Close Encounter with Death @Cajon del Maipo, Chile

Surprised by the title?!!! Well you will understand why I chose to give this title to my post... as it unfolds.

My stay in Chile was nearing to its end. My return tickets had been booked. Yet deep down in my heart I was wishing to make for at least few of the long list of destinations in Chile which I could not visit during my stay. Before finally I bid goodbye to this wonderful Latin American country, I wanted to make one Ghanchakkar trip.

Cajon del Maipo was one of that. It’s a is a canyon (as shown above in photo) located in the Andean southeastern portion of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile.. This time I was lucky enough to get few of my colleagues also to join in this trip. On one fine sunny afternoon of Saturday we all started our journey towards this marvellous place.

We had done our stay arrangements @ Cascada De las Animas Resort. I have only one sentence to describe this beautiful resort i.e. ‘A stunning place to stay and let yourself get lost in nature’s beauty.’

My main motive to visit Cajon del Maipo was to go for White water rafting in River Maipo. What an experience it was!!! Rafting is indeed an exciting thrilling outdoor adventure.... not to be missed in lifetime...

That Day Maipo river was flowing between Level 3 to 4. For people who are unaware of the Rafting, let me share this information. The International Scale of River Difficulty is a standardized scale used to rate the safety of a stretch of river, or a single rapid. The grade reflects the technical difficulty and skill level required associated with the section of river for Rafting. There are total 6 levels are defined according to this scale. Level 1 is easiest while level 6 is termed as unraftable river.

After finishing our insurance formalities we straightway headed with our instructor for Rafting. Before it got commenced there was briefing sessions for all of us. On our special request instructor gave us additional session in English language. At the end of the session instructor asked “How many of you does not know to swim?” It was only me in the entire group of 24 people who raised the hand!!!!

It was really a good and thrilling beginning, to put on special rafting attire, to learn how to handle paddle... to learn how to follow instructor’s order in case of emergency situation....instructor again and again repeatedly told all of us that even if you happen to get thrown out of Raft because of Rapids just don’t panic. Just keep flowing with the water , make sure to hold on the paddle, As the paddle is very costly, we can’t afford really to lose it ....He also showed us the Rescue Kayak and place of the holding hook where we can hold in case of emergency rescue is carried out in the river.

I have shared few of the images of our raft and team in this post. Initial 2 or 3 rapids went past smoothly and we were enjoying each moment. Typical team cheers after passing across each rapids was awsome feeling. Our eagerness and adrenalin rush started reaching high...so as the Rapid levels and the water force.

 It was a real wild, swirly and chilly river- roaring at its highest pitch and inviting us to conquer it. For a little while river was little calm, so guide asked all of us if we want to feel the water of river we can jump outside the raft and swim for a while. But of course it was allowed for people who can swim!!! Even though he was not very well versed with English language his ability to guide the team was exorbitant.

Mani, My friend who was also accompanying me on the raft told me: “Hetal I am jumping in the river, I can’t stop myself to feel this.” I stopped her forcefully, telling that she should not take that risk. After all we are all away..far far far away from our family. What will happen if suddenly rapid will come, unnecessary risk we should avoid taking. Mani started laughing at me telling Come on Hetal coming for rafting that itself is biggest risk we have taken, but if you are telling no then I will not jump. I even don’t know why I stopped her from jumping in the river for only 10 seconds even though she knew swimming. But my instinct told me to do so. And I forcibly stopped her.

We were reaching to our halfway through. Mani was upset with me. She was keeping on making faces and cursing me for not allowing her to swim in that wild river. We kept on laughing and enjoying the rafting.

Soon the force of the water became so much wild; we could here only roaring noise of river rapid and instructions by our guide to paddle backwards and forward. Suddenly one big rapid came and guide asked us to paddle backwards fast. I started paddling don’t know why I was getting tilted and sliding slowly in the raft towards outer side....I could hear one voice from behind.. From my friend Arun..”Hetal paddle it hard don’t move yourself why are you tilting towards right... keep on paddling and I am getting scared....”

Banggggggggggg.... those were the last words I could hear. Suddenly I saw a big white wall kind of forming in front my eyes and immediately next I found myself deep inside water. Total blackout. There was no voice of anyone, no breath, no light. It happened in flash of second...I could hear only wild sound of roaring water.

I tried to wave my hand sideways, to understand where I have come suddenly. I got only water around me. Still I was not able to see anything, I couldn’t hear anything. But at least I could sense that I am flowing inside dark water. Except this my mind was not giving me any signal. I was totally clueless on the situation on what is happening around and within me.

After 5-6 seconds I could think that may be because of that wild rapid, I am actually thrown outside the Raft and now floating in the water. But I couldn’t understand why I am not able to see anything, as I was wearing life jacket, ideally I should be floating on the surface of the river.

I started now trying to take stock of the situation by waving my hands in upward direction. I found some rubber kind of material up like a ceiling wall. I started to raise my head also up, I got hit with that wall kind of material and my helmet’s inner ring which holds the head got broke. So helmet got slide till my nose covering my both eyes. Except that wall kind of stuff up still everywhere around me there was only water.

After around 1 minute floating like this finally I saw some light from the little gap of close to 1-2 mm between my nose and helmet ring. Suddenly I started listening voices of Mani.. “There she goes.. She is on left side of raft floating away in the river... save her ...Hetal hold the rope... catch the rope”...Instructor’s voice ...”Don’t panic... we will save you...try to catch the rope.”

Now I could understand entire situation. Actually I was sitting on the right side of the raft, that wild rapid thrown me outside raft in the river. After I was thrown in river, because of the direction of Rapid or the flow of river I actually slide underneath the raft. And that wall kind of stuff above my head little while ago was nothing but our own raft. I was floating underneath it in river. That was the reason I could not hear anything. After some time raft got drifted sideways so luckily could come on the surface of the water because of the life jacket which I was wearing. And that’s how I could start see some light and hear voice of people. Now it was rescue time for them to save me.

Interesting situation isnt’t it :). I couldn’t catch the rope thrown by my instructor because of the broken helmet was covering my eyes almost entirely, I could hardly see anything. I started drifting farther and away from my raft and team. God knows why but my mind was following each instruction given by the guide at time of briefing of what needs to be done in time of emergencies.

I didn’t breathe inside the water, when I was floating underneath the Raft. This actually avoided the ice cold freezing water of Maipo River to enter inside my body. It saved my body to get frizzed underneath water. I didn’t tried to swim against the flow of water when I came to surface, instead I kept on floating in the direction of the water flow of the river keeping my body in same position as we were taught to keep in case of such situation. This avoided any injuries to my body due to rocks and wild water rapids in the river. All these things my mind was following without my deliberation and knowledge actually! I was letting my self float in water keeping tight grip on paddle which I was carrying. For me my paddle was only companion which was accomnying me throught out that deadly incident :).

On failure of rescuing me through rope, guide sent Kayak [Which can be seen in upper right corner of the photo] behind me to catch me. Kayak is a small boat which has a covered deck and can cut the wild river water and its swirls very swiftly. These kayaks are handy as last resort for rescue operations when no other technique has worked. After around 5 minutes of floating alone in mid of water, I could hear some Spanish voice around me. Yes it was from the paddler of the Kayak. I was thinking why Spanish should haunt me here also where I am struggling between life and death!!!!

I shouted on top of my voice: “I can not see annnnnnnnnnythingggggggggggg.”

Paddler on Kayak: $$$$%%%%########%%%%%%

Me: No Espaniol..Ingles por favour...I

Paddler on Kayak: $$$$%%%%#####%%%%

Me: I can see anything. English please.

I started waving my hand and I could feel its Kayak I am striking. I got relieved that now my life will be saved, finally safety Kayak has come to take me from this River. But because my vision was obstructed due to broken helmet I couldn’t see the holding hook of the kayak that normally a person is supposed to hold during rescue operation. Instead I started to hold paddle of the Kayaker. As a result of that he lost his balance and kayak turned upside down. I got slide further away from Kayak as well!

It was this time I actually lost the hope. I presumed that now Kayaker is also in the water like me, nobody can save me. I need to keep on floating in river, now god will take me wherever he wants. So I just closed my eyes and started visualising each of my loved ones one by one. May be it was last time in my consciousness I was going to feel them before me death. These thoughts were keeping me engaged and this time water came rolling down in form tears from my eyes. This was only moment in entire incident where I found myself weak.

To my surprise again after sometime same Spanish voice got struck into my ear. Bingoooo ..ray of hope again of my survival. Soon my hand got struck to the rescue kayak again. I, like a blind person, started banging my hand on kayak’s side surface to get the holding hook to hold on. This time I was lucky, I could catch it. I could hear voice: ‘Si Senorita, $$$$%%%%%%&&&&’. I assumed I have done the right thing by holding some part of the Kayak and that tiny little boat started drifting me towards our main raft. After 2 minutes or so I started listening clapping and cheer sounds from so many people. That gave me hint that I am reaching towards my raft now may be.

On reaching near to raft, our guide pulled me inside the raft. Mani rushed towards me and hugged me. I still remember her sentence: “Are you ok Hetal?” On waving my head upside down in affirmation to her question, She uttered: “ Lucky mad girl, you must have enjoyed there no? Instead of you I sould have got thrown out in water, I missed that feel , How exciting :) and she kept on laughing”.

I busted into laughter listening to her words. Guide asked: “ Hetal are you good to go? We are still half way though, we have to finish entire stretch... shall we continue, will you take your position and start paddling again?”

I nodded my head and straight away started to paddle again for onwards journey. We reached the end point after 30 minute and crossing few more rapids even worse than the one which thrown me in river. But this time I conquered them all....In return journey to the base camp in the bus all fellow tourists were talking about me and how they rescued me...:) . One lady came near my seat and told:” Brave girl, Heard about you just now, in spite of being a non swimmer you held on and fought for life and continued to raft again till the end... bravo Indian lady..hats off to your spirit.”

Unforgettable encounter with death....indeed. This was my last adventure in Chile which was so much memorable.

Rendezvous @ Pucon -2

The city of Pucon is the home of the 2,847-meter-high Villarrica volcano , one of the ten most active volcanos in the world, which has permanent fumaroles that may be observed from the urban shell. From the moment we stepped down from the bus the following image of Villarrica volcano kept following us where ever we went.

Straight away from the bus stand we rushed to our youth hostel ‘Hospedaje M@yra’. Youth hostels are really convenient place for all back packers in Pucon where the stay and food arrangement is offered at very nominal rate. They offer stay, cooking facility and free internet. We could meet so many backpackers from different part of the world here. Thanks to lonely planet from which I could get address of this youth hostel.

Even though I had done online booking of accommodation for only me, on request the hostel owner provided accommodation for Mani as well. This gave us positive thrust to just run for de tour of Pucon as it saved lot of time of searching good hotel accommodation.

Within no time we got ready and straightway headed towards the travel agency offices on Main Street of pucon. Luckily we could find one English speaking receptionist there. He helped us out to plan our itinerary for our stay at pucon and made necessary bookings for all guided tours.
Day :1

1. Caburgua Eyes, Magnificent Water Pools

Just 17 kms from Pucon there is magnificent scenery of roaring waterfalls coming through underground paths from Lake Caburgua. They gather in the middle of the lush forest through several small waterfalls and form little sparkling pools and transparent streams. Breathe taking place....

2. Lago Azul

The serene blue water of this lake made us speechless. We just stood there for 15 minutes in silence. Feel of eternal peace near this a divinely blue lake recharged us completely ....

3. Villarrica Lake

This beautiful lake is famous for its calm waters and water sports. This is the only place where we found crowd in Pucon. It is known as family hangout place. It is said that every summer an approximately 70,000 tourists arrive to its shores.

4. Hot spring Resorts

Most Volcanic Thermal Springs are nowadays part of hotel premises or resorts in Pucon. However you can find it convenient to stay in the not-so-cheap hotels, and have it as a base for more activities. There is no doubt the locations are excellent! Some of the names are Huife, Menetue, Palquin, Panqui, and San Luis. Others are in wonderful natural locations such as Termas Geometricas at the foot of a gorge.

Almost all resorts here have various thermal pools with different temperatures. An authentic place to relax and get rid of stress. We couldn’t afford to stay in such costly resorts but at least we could visit it for few hours…


Day-2
1. Villarrica Volcano hiking

The Villarrica Volcano is one of the biggest attractions for visitors to the tourist city of Pucon. Its original name is Rucapillan, which in the Mapuche language means "House of the devil". Its cloud of smoke, subtle though steady, makes the many tourists that visit the area to watch its explosions of magma from the proximities of the crater feel astonished. One of the most active volcanoes in Chile; the Villarrica has had 82 historical eruptions so far. The most tragic was in December 1971 and the last one was registered in 1984.

Volcano hiking a different, challenging and unique activity; that’s what climbing the volcano Villarrica meant to me. Pucon has this one peculiar view: a big and beautiful volcano that seems to be just a few blocks away.

Most of the agencies at the main street can take you to this trip. Rain and bad weather could ruin the whole activity. The money is not refunded because of weather circumstances if the climbing has already begun. I would suggest who ever goes for Volcano hiking in Pucon should have check on weather forecast.

The climb begins in the morning and it takes 4 to 5 hours to reach the summit, depending on the weather and mostly on your physical conditions. I and Mani started our hiking early in morning around 4 am with fellow 12 team members coming from various countries. We were given entire set of equipments which were needed for hiking from the travel agency itself. 3 guides were accompanying us to take us to the summit. Amongst them only one knew English.

As I explained in my previous post my father already warned me no to try any trekking adventure due to my injury. But marvellous beauty of Villarrica volcano tempted me so much that I couldn’t control myself. I preferred to try my level best to triumph this Volcano and reach the summit.

The sunrise view amidst volcanic range was one of the most unforgettable moments of my life. Those days another volcano of Chile named Lliama had recently irrupted. Lliama volcano can be seen from villarrica volcano as well. After reaching to considerable height we could see spectacular view of Lliama volcano. That moment i cannot describe in words here. The following photo clicked without zoom shows Lliama volcano in upper most part.

My ligament injury in left knee started to irrupt again before I reach the summit! Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a very good shape either so that I sustain my stamina to climb higher. After 6 hours going up, I finally had to start my way down.

After we reached base camp all i had to do was to wait for my friend Mani to come back. Suddenly the guide who came with me down to the base camp asked me to listen to the message on his wireless instrument. The reason behind that was the person was speaking in English :) and no need to mention that the guide hardly could understand English. Message was addressed to me and they told that my friend Mani is coming back!!!! That’s it... nothing more.

I was so much worried as I was completely unaware why she is coming back. Thoughts of she might have got sick or fallen made me so anxious. My anxiety made me behave strange a bit. Every 2 minutes I used to go to my guide and ask in my poor Spanish only three words ’Me Amiga… Informacion…’ [My Friend. Information...]

He was getting so much annoyed but he fully cooperated and helped me to get information... I could only hear Spanish voices sent over wireless... 'Dos chicas... Hindu chicas... %%%$$$$&'. There was no sign of her return even after 1 hour ...guide also got tensed that why she is taking so much time to come back....

I literally started now shouting on him why you guys are not able to locate her and tell me when she will return. Even though he couldn’t understand my English cries... but he interpreted my expressions... He took out his high zoom camera and started searching Mani through it. Luckily after 5 minutes he could locate her... and asked me to see her through his camera... a big sigh of relief that she is fine.

On her return she gave me this reason that she lost motivation to climb up once I came down half way so immediately after 15 minutes she also decided to come back to base camp. That ghanchakkar girl was posing for photos in all directions there and it was the reason of her late return.

A funny and freezing experience for me! Well, my left knee remained swollen for 2 days after that, but it was the most unforgettable part of my trip of Pucon.

Day-3

1. Villarrica national Park and Volcanic caves

First agenda of the day was an excursion to the interior of a volcanic cave forged by the lava during one of the eruptions, which lies on the foothills of the volcano Villarrica in Villarrica national Park .

On arrival the authorities supplied us with safety elements like helmets and torches. We entered the house of the volcanoes, where we were given a lecture on volcano logy. Lava flows, eruptions and a chronology of all recorded activity of the Villarrica are presented in this place.

Although our guide who claimed herself as English speaking guide, her English speaking ability was equivalent to our Spanish speaking/understanding ability. So the end result was we gained very minimal information from her lecture :). But looking inside the core heart of mother earth and to have closer look at few of the minerals, solidified lava inside the caves gave us very unique experience to cherish for the lifetime.

The very fact of thinking that we were inside an underground lava river very close to the volcano was a fascinating experience hard to forget. Our guide asked us to keep quiet and turn off our torches. The impenetrable darkness invaded me completely. I could see or hear nothing at all. Utter darkness gave me feeling like I am almost in a black hole.

2. Horse back riding to Salto claro waterfall

We came back from volcanic caves tour around 1.30 pm. Our return bus was at 8 pm in night, so we had still 6 hours with us to explore pucon more. As per our itinerary we finished all excursions around pucon. We were supposed to take rest after lunch till we pack our bags and go to bus stand for our return journey.

We had it all but still one thing was remaining which was horse back riding and waterfall. We both never wanted to go from Pucon without exploring these two activities. Within no time we decided to dump our rest session. Real pain started now to search for guided tour operator for that.

Almost all tourist agency offices were having fewer staff members as their fellow colleagues were off for lunch. Who ever we could find on reception desk was turning out to explain only in Spanish. Our funny Spanish conversation as it goes...

Me: Hola Senora..Otro tour.. Pucon...informacion porfavor...

Receptionist: Hola Senorita...%%%@@@######..

Mani: Hetal you go back I will handle her Spanish... [And she goes on... ] Senora... Agua.....hmmmm...

[Actually we knew word Agua in Spanish--which means water.. but no idea of Spanish word for 'Waterfall'. Receptionist gave two glass of water to both of us!!!!!! Thanks to Mani's Spanish attempt to explain that lady waterfall.]

Mani: Hetal let me try again to make her understand. Today our luck is not in our favour like first day that day how easily we found the English speaking receptionist. But never mind we will not lose courage... here I go... 'Gracious Senora, Water fall... Agua..Agua...Agua....[and she does acting for rest of the 'fall' word waving her hands down to explain her water coming down.... Receptionist had to interpret that we mean waterfall....:)]

Receptionist: $$$$$$$%%%^^^^^^!!!!!!!*****

No doubt why we are not in acting career.... we couldn’t enact simple Waterfall word and make receptionist understand the same.

After struggling for 10 minutes we decided to wait in reception area till English speaking receptionist comes back and helps us with finding our best deal for visiting waterfall and horse back riding. I picked up tourist magazine lying on a nearby table to just pass the time. And ahhh we found beautiful picture of waterfall on it. We were very much delighted as now at least we could show this lady a picture of waterfall and ask for information.

She finally understood what we wanted and straight away showed us her quotation for Waterfall tour on her computer. Immediately she arranged one driver and cab for us to reach the place from where we could hire horses to reach the ultimate destination.

On the way our driver told us that he is taking us to one of the beautiful and serene place of Pucon Salto Claro waterfall. Only way to reach there was through trekking or horse back riding. He helped us to hire 2 horses for us and a horse guide as well. But unfortunately as we didn’t book in advance we couldn’t find English speaking horse guide there...

Initially we were frightened to go for horse back riding with a guide with whom we will not be able to communicate in case of emergency. But our driver assured us that it will not be troublesome at all. So we decided to try our luck and headed on towards Salto Claro waterfall. After riding on horse about an hour our guide asked us to get down and start trekking into forest.

It was the steep Claro River ravine which ended in a spectacular water fall. A far-away beam of light caught our attention. A wonderful waterfall hidden amidst the native forest of Pucon. This fantastic waterfall hypnotized us with its sound. I am not able to find any word to describe the beauty of flora and fauna of the particular place... may be the photo will make for it...

As we moved farther from the city on our return journey in bus, I turned round to see the Villarrica for the last time. Such a satisfying experience… I could finally visit one of the most beautiful Mother Nature’s creations in the world. Truly Pucon is amalgamation of heavenly beauty of nature, quality tourist accommodations, efficient tourism agencies, hundreds of tourist activities and excursions.

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…

The Journey into Yourself....

Recently I read one book- ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle. I found this book absolutely self transforming.I would like to share here two paragraphs from this book which is written on topic ‘The Journey into yourself’. Hope readers will like it.

When you are on a journey, it is certainly helpful to know where you are going or at least the general direction in which you are moving, but don’t forget: the only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That's all there ever is.

 

Your life’s journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose. The outer purpose is to arrive at your goal or destination, to accomplish what you set out to do, to achieve this or that, which, of course, implies future. But if our destination, or the steps you are going to take in the future, take up so much of your attention that they become more important to you than the step you are taking now, then you completely miss the journey’s inner purpose, which has nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but everything to do with how. It has nothing to do with future but everything to do with the quality of your consciousness at this moment. The outer purpose belongs to horizontal dimension of space and time; the inner purpose concerns a deepening of your Being in the vertical dimension of the timeless Now.

Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now. As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you realize that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the destination. This one step then becomes transformed into an expression of perfection, an act of great beauty and quality. It will have taken you into Being, and the light of Being will shine through it. This is both the purpose and the fulfilment of your inner journey, the journey into yourself.
--From the book ‘The Power of Now’ Author: Eckhart Tolle.

Sat Samundar Par ... [Bienvenidos a Chile--Part -3]

First outing in Chile…. How can I forget that? After enormous rounds of requests when we were not able to get our leaves sanctioned from our boss, we were forced to plan only one day tour to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso on Sunday. But sheer joy of escape from the hotel room and tedious long work schedules of office kept us excitement alive for this trip.

I started the bus journey early morning from Santiago to Vina del Mar along with my two colleagues. Amongst 3 of us me and Mani, we both were too much happy and eager for this trip. As it was the first time we were going outside the Santiago city where we used to live in Chile. In our extra ordinary excitement of capturing all moments of that trip to cherish it lifelong we started clicking photos right from bus stand.

Within first 30 minutes itself we clicked so many photos that the battery of our camera got discharged. It was still 2 hours to go before we reach actual place to be visited!!!! Thanks to our ghanchakkargiri; we were left with only one digital camera to use which belonged to 3rd member of our gang Arun.

 

Yes..Yes.. above photo was the last shot taken from the camera which was in our charge :).

We reached Vina del Mar around 10 am. To our surprise when we got down from the bus we saw so many tourist guides lined up to offer their services. We chose one English voice from them to consult for our tour. That guide’s name was Carina. Our sole criteria to chose her as our tour guide was based up on only one thing i.e. her English speaking ability!!!!

I will share here few places and moments of the trip which are very dear to me …

Quinta Vergara: Vina del Mar's founding family, the Vergara family, used to live at the Quinta Vergara. They built their house there and the whole estate was their garden. The Quinta (Estate) itself has many Chilean trees and flowers, and it's worth the visit. The house itself is now houses the museum of fine arts, initially based on the families fine collection of art, with some interesting paintings from this century.

When we went inside this building, we were stunned by one thing i.e. footwear which was given to us. All tourists had to wear them on their shoes compulsorily in order to get inside. It was measure taken by authorities to protect all fine arts and paintings kept inside the museum from external dust!!!!

The Flower Clock of Vina del Mar: This flower clock reminded me of India. As our very own Lal bag in Bangalore has similar kind of flower clock.

The La Sebastiana Museum: One of the houses where the famous Nobel Prize winner Chilean writer and poet Pablo Neruda used as his residence.

We had captured following stunning view of Pacific Ocean from window of Study room where this great poet used to write.

“I feel the tiredness of Santiago, I want to find a house to live and write in peace at Valparaíso. Certain conditions must be given. It may not be too high or too low. It must be solitary, but not in excess. I wish neighbors were invisible. I wish I did not see or hear them. Original but not uncomfortable. Very light, but firm. Neither too big nor too small, far from everything. But close to the stores. As well, it has to be very inexpensive. Do you think I can find a house like that in Valparaíso?” Letter from Neruda to his poet friend Sara Vial. [Source: http://www.welcomechile.com/valparaiso/pablo-neruda-house-museum.html]

I came across above beautiful expectation of a house from Pablo Neruda in net. After visiting The La Sebastiana house in Valparaiso, I cannot believe myself how real they were, and how lucky Pablo Neruda was to find such an excellent dwelling for himself.

The following shot we took from this house’s garden. Both generations facing each other… and may be thinking inside how wonderful it is to be at other side!!!

Funicular: Chileans are proud of Valparaiso's designation in 2003 by UNESCO as one of the "World Heritage Sites". Certainly the Funiculars were notable features that contributed to that selection. Funicular lifts, or "Ascensores" were built to move pedestrians between the lower town and many of the hills. Most were built between 1886 and 1916.

The basic principle of funicular operation is that two cars are permanently attached to each other by a cable, which runs through a pulley at the top of the incline. Counterbalancing of the two cars, with one ascending and one descending the slope minimizes the energy needed to lift the ascending car. Winching is normally done by an electric drive working on the pulley. Sheave wheels guide the cable to and from the drive mechanism and the incline cars.

The First Ever TV interview: After enjoying our ride in one of the Funicular, we were coming outside the Funicular station. We saw a group of people were doing a movie shooting. With curiosity we 3 also joined to crowd to watch the shooting.

We came to know from crowd that it was team from Costa Rica country’s TV channel. They were shooting there for one of their travel show. Suddenly director of the show came near me and started asking me something in Spanish. As usual I could not understand a single word :). I waived our tour guide Carina for translation so that I can communicate with him.

Director wanted to confirm from us whether we were Indians. When we said yes… next request from him …he wanted all 3 of us to give an interview in his TV show about our experience as an Indian tourist in Valparaiso, Chile. We were stunned. For those 2 minutes we felt like TV star… receiving entire crowd’s attention, facing camera and answering questions of the host… Ahhh It was indeed a Ghanchakkar’s Showtime….

The Pacific Ocean [Cochoa Beach]: After visiting few other places finally we spent our evening at this beautiful beach. It was indeed ‘Sat Samundar Par’ [Beyond Seven Oceans] feeling for me.

The water of Pacific Ocean was beneath my feet. It was like dream come true for me. I never ever wanted to go back to Santiago and get drenched into a workaholic place once again. But some things are never ever in our hand to control so we 3 with delightful memories had to start our journey back to Santiago in the Evening.

Astonishing Birthday [Bienvenidos a Chile--Part -2]

Just one week passed by in Chile... I was still struggling to get settled in new office environment, new colleagues, new city and new country.

I was really upset on one thing, and that was my birthday which was only after 7 days of my arrival in Chile. I was lost in world of Spanish and Tamil speaking unknown people there so obviously no one is going to wish me on that day personally. This very fact was making me more nervous.

Finally that gloomy birthday day arrived. I got up and with very sad mood spoke to my family on phone and took their blessings. The entire day at work went like a usual day, with lots of work, work and only work. Nothing was special, no one wished me as no one knew that it was my birthday that day.

I reached my hotel room after marathon 13 hours work schedule in office. I was not at all in a mood to prepare dinner. Again I called up my father and gathered his sympathy for being alone in the most remote corner of the world on my birthday. My father’s lovable wishes were not enough to cheer me up. I decided to sleep empty stomach. I switched off my room’s light and called it a day.

After around 15 minutes suddenly the door bell rang. As I hardly knew anyone there, nobody used to visit me in my room except housekeeping department ladies from hotel. I was more surprised they used to come during afternoon time and it was around 11 pm then. I opened the door but no one was there. I was really amused who would have rang the bell this much late in night.

Now it was time for phone to ring….. Ahhh it was a local call. I was even more surprised…. Who will be calling me at this time that too from Chile? It was my next door neighbor Mani on the call who was my colleague too. She asked me to go to her room as she wanted some help from me. I entered her room, without single hint of the great surprise which she had already arranged for me inside.

I couldn’t believe on my eyes what I was looking at. Mani who was my just colleague. We would have hardly spoken to each other except work related matter.  That person inspite of coming late from office at 10.30 pm, prepared a nice dinner and decorated cake for my birthday!!!! That gesture of hers really made me so emotional.

Hetal: "I do not have words Mani, you have simply stunned me. How come you knew that it’s my birthday today?"

Mani: "I saw your passport so I knew. I know it feels really bad when we are all alone on our birthday. I really wanted to celebrate your birthday grand way but due to work I got late from office. I couldn’t bring good birthday cake and prepare nice dinner for you. But we will still manage the show with this pan cake, one balloon and Dosa. So come dear let’s celebrate its still 11.15 pm and we have 45 min more before end of the day. "

 

We started our celebration. I cut the cake, enjoyed the Dosa made by Mani followed by funnier Ghanchakkar clicks of photos. We cracked jokes, laughed like mad people. I tried to watch and understand couple of Tamil movie scenes on laptop with help of Mani. Suddenly that evening converted into one of funniest day I had ever spent in my life when I laughed that much.

 

Sometimes unknown persons touch our lives in such a special manner that they leave a permanent print on our memory lane. She just transformed my sad mood and brought me back to my original Ghanchakkar mood. Mani was really an angel to me who just came and flipped the most gloomy birthday of my life to one of the most astonishing birthday.

Bienvenidos a Chile--Part -1

In September 2007, I got chance to visit Latin American Country Chile. Memories of my first international flight are still so fresh and alive in my mind. Even though I was excited about going on overseas assignment from office for the first time, the travel time to reach there was all that kept me tensed.

Being a pure vegetarian, I had to pack so many food items with me in my luggage as in Chile all Indian spices and Dals are not available in market. Thanks to my mother who packed almost 20 kg bag full of food items. She was having an anticipation that her daughter is going to deprived from all heavenly vegetarian food for my entire stay of 6 months in Chile.

According to my itinerary from Bangalore I had to go to Mumbai to catch British airways international flight to reach London. After 9 hours of marathon transit time at London Heathrow airport I had to catch another flight to reach Buenos Aries, Argentina. Finally after 3 hours of transit time at Buenos Aries I had to take last flight to Santiago, Chile. All above permutations and combinations of flights was going to take total 47 hours of journey from Bangalore to Santiago.

I bid good bye to my roomie who came to see me off at Bangalore Airport and started my journey. Who knew that I was going to go through the funniest journey ever for next 2 days?

When I reached Mumbai airport, British airways staff stopped me to go for immigration as they had not yet got my luggage from Bangalore airport. Just before 15 minutes of departure of my flight somehow they were able to locate my luggage from domestic connecting flight of Bangalore. One ground duty officer of British airways then immediately called me; I identified my luggage and got the boarding pass. I rushed like mad cow for immigration. British airways staff had to accompany me as I had to break the queue of immigration and had to do emergency immigration clearance. Finally I was able to board the flight at last moment like VVIP.

This was just glimpse of tedious journey. The saga had just started at Mumbai Airport. The journey from Mumbai to Buenos Aries via London was luckily smooth. But life again turned me on at Buenos Aries Airport. After almost 42 hours of journey when I reached there I was very much exhausted. My mind was really inactive when I disembarked the British airways flight.

I just wanted now to go to my hotel room and sleep. But I had to spend 3 hours of transit time and another 2 hours flight journey to Santiago till I was going to get that. I just kept on walking with other fellow passengers not knowing where to stop and which way to go for catching international connecting flight.

The Buenos Aries airport was undergoing some repair work that time so they had removed all sign boards. It didn’t click in my Ghanchakkar mind that I should have taken direction guidelines from British airways staff for my next flight to Chile. Instead I in half sleep kept on walking with fellow passengers towards exit.

As a result of that, I found myself queued up in Immigration counter but I did not know that time that this queue is for immigration. A Lady Officer at counter asked for my passport. I considered it as a security check exercise and gave my passport to her. She again and again checked it. She almost repeated this activity for 5 minutes, flipping of each page of passport very diligently and stared at my face on each page flip.

I noticed her and was thinking why this lady is giving so scary look to me as if I am a criminal. Till that time I was not at all aware that I was standing at exit gate immigration counter. That lady was checking my Argentina visa in order to allow me go outside airport. Obviously I was not having Argentina visa stamped in my passport and that was the real reason of her staring looks at me.

She put my passport in her drawer and started speaking something… which went over my head. Yes you guessed it right… she was speaking Spanish and yes I was and still I am almost zero in Spanish language. I told myself: ‘Bravo Hetal, welcome to Spanish world; now find some way to deal with her.’

I asked that lady to return my passport. She instead of understanding it kept on speaking in Spanish which was making no sense to me. Finally after listening to my craving and pity shouts of “English… English” she got to know that I am not able to understand her language. She started enacting through her hand gestures to communicate with me. The sign language of hers was easier to understand than her Spanish to me. I managed somehow to make her understand that I want to catch flight for Chile and searching the International connection area direction. And I do not intend to stay back in Argentina or go out of the Airport. All dumb sherads games played in school and college helped to enact this much.

At last I came to know that I had come to wrong way and by mistake have reached immigration counter that’s why they are asking for visa. With exchange of sign language with that Lady Officer finally I got route map how to reach there. In all this sign language drama in immigration counter I had wasted 2.5 hours already. I was having last 30 minutes to board the flight for Chile.

Again I had to run, and hurry up to catch the flight. I was madly running here and there in corridors of airport with my hand baggage. Due to no sign boards it was extremely difficult to locate correct direction. I would have repeatedly crossed same corridors may be twice or thrice in that mad rush of finding way out. The workers who were doing repair works at airport were looking at me and laughing. Why really why all recognize Ghanchakkars like me in a moment? But in a way it is good at least we spread smile on faces of other people by our very own ghanchakkargiri.

Luckily I was able to reach to the Chilean airlines counter within time and could hope on the flight again at last moment. I was so tired that the moment I got my seat I slept. After some 10 minutes one sweet voice of airhostess struck my ears…”Buenos Dias Senorita….. ###....*****…????.....”. I could understand only one word from her entire sentence. Thanks to Hindi movie DDLJ :) I was aware of this and only one Spanish word ‘Senorita’. One familiar word from unknown person in a totally foreign land finally after around 4 hours was enough to wake me up from all my tiredness. It was enough to bring smile on my face.

I was so sleepy in my last flight from London to Buenos Aries that I had not taken any food during entire flight of 14 hours. My sprint adventure to catch flight at Buenos Aries airport just aggravated my urge for food more. I asked airhostess to bring water and some vegetarian food for me.

She was not speaking English so she asked one other air hostess who was the only English speaking crew member in flight to communicate with me. I came to know that they don’t serve pure vegetarian food on flight!!!!!!.

That I time I really cursed myself to say yes to my boss for this Chile travel. I was so annoyed and hungry without food for almost 20 hours. I had to manage with orange juice till I reached my hotel at Santiago, Chile. But the marvelous view of Andes mountain range from flight took away my entire annoyance and I got engrossed in appreciating the nature’s beauty. One of the view I had captured and have shared here.

Starting journey itself was so eventful; it gave me good preview of what my next 6 months stay at Chile was going to churn for me. I took taxi from Santiago airport for my hotel. On entire route I tried to figure out what the sign board at Santiago airport “Bienvenidos a Chile” meant!!!!!