I hate being in places I can't spell.

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Futaeufu is one of those places. Now I have it on a screen on front of me it's fine, but in my daily diary entries, that sneaky extra u before the second f had a nasty habit of going missing.

I spent three days in Futa, which was a little bit more than I'd intended. However, my next destination was Chaiten, and as I'd heard on the grapevine that traffic in and out of the town was pretty much non-existent due to the volcano, I decided not to chance it with my thumb, and wait for the bus.

Therefore, I had to find ways to spend three days. Most people come to Futaleufu for the the rafting, which is supposedly world class. But for world class rafting, you pay world class prices, and as I wasn't really that fussed whether I went or not, I decided to give it a miss.

Instead, I spent the first 2 days doing different walks around the area, both of which very nice, and afforded great views of the area, and especially the two rivers, Futaleufu and Epsolon, which are both an incredible shade of turquoise. The third day was a bit harder to fill, and unfortunately, it had turned a bit chilly, so my plan of reading by the lake failed miserably. Instead, I climbed another hill, just to see the town from the other side. It was OK I suppose, but by this time I was just killing time.

Luckily, the campsite I chose in Futa was very nice, run by a lovely lady and her family, and frequented by a lot of bikers, who come here to start or end a journey down or up the Carretera Austral. So the evenings were spent chatting with them, and learning about a different way of travelling South America. I spent the last night with Johannes and Hogar, the two Germans from Trevelin, and as I went to bed early for a bus the next day, they joked that I was only getting up early to give myself time to try and climb yet another hill. I wasn't.

A bus at 6.30am meant that with my turnaround time of 2 hours from getting up to leaving, I had to be up at 4.30. And again, this proved to be true, as at 6.25am I strode manfully out of the gates, and towards the bus stop.

Stewart

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Photos

Rio Espolon
Just as turquoise as its neighbour.