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Published: November 12th 2005
New pants for me matron...
Magma explodes from Volcán VillaricaWelcome to Chile´s Lake District, a spectacular glacial landscape of sheer mountains, rolling valley floors and (least surprisingly of all) a multitude of beautiful lakes. Like Bolivia, Chile has a variety of terrains. We have been up high in the Andes, scorched in the desert and relaxed in the Meditteranean-like coast, but it has to be said that the scenery here is the most classically beautiful.
We arrived in Pucón in the early morning, dropped off some kit at a hostel and decided to head out to Parque Nacional Huerquehue (pronounced "wear-key-wear" - took a bit of time to get that one). Pucón is a nice enough place. OK, it´s tourist central but its pleasant on the eye (it looks a bit like a swiss ski resort), has loads of good accomodation options and is the central hub for numerous activites in the local mountains, valleys and rivers. First up for us - a spot of hiking and camping.
Our driver had little compassion for his aging bus, which was thrown around the gravel track with gusto. This is a common trait in South America - at least the roads are a little better here. An hour of juddering
The Chilean Lake District
Parque Nacional Huequehue and lateral tyre movement later and we skidded to a stop at the entrance to the Park and set up camp at Lago Tinquilo. The campsite is set in woods at the edge of the lake, which is squeezed in between high snow-capped mountains on three sides. It´s a majestic setting. At the end of the valley you can see a large waterfall bursting out of the foliage. Aside from that the valley is just as tranquil as the name suggests.
The lakes are pretty crowded during the summer but at this time of year it´s not so hard to get a bit of solitude. There were a couple of other tents in the campsite the first night that we were there, but the second night we had the whole place to ourselves (well almost - see below).
As always seems to happen as soon as we pitch a tent - the heavens opened. This time we decided to show a little resistance and went out for a walk anyway. An hour of sleeting misery later we staggered back like the bedraggled rats that we were. Note to self - don´t try to defy the elements, they´re bigger
than you... Hot tomato soup never tasted so good that night.
One rather crisp night later and we were ready to start trekking. The route at the head of the valley climbs through magical broadleaf forests coated in moss and old man´s beard lichen. There are two powerful waterfalls on the trail which break the silence of the valley with a rumble of crashing water. Higher up, the route winds through swathes of bamboo, which we found a little surprising. However, it does make a cracking pole to aid in the avoidance of mud - and there was a lot of that. Snooze unfortunately didn´t manage to avoid all of the mud and was upended into the slime. Not a happy Snoozy.
When we finally heaved ourselves over the ridge we dropped down into a valley with a stunning lake whose backdrop is a vertical cliff fringed with snow. The water was crystal clear and icily cold. We had lunch at the second lake and tried to complete the circuit round to the third lake. We had been told that the top of the circuit was cut off by about a metre of snow. Luckily, a few people
Hmmm - tuna pasta again? Yes please...
Camping out in the sleet at Lago Tinquilo had been through before us and it was still possible to follow the trail, although we had a few cartoonish moments of scrabbling feet desperately trying to stay upright.
That night we managed to cook up some bangers and mash on our stove (our campfood repetoire is slowly getting there) and at about 9.30 we hit the hay - well, synthetic sleeping bag. At one in the morning we were woken by a loud rustling just outside the tent. What the hell is that we thought - there´s no-one here except us - or is there...
We, well OK, Tom, had a peek out of the tent with his torch. Two green eyes snapped around to face the tent from under the picnic table. Luckily they only belonged to a domestic cat - who for all his scowling was easily sent packing. What he´d managed to do was quite impressive though - he had pulled open our shopping bag, dragged away his prize and managed to chew and rip through two layers of plastic in order to steal the lunch for our last day. Unfortunately our bungling catburgler had been too noisy. As the cheese was resigned to
Volcán Villarica
A seething, fuming heap of mountain overlooking Pucón the bosom of the bin two eyes glowered hatred at from us from the shubbery.
The next day we climbed the hill behind the campsite, Quichol. It´s a relentlessly steep climb that left us exhausted by the top. However, it´s all worth it for the view, which is spectacular. Indeed, it was a great place to scope out our next target, Volán Villarrica. Volán Villarrica is an active volcano that sits overlooking Pucón. The locals don´t seem too fussed. In the town there´s a traffic light system that grades the current volcanic activity but life goes on as normal as the volcano quietly fumes to itself and belches out clouds of sulphuric smoke. At night the fiery glow of the magma in the crater is visible against the night sky.
So, an active volcano for a neighbour - it just had to be climbed! And so we did. We set off at 7 and drove up to the base of the volcano. The Chileans are obviously quite confident that the cone is not going to blow in the near future as they have built a ski resort on its lower slopes. Happily, that meant that we could get
Life on the edge
Suse tucks into lunch using her ice axe as a fork a chair lift up the first part. There's no need to add to a three and a half hour climb if you don't need to...
There's still a whole lot of snow on the volcano at this time of year and we were fully kitted out with waterproofs, gaiters, ice axes, crampons - the works. The pace was slow and the route took its time meandering up the volcano. Our training in Huerquehue was much more taxing. However, as we got onto the cone there were other issues to worry us.
First the slope was extremely steep and the foot holds were increasingly small and icy. One slip on the ice and you would have had an half hour long trudge back to where you'd come from. Our guides taught us how to stop yourself falling with your ice axe but you don't really want to try it out on a vertical slope!
The other issue was the smoke that was suddenly pouring out of the volcano, which fostered a little nervousness in the group. Although you know it's not going to explode while you're there you can't help but think about it. Mind you - there
needn't be a full scale explosion. Near the top there were numerous rocks which had obviously been jettisoned from the crater and solidified in the snow. One of those on the noggin and it's goodnight Vienna.
We got to the top and peaked over the edge into the deep crater. The noise is pretty awesome, both of the eruptions and the howl of the venting gas. From certain angles we could see right into the crater and watched a series of explosions - molten rock being thrown 30ft into the air and solidifying on the side of the crater. It was absolutely incredible to watch.
How do you get down from the top of a 2847m volcano? Why, sliding on your butt of course! Our guides sought out the steepest sections that they could find and launched us off into oblivion. We used our ice axes as breaks on the most vertical sections but needless to say we span out of control, minor ice axe injuries were incurred and it was damn good fun. Thanks to the chaps at Politur, who were great guides and very professional.
Three buses later and we were in Petrohue in Parque
Nacional Vicente Perez Rosales. The next door neighbour is Volcan Osorno, which is no longer active (so we weren't interested in climbing it - just not dangerous enough for us now...). However, it's a perfectly formed volcano cone and looks like a mini Mount Fuji. We had to get a boat to the houses on the other side of the river in order to put a roof over our heads. We ended up at Hospedaje Kushel, which is a guesthouse/menagerie. We shared the place with about 5 huge pigs, a pack of dogs, some chickens and their chicks, ducks, geese and who knows what the huge black birds on the roof were but they looked hellishly mean - like mini-vultures. However, the lady of the house really does know how to cook fresh trout. It was our first truly healthy meal in ages!
In the morning we were woken by one of the demonic black birds flapping frantically up to our window and attempting to peck our eyes out through the glass. We can assure you that it's a bewildering and startling way to wake up. A hitchcock alarm clock!
We hired mountian bikes and visited the local
waterfall. The water in Rio Petrohue is an incredible turquiose colour and froths up into some weird lava lamp-like shapes. It's a big churning drop and it is quite hard to believe that kayakers have taken it on, which evidently is the case. However, better than that was our visit to Peulla across Lagos Todos Los Santos. The lake crossing is on one of the routes into Argentina. There's only one operator on the route and the tourists are herded this way and that onto their buses and boats. We were the only independent travellers on the boat, which was a bit weird as the lake is stunning and wasn't hard to get there. It was great when the package sheep had all gone off to their various destinations and Peulla was left quiet, serene and beautiful. We rough camped in a garden and sneakily used the local hotel's amenities.
The next day, before the trip back across the lake we decided to climb up the trail to Laguna Margarita. The route was absolutely ridiculous! The slope is legbendingly steep and the trail is like an assault course. So many trees had fallen onto the route and not been
moved that we found ourselves jumping over, under and around them constantly. There's two rope sections and even a water course. We hadn't banked on that and didn't make it to the top in over two hours of scrambling up the hill. It took just as long to get down - it really was that bad!
We're having a few days rest in Peurto Varas and Peurto Montt and then we're taking to the high seas for the first time! We're booked on the Navimag cargo ferry on Monday which will take us through the Patagonian fjords down to Peurto Natales, pretty close to Tierra del Fuego. It's a notoriously stomach churning ride, but it should be a stunner. Stay tuned for more shadenfreunde....
Hasta leugo muchachos
T&S
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Davey B
non-member comment
NICE