Mapuche and volcano

When we opened our front door this morning, we were greeted by a reception committee. There were two dogs and two cats sitting there, looking at us joyfully. They were already licking their lips. The two cats quickly slipped inside and made themselves comfortable on our armchairs. When Christian saw that, he was delighted.

During breakfast, Heike revealed the good news to the family that we would be taking a walk to the local volcano today. We already knew that resistance was futile. Since the volcano is located in Mapuche territory, we had to pay a small fee at the entrance. We were excited to finally be able to talk to the Mapuche people.

So we went to the volcano, which was described in the most vibrant colors on several blocks. Now we already knew that you can't always trust such descriptions 100%. But what we saw this time was another sad highlight: rubble, rubble, rubble! We wondered where the volcano could be hiding. When the weather turned unpleasant, we left the pile of rubble. Since we knew that there were two Mapuche women at the entrance and we had read and heard a lot about them, but only from non-Mapuches, we thought of questions we could ask them. But we could have saved ourselves the trouble. Because the two of them couldn't answer our questions about their lives and customs. According to their statements, the Mapuche people live the same way as all other Argentinians. But we have observed many times that this cannot be true.

Fairly frozen, we went to the nearest restaurant, hoping it would be as good as our train restaurant. Unfortunately, it turned out that it was far from it. The highly acclaimed Argentine schnitzel could safely be thrown in the bin. The breading was snow-white and the meat was so thin that it was probably cut with a vegetable peeler. Christian wanted to ask the chef how he managed to make the meat so thin and yet so hard that it was difficult to cut. There's nothing like a beef tenderloin sandwich!

At home, we ended the evening comfortably with a little film, as the Argentinians would say. The Argentinians like to make everything cute. Instead of saying "He's taking a week off", the Argentinians say: "He's taking a little vacation for a weeklet."