I’m not sure if I’ve ever looked so stylish

After a few exhausting days of massive hikes and long bus journeys, we decided to stay put for a while. Luckily, we’ve landed in a fab little town, dubbed the ‘Queenstown of Chile,’ called Pucon. It was amazing- as soon as we stepped off the bus, we heard English for the first time in weeks! This is a proper little tourist town, with loads of outdoor adventure places, great restaurants and seemingly hundreds of hostels.

Luckily, we’d already booked ahead- a couple we met at the bus station hadn’t and ended up walking around for 5 hours trying to find somewhere to stay. It’s Chilean holiday season as well as high season for tourists so everywhere in Chile is extremely busy- we’re now all booked up until the Inca trail in March! We don’t like having to book ahead as it limits us in terms of extending somewhere however it’s a necessity for February in South America.

We’ve been super fortunate with most of the places we’ve stayed in Chile and this is probably our favourite yet. We’re at ‘Chili Kiwi Hostel,’ a typical hostel but with loads of quirks like treehouses (where we stayed for 3 nights,) glamping vans (smaller versions of Vanatar) and tents with proper beds in them (where we’re currently at.) The only downside of this place is the noise- in the treehouse we were right above the assembly point for the 6am trip to the volcano- 12 people talking full pelt for 40 mins is not fun. Last night at our tent, 2 foxes decided to start screaming right outside.

Oh, and apples from the apple tree above the tent sporadically drop onto us and wake us up. Lovely.

However, we are having a really great time here- everyone is so friendly, there’s loads of outdoor hammocks, comfy seats and swings to hang out on, so many bathrooms (this becomes important when you’re sharing with 40 other people) and a killer view of the lake.

One day we hiked out to a waterfall, about an hour and a half out of town- we had just started the last mega hill up when some lovely people pulled over and gave us a lift up. RESULT! After a few wrong turns and scrambling over rocks, we made it to this:

Stunning!

It was freezing cold glacial water, which meant we couldn’t swim in it, as much as we wanted to in 35 degree heat.

One afternoon we decided to take kayaks out on the lake and paddle over to a nearby beach. When will we learn that WE CANNOT KAYAK TOGETHER?! It just doesn’t work. The beach was black sand and really lovely, apart from the hundreds of Chilean tourists and many many wasps. It was no Fiji beach, but hey, at least it was hot and Sam could paddle!

Today we took a local bus to the Parque Nacional Huerquehue and did a stunning 4 hour hike to the 3 lakes. We managed to motor on past all of the dawdlers and make it to the lakes when they were completely empty- so beautiful and serene.

The highlight for both us though, throughout the whole of Chile trip so far, has been this, hiking to the top of the most active volcano (last eruption was March 2015) in South America, Villarica:

This was an intense day. We woke up at 5.30am for a 6am start, got kitted up in heavy duty hiking boots and some weird leg things we had to wear. We then drove around 30mins out of town upto 1000m above sea level, the base of the volcano. Here, we took a ski lift up another 400m (we had the option to walk this but as it was on volcanic ash and our experience of this in NZ wasn’t pleasant, we decided to shell out for the ride.) Almost everyone in our group of 12 chose the ski lift and mocked those who decided to walk up. From here, we were already above the clouds.

Our walk began with putting on crampons and grabbing an ice pick. Trepidation set in. It was bitterly cold as we hiked up in zig zag lines through ice and rock for 5 hours, with occasional 5 minute breaks. The breaks were supposed to be longer but it was so cold we couldn’t sit down for long. We wanted to eat and drink but doing that would have involved taking off the industrial sized gloves we’d been given. No thanks, I’d rather go hungry.

I suffered quite badly with altitude sickness around 2000m, (slightly worried about the Inca trail now) but slowed down to catch my breath, which put me right at the back of our group. Finally we saw the top of the crater and were told to put on our gas masks (absolutely hideous) as the fumes were too sulphurous. Standing at the top of the crater and looking into see the lava was amazing.

The top!

However the view down below was even better.

Then came the best bit. We put on waterproof trousers, attached a plastic ‘seat’ to ourselves and slid down the mountain! We followed tracks that had already been carved (think a luge-bobsleigh type track but far less sophisticated) and used our ice picks to slow ourselves down- Sam did not quite master this and kept crashing into me, which pushed me into the slow coach tortoise in front of me. The snow was quite soft in places which meant we could stop and take the plastic seat away (not the most comfortable thing in the world- I have bruises to prove it.)

It took 5 hours to walk up to 2874m and only 1.5 hours to come back down. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Tomorrow we leave Pucon and travel 4 hours south to Puetro Varas for 1 night only. From here, we’ll go to Puetro Montt airport and fly down to Patagonia- yippee! We’ll be down there for around a week, hiking and (presumably) feeling cold. Then we’ll make our way back up north past Santiago- the desert and salt plains await!

Interesting aside: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner are all verbs as well as nouns in Spanish.  Desayuno is “I breakfast”.  I like this.

As Laura aluded to in the last post we’re back on the hiking trail (despite the fact that she has now admitted she over-walked me in NZ!)  The difference is that we don’t have our own van to get everywhere now, and the public transport here is not so good in rural places, like where all the parks are.

Our first destination was San Clemente, a little village about an hour away from Talca, which was a big-ish town that took about 4 hours to get to from Santa Cruz via local then regional bus. It was quite a big transport day.  Only we weren’t just staying in San Clamente, but in a remote countryside place where the owners had to pick us up and drive us for another 30 minutes. We really do stay in some random places!

Fortunately it was well worth the trip. We stayed at Campo Suizo, a little BnB type place owned by a Swiss couple.  We were the only people staying and they could not have done more for us to make our stay amazing.  The food was all brilliant and home cooked, the beds were super comfy and it was a beautiful, remote place to stay.

The reason we’d journeyed this far was to head to “Reserva Nacional Altos de Lircay” to walk Enrilladrilado, an impressive 8 hour walk up hills and mountains to beautiful vista (tons of photos will be coming shortly). The top is a wide expanse with lots of square stones in the floor, and apparently no one knows whether they are natural or man made.

To get there first involved the owners dropping us at a bus stop to get the first bus of the day.  The bus was really old and packed to the rafters; Laura got to sit on the dashboard and I held on any way I could for an hour long bus journey along a mostly dirt track.  Once we arrived we then had a daunting 8 hour hike ahead of us; we’d arrived at 9 and the penultimate bus was at 5.10 which we were determined to get which meant keeping up a brisk pace.  It was a lot of walking, particularly on the way back as Laura’s shoes have been giving her some grief so she was in a bit of pain. She soldiered through though and you’ll be pleased to know we were back for the bus with 20 minutes to spare!

Winning!

I’m not sure how but the walks in Chile are even better than in New Zealand. There’s something incredible about the scale of everything, particularly the mountains which are huge and everywhere.  As it’s nowhere near as well organised it means that it’s a lot quieter too, and the quiet makes the views even more enjoyable.

The next day we were unsurprisingly sore, which we took as an opportunity to get one of the big bus journeys out the way as we went from our remote village, down a huge distance south to get to the lake district.  The intention had been to do almost 10 hours of bus journeys (2 local and one regional), however we had to make a change of plans. After arriving in Temuco, the regional hub, we discovered there was only one more bus to where we needed to go and it was already full.  The handy Rough Guide book we’ve been using pointed us to a nearby BnB, which actually ended up being a homestay.  Temuco is a nice city from what we got to see and we had a great dinner so it wasn’t a complete waste.

We got on the first bus the next day to Melipueco, a small town near to Conguillo National Park, and the stunning llaima volcano.  Despite it’s remoteness (1.5 hours direct, 2.5 hours via local bus with Chileans leaning over your seat and playing music from their smartphones out loud) it’s an exceptionally pretty place and we think this is what Switzerland would look like. Lots of wood!  Alas, due to our missed connection the night before we couldn’t go hiking on the first day so we took the opportunity to catch up on admin- school applications and such like.  It was nice to have a relaxed day and we had some lovely home cooked food- there were no menus, the chef just told us what was available.  Our Spanish is still far from perfect, but we understood “salmon” and “lasagne” (they’re the same!) so that’s what we had. Delicious!

Today though, we finally got to go hiking. There’s no public transport to this park so we had to pay someone to drive us out and back again, a 2 hour round trip.  We were hiking “Sierra Nevada”, labelled as a 6 hour hike which we managed to knock out in just over 4, which allowed us to do MORE WALKING!  Joking aside, I’ve really enjoyed both these walks, possibly even more than Laura.  The vistas have been amazing, and on our 2nd walk today we got to go on a volcanic black sand beach which was a treat.

Cheeky volcano in the background

Laura heading to Sierra Nevada

Volcanic Black Sand Beach

We have however made one faux pas; we didn’t bring enough cash and the solitary machine is out of money.  We’ve got enough for accommodation and a bus out of town, but we’re currently eating a dinner of crackers and chocolate spread!  We’ll be making up for it tomorrow by going for steak.

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So here we are in the Colchagua Valley, Central Chile. On Friday we left Vina (along with our certificates for having completed our Espanol classes) but perhaps unsurprisingly, we’re not fluent in Espanol yet. We are much much better than we were, to the point we can get by and have a conversation with someone but a lot of the time we have to pick out key words/phrases and try to figure out from that.

After a quick 1 night stopover in Santiago, we took a bus to Santa Cruz, a sleepy town 3 and a half hours south, in the Central Valley. This is famous wine country area and we were eager to get going!

After wandering around aimlessly looking for another bus (seemingly being the only tourists in town,) we eventually found a bus station with a bus that could take us to the tiny village of Chomadahue, where we’re staying in a lovely casa, with a pool and bbq. The owners don’t speak any Ingles, but luckily their daughter was nearby and could translate-ish. After some google translating, we managed to ask them where we could rent bikes to visit the vineyards in the area. Un problemo- no bike hire. Taxi then? Ah, no. Oh dear. But then…..the owner’s son offered to take us wherever we needed to go for half the price of a taxi. Yippee! The only reason we’ve come here is to visit the vineyards and so if we hadn’t have been able to go, we would have been gutted.

Visiting a vineyard here is much more of an event than in NZ. We had to reserve a week in advance and it’s also much pricier, but for that you do get a lot for your money.The vineyards are MASSIVE so getting from one to another would probably have been a bit of a nightmare on bikes in the heat.

First we visited ‘Montes,’ where we were taken on a private hike an hour and a half up through the vineyards to the top of a mountain. Well, almost. We realised quickly why noone else was on the hike with us. It was so hot we couldn’t make it to the top- around 37 degrees. Amazing views though.

Halfway up…..

The view from Montes looking out over its vineyards

We then had a visit to the barrel room, which was incredible. Weirdly, they play gregorian chanting constantly in there as Montes believes the vibrations ‘change the wine on a molecular level.’ Hhhmm. Really? Well whatever the reason, the wine was excellent and came with a cheeseboard- that’s a way to win us over for sure.

1st year French oak barrels.

We also took a trip to Clos Apalta, which was visually STUNNING. It’s owned by the same people who own Gran Marnier. The attention to detail on the architecture was amazing- everything had been built for a specific reason and had a function. It felt like something from 007.

Each level leads to a different part of the process- fermenting room, 1st year barrels, 2nd year barrels and tasting room/cellar at the bottom. The central staircase is supposed to resemble the swirling of wine in your glass!

The tour was excellent and we got to see exactly how they make their premium wine. I think for both of us though, the highlight here was the tasting room, which also doubles up as the second year barrel room. Once we got to the tasting table, we could see steps leading down under it. It turns out that this leads to the owner’s PRIVATE CELLAR- how cool is that?! Over 6000 bottles down there- unsurprisingly we weren’t allowed down to see it properly.

 

The final vineyard we went to was MontGras- one of the more well known in Chile. Here, we had a private tour of the vineyard followed by a trip into see how the wine is mass produced as well as tasting the wine straight from the vat- very cool. The only reason we got this private tour is because we seem to be some of the only people who need a Ingles speaking guide- all of the other tours in Espanol had at least 10 people on them!

 

We then got to the really fun part- making our own wine. As the Colchagua Valley has a very hot climate, every vineyard specialises in red wine so we were given the Reserve Merlot, Cabanet Sauvignon and a chilean special the Carmenere. We had to blend them together to create our own wine, which we then bottled, corked and brought home! At each vineyard, we could have as much wine as we wanted- we had to restrain ourselves for fear of keeling over mid afternoon!

Which blend will he go for?

Tomorrow we (begrudgingly) leave vino central to head down to San Clemente, another tiny town. We’re going to spend a couple days hiking in the Reserva Nacional Altos del Lircay (a big national park) before hopefully heading down to the Lakes District and onto Pucon, apparently the adventure capital of Chile. From there we’ll head down towards Puetro Montt to catch our flight to Patagonia (woohoooooo!) VERY VERY excited about this.