Patagonia in Patagonia

I ate lard. There, I said it. Now allow me to explain. As you all know, I went on my supermercado sweep the other day to buy some vittles. I got the usual things, some meat, cheese, bread, and what I assumed to be butter. It was not. I was wondering yesterday why it was so good. I cooked with it and made the most banging pasta sauce I've even concocted, and it wasn't until several tablespoons later that I realized it was lard. But by then it was too late! I'd already spread it on my toast in the morning! I feel like such a deviant. So, note to self, manteca=lard, and more importantly, high adventure $\Longrightarrow$ high cholesterol.

I've finally left Pucon, and am now in Concepcion, I'm having some interesting thoughts about traveling right now, and although they aren't fully formed, I'm going to try and share them. When places are very beautiful or special, lots of people want to visit them. Then droves of people come, prices go up, quality often goes down, and the place gets richer but loses its integrity. For example, Pucon is filled with two things: restaurants, and hiking outfitters (yes, there is actually a Patagonia strore). The restaurants are by and large poor quality with very high prices. This is not a problem though, because when you serve a tourist city you don't need to worry about getting repeat customers, you only need to get people in the door once. Now, this is all nothing new. But I guess what I'm feeling right now, is that I don't want to be part of it. The main attraction in Pucon is a giant volcano, and everybody who goes climbs it. For some reason, all week I've had this really strong resistance to climbing it. I couldn't tell why, but it just felt wrong. I felt like there was something inherently destructive about it. But I suppose my being here is just as destructive.

I guess my thesis is the following: I want to visit a place that doesn't know I'm there.

This brings me to Concepcion, a city which is surely unaware of my presence. There is a really interesting energy here. Lots of hustle and bustle of university students and businessmen. I'm staying in a proper (but modest) hotel here since there actually are no hostels in the city. You'll recall, Concepcion was the epicenter of the earthquake last year, so I was naturally very curious what things would look like. I found the hotel in my Lonely Planet book, and while walking toward it I was wondering if it would still be there, which was a crazy feeling. The hotel is still standing, but right outside my window is what used to be a a stone building and is now a crumbled heap of bricks.

Now I'm off to explore and maybe find some non-lard food for dinner, or maybe I'll eat more lard, shoot, I've come this far!

Besos y abrazos.

<3