La Suizandina

As expected, we had no internet, and we lived to tell the story despite the withdrawal symptoms. So here is what I wrote off-line:

Loquimay, 3-25

We woke up to a glorious day - deep blue sky and no cloud in sight.

After the promised hearty breakfast (interesting musli with poppy
seeds and lots of other stuff), we drove to where we planned to ascend the Loquimay. The minute I saw the gravel we would have to deal with I became very suspicious, and after 45 minutes of stumbling in something which resembles coarse sand (every footstep went a few centimeters down), I decided on a strike. Anne & Avi continued to walk for another 30 minutes or so - to the ski lift, and then we stumbled back to the car (I considered another strike but it would have been no fun to stay forever in that barren moon-scape).


We drove down with a Swiss guy, Nicholas, who needed a lift back to his car (he also decided not to climb, but his 3 companions pushed on). He is a geology & geography teacher who also digs for dinosaur bones occassionally so he gave us a very interesting explanation about the composition of the pumice and basalt rocks we saw, and also some dinosaur stories. They are staying at Suizandina too, so maybe we'll see them later.

We drove down to Tollahuco - a park about 60 km away. The last 35km or so were on an unpaved road but the car took this bravely. We first stopped by some thermal pools and then continued to search for a waterfall. After walking for more than an hour through a beautiful
rain forest we turned around without finding it as we wanted to go
back on the unpaved road before darkness fell.

We stopped in Curacautin - a fairly large town and sampled a few of
its stores searching for food for tomorrow.

Now we are back in the guest house - showered and ready for dinner ina couple of minutes.

Conguilio, 3-26

Another wonderful day - a few more clouds but pleasant tempreatures - ideal for hiking.

After the same hearty breakfast we drove to Curacautin, and on to the natioal park Conguilio, in which lies the lake of the same name and a few other smaller lakes and lagoonas. The trip took about 1.5 hours on unpaved roads, but most of the time the roads were in decent shape.

The park is extremely well organized and maintained. We first stopped in an information center with a lovely display of the local fauna and flora, and then on to the start of the trail. We walked for about 8km through the forest with occasional views of the lake. The ascent was not too steep and the views were just lovely. The local trees are very different from what we know - in particular a very old species of tree - aracaulia (supposedly has been around since the dinosaurs). They have spiky branches shooting out from a spiky main trunk. The spikes are arranged in spirals around the branch (sometimes also around the trunk). Some of the trees were covered with moss which seems to choak the trees.


After a quick and windy lunch with a beautiful view of the lake we
went down to the car and continued towards Laguna Verde. We aborted
before arriving as we were driving through a lava field with lots of
sharp stones which seemed too dangeros for the car. We did look at
another laguna which seemed haunted - lots of dead trees around it and forboding lava fields around.

Anne and I are weaned from the internet rather successfully but Avi
needed his fix after 2 days of abstinence, so we stopped in Curacautin at an Internet cafe - decent speed and about $0.55 for 30 minutes. Not bad. All non-Internet places were closed as it's Sunday so we will need to replenish our fruit supply tomorrow.


That's as far as I got in Chile. By Monday morning I had a terrible cold so we spent most of the day driving around - we went over the Andes pass up to the Argentinan border, visited beautiful lakes, and saw hardly a soul - but did see lots of cows, horses, sheep, goats and chicken. It is amazing how sparse the population is. At some point we were flagged down by 3 girls who needed a ride to the village next to our hotel! (we were about an hour away at that point). As their English was not quite as good as our Spanish (!) we are not quite sure what they told us but we think they are from Santiago - working as comntemporary dance teachers in the local schools. Anyway - they were charming and we parted with kisses at the end of the ride. Part of the drive was through an old converted railroad tunnel - which is a very odd experience.

Tuesday morning we packed up and made our way leisurely to Temuco to catch the 5pm flight to Santiago. We stopped in the local arts market but even Avi hardly found anything to buy there - Chile is really not a shopping country.

The flight back was long but uneventful and we slept quite a lot. Was great to see all 3 kids at home together, and by now (Thursday night) everything is completely back to normal. Was a great trip!