Chile - Lakes

I think I’ve developed a Bolivian accent. Whenever I use my recently acquired Spanish, the Chileans look at me incredulously.

We’ve moved south in search of some peace and tranquillity after our desert boot camp. We’re in the Chilean lake district, although the weather is more Mediterranean than Cumbrian. We’re situated on the shore of lake Villarica, which is just about equidistant between the towns of Pucon and Villarica. The skyline is dominated by a snow capped volcano also called, confusingly, Villarica. This volcano is also active, continually blowing a steady stream of smoke into the air.

The area is a holiday spot for Chileans, with relatively few foreign tourists. There are lots of palatial holiday homes owned by wealthy families from Santiago adorning the shores of the lake. The town of Pucon is completely focused on tourism with the streets lined with travel agents, restaurants, bars and hotels. It reminded me a bit of Queenstown in New Zealand.

Still hungry for adventure, we signed up for some white water rafting the next day. In the morning, we found ourselves carrying a dinghy into the river with 6 other equally deranged tourists clad in wet suit, helmet and life jacket. Before long we were careering through our first rapid, panic stricken. Our guide and boat leader at the back had us paddling furiously and completely ineffectually through each rapid with cries of “Adelante!” I think this was a ploy to take our minds away from the fact that we were completely out of control. At the end of each rapid, we would touch oars together in the middle of the boat to celebrate our improbable survival. At one of the rapids our guide convinced a few of us to jump overboard to do it ‘solo’. We jumped into the icy water and were fished out looking like drowned cats a few minutes later. The whole thing was great fun. Our guide was a bit of a joker. At the end he had us jump out near the shore to guide the boat in. The water was ankle deep, but after about 15 metres, it was suddenly up to our chins. Our guide was still in the boat roaring with laughter.

Next day, we decided to slow down a little and head off in search of a gentle lake walk. This shouldn’t have been too hard you would think – in the lake district. The best way to get around is to rent a vehicle. I was looking forward to hiring one of those four wheel drive, eat up the road, planet consuming tanks that are prevalent here. A car that screams “Get out of my way!” As it turned out, rental cars were a bit thin on the ground and the only car I could find at the third company we tried was a Fiat Uno. A car that says “Run me over. You won’t even notice.”

Undeterred, we set off for Conguillo national park to the north east, where the guide book claimed there is a pleasant walk around a small lake. Unfortunately, a large part of the road to the park is gravel and dirt, about 65 kms of it. This meant that we had to proceed at about 30 kph at best as the road also had more potholes than Blackburn, Lancashire. Large sections of the road had strategically placed ridges resembling corrugated iron that made our little car shake like a rock star in rehab. We proceeded in perpetual fear that the Fiat would fall apart around us. Occasionally a Chelsea tractor would roar past us, or over us, in a cloud of dust and stones, leaving us choking and blind for a few minutes. We eventually made it to our destination at about 5:30 p.m. minus a few nuts and bolts from the car that we hoped weren’t vital.

We saw from the information centre that the walk was 8 kms. This gave is just enough time to finish it and get back before dark. We set off through a forest of bamboo and monkey puzzle trees, full of chimps doing sudoku. After about an hour we hadn’t made it to the lake and realised that the walk must be 8 km each way. We had no choice but to abandon the walk to avoid negotiating the road back in the dark.

Next day, we chose a walk and lake considerably nearer to our hotel in the Huerquehue national park to the east. There were a few dirt roads along the way but we made our destination in good time with most of the car. We changed into our walking clobber and headed off uphill towards the lake. We had about 40 minutes of hard uphill slog before the trail flattened out, and the path split into three. There were no signposts so we had to guess the way. Our chosen path then split again, and again. We wandered like this for the next hour or so completely lost searching for the illusive lake. Eventually we flopped down to eat our packed lunch only to realise that we were back near to our starting point. We took this a sign that lake walks were not to be, and headed off back the hotel which, after all, had wonderful views of lake Villarica.. Still, we’d had two very pleasant forest walks instead.

On our way back we stopped by at a resort built around one of the many natural hot springs in the area, and spent a pleasant couple of hours soaking in the pool or reading in the shade.

We spent new year here, booking into an Italian restaurant in Pucon. We had a quiet civilised evening until midnight when, as is customary the world over, complete strangers starting greeting us like long lost friends covering us with kissed and shouting “Happy new year” in Spanish “Feliz ano nuevo”. At 12:30 we were treated to a fireworks display over the lake. The local custom is to hit the beach and watch the display form there, but the heavens had opened and we decided to watch in the dry under the roof of the restaurant terrace. We then spent the next 3 hours dancing wildly to Salsa with the locals.