Estoy aqui! Mom and Dad you can quit checking your email every 5 minutes! I´m here and I´m ok. To everyone else, I´m here and I´m ok. Where is here you might ask, well currently I´m in Pucon, but will be leaving shortly for Puerto Montt. So what all have I been doing up to this point?
Upon arriving in Santiago, I headed directly for the bus station. I knew that I didn´t want to spend the night in Santiago and would be taking an overnight bus somewhere, so I figured it would be best to get a ticket right away. I ended up deciding to head to Pucon (that´s with a hard c, not a soft one) that night. I almost ended up going to the wrong city because I was pronouncing Pucon incorrectly. Luckily I figured that out! After getting a ticket, I headed to the city center. To me, Santiago looks like any other large city. It´s big and dirty. There were a number of nice parks that I hung out in and once the smog cleared up a bit, there was a wonderful view of the mountains. I also went to this precolumbian art museum. It was worth the visit, especially for someone who doesn´t like museums. Finally I killed enough time that it was off to the bus depot to get my overnight bus. I was quite impressed with the bus. I was also happy I had some sleeping pills with me. This was my second night in a row of not sleeping in a bed. Finally the next morning we arrived in Pucon. Pucon is pretty amazing because it sits right below an active volcano. I don´t know when the last time was that it blew, but the town is quite amazing. It makes me think of Aspen (if I had ever been there). I found a place to stay, left my bags until my room was ready and took off to explore the town. It´s a pretty small town, so that didn´t take too long. After getting my room, I went to one of the excusion places to see what I could do. They recommended I go for a mountain bike ride. Great I thought. I´ll been writing more about the 40km bike ride later. Let´s just say I was happy to make it back and slept quite well last night. I´ve had some decent food so far and am looking forward to more. I have much more to tell, but only limited time in the Internet cafe, so I´m off. As I said, I´m heading to Puerto Montt and then catch the ferry tomorrow. It might be another week before I get a chance to write again.