Chile Forum

I hope everyone will understand if my wife and I disappear for a few days. We are going to wonder a bit more down south around Los Lagos and find a nice little cabin or hotel to hide from the world for a few days. Perhaps even a trout or two to bother, and only slightly on the edge of a cell phone network (just spent three weeks cursing at the cell phone companies, and now we are running away from them).

We kind of got robbed of our vacation on account of the disaster and subsequent relief projects. All of our employees had managed to rotate out of the office for vacation this year prior to the earthquake, and we were the last ones slated to go on vacation. The last couple of weeks took us from being simply really tired to completely burned out.

We managed to tape and glue our office back together today and get it running in some sort of normal fashion finally. The earthquake really did not do all that much damage to it. I think I got a total of about 50,000 pesos in losses from broken and scratched odds and ends, along with some cosmetic cracks in the paint on the walls. The bigger impact was when we stripped all the office equipment out for the aid project and sent it to points all over Temuco so people could keep working. For example, I still got things like printers and office supplies out at the air club in Temuco we need to recover.

It was rather amazing we managed to keep it all operational and serving clients through this whole mess, thanks to the girls in the office stepping up and a bunch of volunteers to fill in the gaps. In the first hours after the quake, while my wife and I sat in the dark and tried to figure out what sort of communications we still had with the outside world, we laid emergency plans to batten down the hatches to weather the financial storm to come. We were going to cancel our contract on our office and find something cheaper, started prioritizing which employees were most essential, and just generally preparing for the worse case scenarios that we were certain was coming down the pipe. The basic assumption we had to work on was Chile might very possibly never see another gringo again.

What a difference a few weeks make. Today I found myself looking at larger office in the same building, since we were going to have to close for a couple of days to repaint our current one anyway. We even discussed adding a couple of more employees. All things however my brain will no longer process with any depth, and best not to make such decisions in this condition.

So, we are going fishing.

I can't think of anyone who deserves a break more than you both! Enjoy.

Have a great time, guys! Lord knows you guys have earned it. If you have a chance, treat yourself to a massage. Nothing like some deep tissue work to release stress and detoxify

Enjoy yourselves.

Otravers and I will keep thing from gettin' outta hand.

Cool, man You and Zandra did an amazing job. Have a great time out there... just don't come back with this story about "the one that got away"

I am planning to hit the thermas, if we get a chance. It would be really nice to get something relaxing out of Chile's geology this month.

Have a wonderful, restful time.

Good luck with the fishing I’ve been in Coyhaique for 4 days and the fishing has been slow but ok, I’m not getting skunked, lots of others are and cancellations are hitting everyone down here, though the end of the season gringos are bailing left and right.

Back in the saddle.

Now I feel like I am three weeks and an 8.8 earthquake behind in everything. That is o.k. We got some rest. Ready to take on the World.

The only fish I caught was at sushi restaurant in Puerto Varas, but it was good.