Springtime in the Andes

Jorge announces to the world that he is on vacation!

There are the pluses and minuses about traveling during springtime, shoulder season. The pluses include being able to travel without much advance planning and still get rooms at the better hostels and choice seats on the long-distance buses. The minus side includes the weather.
When you live in Santa Cruz, it's easy to take good weather for granted. So we didn't think much of it when we had bright sunshine for our first day in San Martin de los Andes, and took a casual stroll partway up Cerro Colorado without pushing on for the summit. We're learning. Two days ago, when the forecast wasn't terrible, we hiked up to the summit of Cerro Colorado - in fresh snow. It was beautiful, but different in character than before: no panoramic views of surrounding mountains, great views of clouds instead, and no shortage of wind. When the (accurate) forecast for yesterday predicted a day of solid rain, we declared it a travel day and crossed the border to Pucon, Chile. The border crossing was uneventful, aside from the x-ray scan for fruits and vegetables revealing something in my backpack that resembled a fruit or vegetable. We'll never know what it was, since the border guard gave my pack the most half-hearted search on record. Today, with yet another day of rain, we spent the day at an awesome hot spring. Tomorrow, the forecast looks better, and we might get to enjoy some of the myriad of outdoor activities that this region is famous for. Next week, the forecast (which isn't to be believed so far in advance) predicts sunshine. What will we do???

Another characteristic of springtime is that business hours here are even more unpredictable. Even in high season, this part of the world follows siesta hours, a.k.a. Damned Siesta Hours (DSH). What this means is that some but not all businesses open for a while in the morning, close from about 1pm to 5pm, and then open again from about 5pm to 9pm. Some businesses don't necessarily keep siesta hours, and close around 5pm. So, starting at 1pm, you never know what's going to be open. There's some pattern. Museums are more likely to keep tourist hours, small shops are more likely to keep DSH - except for when they don't. This might suggest that the morning is the best time to try to find things open. But, add to the picture another variable: reduced hours for the off-season! Many businesses are keeping shorter hours and opening later in the morning - or aren't open at all. Business hours, if they are posted, are not to be trusted. Many stores have signs in their window where they could fill in their opening and closing times - but those times are blank. In short, the business is open when it's open. And sometimes when a business appears open, it's not - such as a restaurant connected to a hostel where we stayed, where we asked if we could get some food, and were directed to another restaurant down the street. Later, Jorge spotted empanadas in the kitchen, protested that they'd had food after all, and was told that that wasn't food, just empanadas. Needless to say, this underscores that we're no longer in the United States, where a world of businesses cater to our personal convenience and the popular mantra is "the customer is always right".