Isla Chiloe, Lakes and Volcanoes
Hello!
It has been a while, but we have been busy wandering around the Lakes district of Chile. We took a trip down to the Island of Chiloe to hike through some coastal rainforest along some sandy beaches, and taste some (really!) fresh shellfish (even Ollie was tempted, despite allergies). We did have one difficulty along with two other hikers- being chased off of one manīs property with a stick. The "macho" men here have less problems whacking girls than we would have thought! (But we ran away alright).
After, we heard of a festival on the fringe island of Quinchao in the town of Achao. There was eating, drinking and dancing, Chilean style: copious quantities of bbqed meat, backyard brews, but lively and colourful dances.
Afterwards, we really got to doing some hiking. We went to two parks: Vincente Perez Rosales and Puyehue, and spent 5 days in each. On the first hike we took a lovely boat ride on a brilliantly sunny day across Lago Todo Los Santos. We hiked north to thermal baths and an alpine lake to Lago Rupenco. The second hike was really cool (and our favorite) because we got to hike through a volanic area with muchos hot springs and smelly steam rising from yellow and black rocks. And, we got to climb a real (though probably dormant now) volcano and look down into the crater!
We finished our time here by taking an unplanned trip up to Pucon because we had to climb the Volcan Villarica, an ACTIVE volcano with bubbling lava.
Despite Pucon being a frighteningly trendy tourist hangout (basically a Whistler replica) and the hike up being not very difficult or much of a challenge (how can it be when you take the ski-lift up part of the way?), it was an excellent experience to see first-hand toxic fumes rising out of a hot-bed of volcanic activity (which will someday hopefully wipe out Pucon).
The view was also pretty unbeatable.
Now we are hanging out in Puerto Montt before our flight back to Santiago tomorrow. We are looking forward to the warm weather. Hope the pictures made it to everyone.
C&C
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