Chilean Farms and Volcano´s

Since the last time I wrote we have been travelling north zig-zagging our way through Argentina and Chile, we are now in Mendoza in Argentina and by the end of this week we should be in the North of Chile about to head into Bolivia for Nick´s Birthday, the old man.
We have had a great time and the travelling through Chile and Argentina has been very relaxed...well sort of.

We attempted to do a hike called the Nahuel Huapi traverse, which was the best walk I have ever done. Most of the walking was across, or down and up some very high, steep mountain ridges that gave us some very good views of the surroundings and made my legs feel like jelly. We camped at a place called Frey on the first night, which had some great looking climbs all around us, the granite rock here is really nice to climb on, super grippy. Unfortunately we didn´t get to finish the 6 days as we intended to do, as my feet were giving me some trouble but the first three days were amasing.

We camped for a few days in a place called Colonia Suiza, near Bariloche, which is a place that was colonised by a small group of Swiss people back in the early 1900´s, so the place has a very Swiss feel about it, with typical Swiss log houses, farms and you can get fondue´s in all the restaurants there. I think you´d like it here Mark.

While back in Bariloche we did some climbing at a place called Cerro Otto, which was up above the city and overlooking the lake, it was a nice way to spend the morning before it rained on us. We also felt very old as we shared a dorm room with 3 other young noisy American girls that were used to the Argentinian lifestyle of eating at 10pm and partying until all hours of the night...2am is an early night here. In one hostel we stayed at some Argentinian girls were only getting ready to go out at 2am! I´m obviously getting old. Hehe.

To get away from the party scene of Bariloche we headed for the much quieter place of San Martin De Los Andes, we were very sleep deprived at that point and needed to recover. This town is swish skiing resort town. We spent our days doing some day walks, a boat ride and having picnics around Lake Lucar, which was on native Mapuche land.

Next was Pucon, back in Chile. A very touristy town situated below volcano Villarrica. Everyone here comes to climb the volcano, so we did the very touristy thing and climbed it too. We had great weather and it was fun, particularly the glissading back down the mountain. It was like a giant water slide but on snow. As you can imagine our bum´s were frozen as we stepped off the snow. The next day we decided to do something a bit more sedate, so we visited Cani Forest just out of town. Cani Forest has some very ancient trees that are native to the area and Nick was particularly interested to see them. I was expecting a nice pleasant walk through the forest, but we didn´t have a map with us and so we had no idea that there was a huge, steep, hot, sun drenched and dusty hill to climb before got to the forest bit...and since it was a very hot day the walking wasn´t very pleasant. On our way down we found out from a couple that were on their way up that there was a lake up on top. We must have turned around just before it, what a shame, I would have been in there to cool off for sure. We spent a few more days in Pucon and we met some really great people while we were there. The rest of our time was spent chatting and laughing with them all before we left for Chillan.

We were fortunate to have met a Chilean guy, Hernan, while we were in Puerto Natales and on the Torres Del Paine trek. He had offered for us to meet up with him as we were travelling through Chillan. We took him up on the offer and we were so glad we did. We had the kind of experience you want when you travel, those genuine exchanges between you and the locals and and a chance to experience the real culture of a place. Hernan is on a sabbatical for a year from his job as an architect and is spending it on his friends small dairy farm so he can relax and work on his paintings. We got to spend a couple of nights on the farm and Hernan showed us some of the local sights and the yummy Chilean food and wine. We visited an old disused coal mine in Lota, a very working class Chilean town, which was good to see to get away from the tourist towns. The mine is now closed, but they run tours through some sections of the mine that run under the sea. We also visited a port called Lenga, where we had some tasty seafood and had a walk around the city of Concepcion. The whole experience was fantastic and we both really enjoyed and appreciated Hernan´s company and conversation.

From the farm in Chillan we travelled to Santiago for a few days, then onto Mendoza where we are now.