Gringos de Marimán

We had a busy social calendar for the week of the fiestas patrias. We started off on Sunday at a potluck asado (bbq) with friends from Language Pucón. On Monday morning Carlota, the owner of the house we're renting, and her husband Pedro Pablo stopped by to visit. I'd emailed pictures of our big August snowstorm to Carlota and she was anxious to take the opportunity to see how her garden fared. Many broken branches still littered the property, but the sight of budding magnolias, camellias, and rhododendrons eased her fears. The pinhead, Deena, and Darlene had their own fiesta, touring the grounds with two true dog lovers (Cyn and Carlota). We invited Carlota and Pedro Pablo to take a tour of our casa in progress, so we all headed off to the parcelas. The sun shone brilliantly overhead, but an ominous trail of smoke drifted across the western horizon. After walking through the casa, we climbed up the hill to parcela 31 and saw that the smoke rose up from downtown Pucón. Just then Pedro Pablo received a call from Tito who informed him that the casino and the connected hotel were on fire.

The fire (you can see pictures from La Tercera) completely destroyed both the casino and the adjacent five star five story hotel. I've always considered the casino an anomaly in Pucón, although to be honest we had never been inside. We had briefly visited the hotel, which seemed quite ritzy in comparison to the standard funkiness of most of the town. I had no idea that the casino's tax payments accounted for 40% of Pucón's income, nor that the casino employed over 500 people. As a major tourist attraction, the gambling salons also helped to boost business for many other restaurants, hotels, and shops in the area. Needless to say the fire received major press coverage from the Santiago papers and tv stations and caused a lot of consternation for the local government and the populace in general.

Unfortunately, Pucón received a severe lesson in the importance of disaster preparedness. The local weekly paper likened the fire to the sinking of the Titanic, an unthinkable possibility. According to the news reports the fire started in the casino's kitchen. Apparently the employees, hoping to limit the concern of the guests and the negative publicity, initially tried to extinguish the fire themselves. The blaze spread quickly as one would expect in a primarily wooden structure built without an overhead sprinkler system. By the time the local bomberos arrived, the flames had reached the hotel. Fortunately, the 190 hotel guests evacuated safely, although most lost all of their belongings. The lack of an aerial ladder firetruck limited the effectiveness of the Pucón bomberos. Eventually fire companies from Temuco, over an hour away, and other regional cities came to help fight blaze. Over seven hours later the bomberos had the situation under control.

Despite the major loss, many people considered Pucón fortunate that the disaster wasn't worse. There were no lives lost, and although some bomberos did suffer injuries, none were considered major. I was amazed to hear the hotel did not have smoke alarms (it's always possible that I missed something in the translation). The unusual lack of wind prevented the spread of the blaze to any of the nearby houses and somehow the bomberos kept the hotel's large fuel tanks from exploding. Now the casino owners with the help of the city are racing to complete a temporary structure in order to reopen the gaming salons before the major summer tourist season. Hopefully, they're also considering possibility of taking fewer gambles in case of future disasters.

I'm sure the fire significantly altered the tone of the patrias dias, but we decided to visit el centro for the annual parade. We weren't nearly as well dressed as some of the kids heading to the municipalidad.

We passed a number of local restaurants with the traditional covering of avellano branches and the Chilean flag - required by law. Local neighborhoods erected their own similarly decked ramadas, hosting visitors in search of homemade chicha (fermented grape or apple juice), pino emapañadas (stuffed with meat, onions, hard-boiled eggs, and an unpitted olive!), and pebre salsa.

At the parade site, the school kids and dancers checked their outfits and made last minute adjustments in case of spur damage. The dancers performed the cueca, the handkerchief-waving Chilean national dance which supposedly mimics the antics of a prowling rooster and a flirtatious hen. We witnessed a lot of rooster activity in the cabaña, none of it appeared even slightly as artistic as the cueca.

We arrived a little late, so my pictures weren't so great. Hopefully you can spot the local heroes, the bomberos dressed in their traditional outfits.

I took this picture of the recently appointed chief of the local carabineros (police), because I noticed the ironic sign with the playing cards pointing the way to the casino 400 meters away. Unfortunately, this photo marked the end of the parade for us. The chief wanted to make a good impression, so he read through five pages of remarks aimed at recognizing all the local dignitaries. Meanwhile we retreated to Trawen, one of our favorite local hangouts to enjoy empañadas, vino, and cervezas. We caught glimpses of the parade through the windows while reading the newspaper reports about the big incendio. For the curious, the parade seemed similar to small town 4th of July festivities, although with a bit more rural flavor perhaps. One other interesting note, Chileans consider the Fiestas Patrias a celebration of the national culture, whereas those who'd experienced 4th of July in the US considered that event much more of a nationalistic patriotic affair.

Due to the shortened week, I don´t have too much to report on the casa progress. We had the usual assortment of continuing activities, including lots of pasta pasting in the cocina/workroom area . . .

our piedra stretched into the dormitorio . . .

our pasillo also got a bit more piedra . . .

and the last bit of coihue went up in the dormitorio.

As for new developments, the maestros added space in the baño for that tina that arrived last week.

The maestros spent most of their time preparing for yet another section of madera. In this case, they added framing to the entryway and the space above it in order to attach the planks.

More coihue? No, in order to add a little contrast in this space, we chose a lighter native madera, mañio. Mañio´s beautiful, but it´s relative scarcity convinced us to limit our usage to an enchapado version, basically chipboard with a mañio veneer covering. Here's a view of the cut pieces waiting for installation. But you'll have to wait until next time to see more of a finished look. Hasta la proxima!!