I wandered into Café Agora the morning we arrived in Pucon. I opened my laptop to write a bit and, to my astonishment, there was wireless internet. I stayed for at least three more hours, though I had finished my small coffee in the first five minutes. I went back the next day, but feared that the owner would disapprove. When she approached me, I assumed that she would foil my clever plan to order the cheapest thing on the menu and then use wireless. What she had come to tell me, however, was that nearby customers had stolen my table from the day before. After they left, she insisted that I move and plug into the convenient outlet. I went back the next day. I asked if I could sit there again, to which she replied with a wide grin, “es tu casa.”

By the third day of visiting Café Agora, it had become my home, according to the owner. And that was how I felt about all of Pucon. After just one day, Julie and I were waving to familiar faces. We didn’t need a map or phrasebook, and we could walk around the entire town in twenty minutes. I had a room at Max’s house and a table at Café Agora. It was a comforting change of pace.

Max took some time off work to give us a back roads tour of Pucon yesterday. He wanted to show us his favorite secret spots, though they were so well hidden that we spent most of the morning finding them. Waterfalls tucked deep into the forest and rivers that he runs kayak trips down. We spent the majority of our time together chatting, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English, and most of the time in Spanglish.

Julie and I have an early flight out of Santiago tomorrow, so we took our last few breaths of fresh air last night before hopping on an overnight bus. As we stepped out of the bus this morning, Julie turned to me and said, “It was nice being in a place where I could lie on the grass and not worry that there was something nasty under me. Oh well. Back to graffiti on walls, bars over windows, and trash on the ground.”

We quickly found refuge, however, in a winery outside of the city. It was called Odfjell and, though it looks like I just took a random swipe at the keyboard, it was named after the Norwegian family that founded it. Julie and I got a tour of the vineyard and the winery, and we were treated to an elegant tasting of their finest reds. They were definitely good, but I was craving Manischewitz.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 6:57 pm in XIX. Chile. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.