Travelgame

Originally I just wanted to stay half more day at the Huerquehue national park, climbing the Cerro San Sebastián, a viewpoint overlooking all the park and the 5 volcanos nearby. Then, taken by the beauty of this place, I decided to spend some more time at the 4 mountain lakes, laguna chico, laguna toro, laguna verde and laguna desierta, taking a rest at each of them, sunbathing and enjoying the afternoon. Finally, I didn’t reach the last bus back to Pucón, so I “had to” stay at the Refugio Tinquilco, having “Apfeltorte” for dinner in the atmosphere of an awesome wooden country inn.

Sometimes, while traveling, you meet people and imediatelly connect to them, that was what happened in Pucón between Yoav and Tal from Israel, Paola from Chile, Mikael from France and me.
And while one could argue, we didn’t do much during these ten days but cooking, buying food, having breakfast, having lunch, having teatime, having dinner, talking about dishes, we also had a lot of fun hiking the national park of Huerquehue, riding bikes, doing canopy, sunbathing at the beach of the lago Villarrica or enjoying the stars over the open-air thermal springs of los Pozones

In short: I came to Pucón specialy to see the lava inside the crater of the volcano de Villarrica. I barely climbed it, I smelled the lava, I heared the lava, but I went down without having seen it! I should be upset, I am not. Having been one of only two (out of 100) that mad it that day, having been able to ski down the snowy slopes after 5 hours of fight against the strong and icy wind and the sulphuric gazes at the top was my personal valcano adventure. I wouldn’t have liked it any other way.

I wanted to go to a pacific Island? Here I am: Chiloé, while only being separated from mainland Chile by a 5 km channel, has its own, very special charm and history, as it was, for a long time, ruled directly by the Hispano-Peruan viceroys. An in fact, it is a pleasant place, with fisher huts, fisher boats, and fishermen. Going further north, through Puerto Mont and Valdavia, the lanscape changes a bit, the fish doesn’t. This regions Salmon industry is responsible for almost 25% of the chilenean exports!

No joke: it is possible to cross the Andes with boats! In fact, I had to “hop” from one river to the next, using a combination of ferrys linked by short passages with busses, but anyway, the views were spectacular. Then, after passing the border to Chile, the landscape became even more like home and because of the strong influance of german settlers, you will find “Kuchen” all over the place!