Road trip to volcanoes, lakes and thermal baths
Trip Start
Jan 28, 2008
1
80
83
Trip End
Sep 18, 2008
Villarrica,
Lake District,
Chile
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The first thing that was important to learn was that sticking my left hand out the driver`s side window wasn´t going to get me any closer to changing the gears. And secondly, people can`t understand that when the windscreen wipers flick back and forth across the glass, that I am actually indicating to turn. So, once the oddities of swapping functions into different hands was sorted, we sped off at a cruisey 120km an hour, continuing our merry way down the PanAm highway, southbound for the Pucon region (as our Chillan hostess described it ¨Que Rico!¨.)
Driving for 300 or so kilometres felt REALLY far. Cameron and I were dissapointed that our previous conditioning from driving in and out of Alice Springs long distances seemed to have worn off. We were very weary when we arrived at La Torre Suiza in Villarrica, a town half an hour away from the more touristy Pucon village.
The scenery was very picturesque as we drove in, the snow covered Villarrica volcano rising up behind the lake. It was even puffing smoke. Beat and Claudia, our hosts, have a great chalet that is toasty every night when they stoke up the fireplace. We found out lots of information about where to visit over the coming days. We had planned to stay 2, then drive further south, but the schedule looked pretty full, so we changed our plans and spent the rest of the week exploring the Pucon region.
The little rental car (a Kia Morning) happily drove over the country gravel roads, winding up and down and around the alpine area. Cameron was very careful to dodge most of the potholes and iced-over puddles. The first day we visited a waterfall (paying a small fee to visit as it is on somebody`s private property), then headed onto the Los Pozones thermal baths, a beaut find. We payed about $8AU each to spend 3 hours soaking in the hot mineral pools, listening to the river flowing past, and trying figuring out how could we build one of these in our back yard.
Next day we got serious and headed to Parque Nacional Huerquehue to do a 5 hour hike up to the 3 alpine lakes through some snow. Very tough going actually, although the scenery was incredible. And the waterproofing on my boots is shot, so my feet got wet and froze. Anyhow, the flora was very interesting. Native (?) south american bamboo grows high on the mountains, the leafy branches making the forest look very Asian, and we hoped to see a Panda. No luck there. Worse luck though, the weight of the winter snow had snapped a lot of the bamboo, so shards of the giant grass were jutting out of the snow just waiting to impale a hapless hiker (ie. me) who failed to take care with every treacherous step! Higher in the mountains grow Aruacaria pines, ancient plants with bark scales as big as a plate, this time we thought we might see a dinosaur chewing some. The only wildlife we saw was a few insects and little birds. The lakes at the top were partially iced over still, and the scene was magical.
We returned back down just before dark, and decided to treat our weary bodies to another dip in the thermal ponds. There was only one other couple there, and the night sky was clear, starry and the moon almost full. Bliss! To top off a great day, we had late night Pizza in Pucon. YUMMY!
Our last day in the region we were a little lazy, wandering around Pucon, looking in the art and crafts shops, and eating a hearty local lunch of meat, veges, rice and bread. We even managed to find a second hand clothing store that had a basket full of ski pants selling for about $10AU, so we each bought a pair. That will save us a small fortune over the coming weekend.
It really is a shame we can´t explore further south, especially the island of Chiloe in Patagonia. It has been so fun to have a car again and be independant of public transport, even if I did manage to turn into oncoming traffic twice...
