It’s finally time to say goodbye to Temuco on this trip,
which of course means a busy time with family and some friends who insist on
dropping by or us having a last visit.
Morning involved a long awaited visit to the Museo Regional de
Araucania. I’ve always been interested
in visiting but we’ve never found the time and Andrea has never been too
interested. On this occasion, she has
some old photographs to donate to the museum.
We tried visiting a few days ago but they were on an indefinite strike
and therefore closed, however today everyone appears to have patched up their
differences and the museum is open.
While Andrea goes through the rigmarole of donating to the museum
director, I get the chance to wander through a display of Mapuche silver
jewellery, which is very interesting.
Not only the displays of the items themselves, but the stories that go
with them.
Downstairs was a more traditional display of items relating
to the Temuco area and its history.
There’s lots of pottery, stories about the Spanish settlers and life in
the region. Quite interesting as well,
especially the pottery.
Back at HQ, lunch was in preparation for us and an aunt,
uncle and two cousins. As expected, it
was a long, leisurely affair with far too much food!
By late afternoon, we had to duck out and catch up with some
close friends for the final time. Of
course they had afternoon tea prepared for us…
After finally escaping without having to have eaten
anything, we headed back to the Out-laws.
We had some final dessert type things (a delicious tart), said our
goodbyes to the aunt/uncle/cousin and commenced the final struggle to pack
everything into our suitcases, now bulging at the seams. In my case, one of the seams is giving way. The suitcase is not that full, just old. OK, perhaps it is just full…
We head off to the Temuco bus terminal with about 25 minutes
before the bus is scheduled to leave.
Should be plenty of time, but we have forgotten that this is the final
day of the Christmas holidays for most and everyone is heading back to
Santiago. Needless to say the access to
the bus terminal is chaos. We manage to
finally get in with about 7 minutes to spare.
As it turns out, the bus is delayed, so we end up hanging around for a
while before it arrives.
Final goodbyes are only slightly teary. On to the bus, settle in and watch a crappy
movie, then try to sleep.
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