Day 5 - She said: Well, today started off with a beautiful hike that was led by a man who spoke only Spanish. Along with the rest of the guests.

So...that was followed by a bit of a meltdown because I felt horribly prepared from a language perspective. Honesty, I thought more of my junior high Spanish would come back to me. Then I remembered that was (x) years ago. Then I was relying on my other trips to Spanish speaking countries, and remembered I didn't have to speak Spanish because everyone was so excited to practice their English. At least, I think so. Then I was relying on the Italian I learned in University to carry me through. Listen, I was grasping at straws.

Anyway, I digress. The hike was gorgeous. I have lots of pictures. Frankly, I got as much out of the Spanish guided your as I would have from an English one, because I retain nothing from guided tours. It's a gift.

What I did get out of the tour is that there are some amazing lake views, cool trees, and lots of dogs in the area. One dog in particular reminded us of Mark, Carole and Sydney's Jake. He was OBSESSED with a rock he found on the beach, an followed us around the peninsula with it, dropping it and barking about it and digging for it everywhere we stopped. It was adorable.

When we got back to our room is when the aforementioned meltdown took place, followed by a crash course in Spanish. Then I washed all the volcanic ash off myself and promptly forgot everything we'd tried to teach ourselves. Lesson learned. Should've stayed dirty.

Anyway, when we got all cleaned up, we decided our best course of action was to hike into town. So we did that without knowing how far it was. You say dumb. We say adventurous. Po-tay-to / Po-tah-to. Now we know, though. It's 7km. I won't detail that experience, because there is a Casey Affleck movie that involves wandering through a desert that can already tell you all you need to know. The one highlight - there's a brewery on the way. It was closed, but now we know. And we will be visiting. Expect a colourful post that day.

When we finally arrived in Villa La Angostura, we were frozen and soaking as we'd gotten caught in a rainstorm. We found a café with wi-fi, which is where I first wrote my blog post. The app died. I lost my post. You get a better version now. I swear.

Anyway, after our café con leche, our purchase of lots of fresh bread for the week, and our Lonely Planet Spanish phrase book download, we ventured back out to the village. We found the tourist office (where we were going to practice some Spanish but didn't have to).

We got some info to book stuff for our week here, including sailing with Jorge. We then checked out a wine shop, which we walked out of only to hear what I can only describe as a mechanical death wail / tornado siren. I thought the volcano was erupting big-time and we were gonners. I thought of all of you, so that's good news. We then thought, "hmm...we should ask at the tourist office if that is actually a sign of the apocalypse." So, we did. It isn't.

Apparently, the death wail is a fire department thing. It means someone's house is on fire (or something of the sort). Sucks for them, I'm sure, but it is NOT the call of the apocalypse. It IS, however, alarming.

After we learned we would live to see another day, we kept on our journey. We found a grocery store, so now we can get through the week without breaking the bank too much. Woohoo! That's all I have to say about that - it was grocery shopping. It's not much different, but we did get a bottle of wine from a vineyard in this region I wanted to try.
After that, we had time to kill, so we found a wi-fi spot and a glass of wine, and...that's where we are now.

Love and kisses.