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Published: November 14th 2006
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Lorena´s birthday party
Lorena was one of our hosts at the El Refugio hostel in Pucon. She is the one in black two places to Dave´s right; her partner, Peter, our other host, is on the left. Leaving Pucon was hard. Not only was the weather really foul outside the cosy hostel where we were staying, it also meant saying goodbye to all the friends we had made during our visit. Our hosts Peter and Lorena were particularly sad to see us go as we had been their longest-staying guests since they opened three months ago! We eventually managed to get away at 1pm — our latest start yet. Our plan that day was to get to a lakeside village called Lican Ray 60km away on Lago Calafquen.
However, 12km up the road and after a thorough soaking we ran into our friends Lavinia and Fernando and were invited back to their cabin for hot drinks and food. 3 hours later we were back on the road again in the wind and rain but this time accompanied by Lavinia and Fernando as far as Villarrica. We arrived at Lican Ray cold and tired just before dark. The light was beautiful, an intense gold of late afternoon after rain. And only metres before us, the end of a complete rainbow which was so clear we could see all its colours. As it is not high season yet most
It´s not all sunny weather and beautiful scenery
Sheltering from the rain and having lunch under a bridge on the Panamerican highway 60km south of Los Lagos. We had a further 36km to go that day. places in Lican Ray were closed and we had to pay for an expensive a 3 bedroom cabin with an almost-lukewarm shower.
The weather improved slightly over the next 2 days as we rode along the shores of Lago Calafquen and Lago Panguipulli, and eventually back to the Panamericana highway at Los Lagos. Los Lagos proved to be quite a poor town and the only place we could find to stay was a dark and dank room in a run-down wooden hotel. We had to wait for an hour while they heated the hot water on a wood stove before we could shower, and we were woken the next morning by activities in the rooms on either side of us, which have been rented out as offices. Ah, the joys of travel!
The weather forecast was looking pretty wet and cold over the next few days so we decided to skip going inland to Lago Ranco and make a big push straight down the Panamericana to the city of Osorno.
We did it again: we arrived in Osorno just in time for a public holiday! We had planned a rest day here, and everywhere was closed, something
Cement cathedral, Osorno
Most churches in Chile are modern due to the frequent earthqukes in this region to do with All Saints Day this time. This is the third time we've turned up in a bigger city, with plans to make use of the services such places offer, to find it shut up and a little ghostly. Maybe we aren't meant to spend time in the bigger cities.
After a day of rest exploring the parks, monuments and Germanic architecture we pushed on into the southern Lakes District to Lago Llanquihue (pronounced lan-key-way). This is the second largest lake in Chile, and has an area of about 860 km². Our first port of call was the German colony of Puerto Octay, a picturesque village on the edge of the lake with Volcano Osorno across the sapphire-blue lake dominating the background. The weather had picked up and was looking to be clear and fine over the next few days so we rode clockwise around the lake over the next three days to Puerto Varas (another German colony) before continuing south to the port city of Puerto Montt. The road along the northern side of Lago Llanquihue was mostly ripio (gravel) of good enough quality that we had time to take our eyes off the road to admire
the beautiful views. You can't see much of Volcán Osorno from this side of the lake, but we eventually came around to cycle over its foot and through some old lava flows, which are black and sandy, and full of corrugations that hide unexpectedly deep patches of sand that had us swivelling to a halt. From the southern shore, there are great views of Osorno and another volcano, Tronador.
From Puerto Montt we rode the final 60km of Ruta 5 on mainland Chile south to catch the vehicle ferry to the fabled Island of Chiloé.
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anonymous
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Great images.