling that spare ticket, but sheer joy of our triumph on all the hurdles of getting Ticket to Pucon never allowed me to repent for it. May be destiny never wanted us to withdraw our plan. Two crazy girls started their journey towards Pucon finally with lots of excitement. More on our Pucon trip… in subsequent posts…