Cincuenta y tres.

Lican Ray is a good spot for lava area walking. Yep, the smoky mountain is particularly cute coz it's exploding from time to time, - peasants leave off their houses, screamings in the night, fire&blood, etc. This is a land of wild rabbits, little lizards, blackberry scrubs and pine trees. Probably, it could be like Canada. Lican Ray himself has nothing interesting, except that housekeeper, an old-intelligent beauty-lefty lady from Lebanon. The woman in a thousand.

Cincuenta y dos.

As I said earlier (Did I?) railroad system of South America is almost ruined compared to XX century, so when we went to Temuco by one of the last trains, Chilean machinists pushed the button of the train whistle all the time. Here we go! Trains are the best. Temuco, the capital of free Araucania (they won all battles against Incas, Spanish, and Chileans) now's ruined too - state of life of modern Mapuche is looking like they working for trade balance surplus of China all the time of their lives (as all we are). Then Villarica. The Villarica lake, a bus station, a canyon near the town. For a couple of dollars, local old-timers can provide you information and knowledge how to get the real big fish from this lake. For giggles, I decided to do it by myself. On the road to the river, I got the asthmatic attack (spell of angry old-timers, I suppose), so that night all the fishes could keep their own plans for the future. I started to look at the mountain. Have never seen smth like that before.

Cincuenta y uno.

Dejected Valparaiso. Open-air museum&"we don't have clean towels, but everybody's welcome, irrespectively of the language, race, color of skin, religion, etc'" sort of hostel. That book of Bernard Pierre Wolff with New York's pictures was not for sale, that tiny city harbor was not for walkings (without sea-lions, but with salesmen of promotional gifts), a lot of stinky scum. On the plus side, Valpo still has some trolleybuses. It speaks in his favor, any place with trolleybuses - a trace of big culture presence. Like fucked commy USSR, I mean.

Cincuenta.

The last big (and fortunately clean) city. Just giant flag on the main square, cool underground railroad, tiny center, gorgeous carabineros, great trannie-show and provincial atmosphere. They destroyed this thing! - http://0.tqn.com/d/gosouthamerica/1/0/V/b/funicular.JPG - bastards ( I always dreamed about it when planning my big south trip years ago. It was like an alien cab, from the last Russian book of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Bastards. So, my image about Santiago was destroyed too. The new Santiago is a place where old boys going to the cafe with leggy breasted chicks or selling their old stuff on Sundays, depends on of position in society. Be it so.