Osorno volcano

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Saturday 17 March

Only five of us had arrived last night and we walked into Osorno and had the world's best ever steak ! It was about 2 inches thick, perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious ! One couple, John & Theresa, had arrived the day before and had spent the day riding up to the local volcano and highly recommended it.

My room mate, Peter, had only been in the country 4 hours and hadn't collected his bike and was done in. That left Mike & I and we decided we too would ride out to Orsono volcano in the morning.

At first you could be forgiven we were in England. The sky was leaden and the countryside comprised of green fields of grass grazed by cattle. After about 50 kms were turned off to the look at the lovely little village of Puerto Octay by the shores of Lago llanquihue.

We retraced our route for 10 kms before re-joining the main road to the volcano. The road was fabulous for bikers. A good surface, no traffic and nice and twisty and bit little the Black Forest in Germany. We entered the Llanquihue National Park and took a sharp right. Although we could not see it, because of the low cloud, this was the climb up the volcano. It had not erupted since sometime in the 19th century but from the photos I had seen it was a classic cone shaped volcano, topped with a glacier, so it was a real shame not to be able to see it.

The road was even more twisty with tight hair pin after tight hair pin before we finally rached the top, or at least as far as you could ride. It was a barren landscape of dark volcanic ash and pumice and you could just get glimspes of the lake below through the cloud. There was a ski lift, that was closed, that rose up into the cloud. There wasn't much else to do but take a few snaps turn round and head back down. We had only been at the top 10 minutes or so but the fog we had encountered on the way up had dispersed and we had a lovely little ride down.

At the bottom were turned left and headed for Ensenada. This village and the coast road towards Puerto Varas was under going some "development". By that I mean someone had clearly seen the tourist potential and there were lots of modern European style developments. It had not though been spoilt and would make a lovely place to stay or even live. The view back over our right shoulder, across the lake to the volcano must be tremendous on a clear day, but I'll never know because of the wretched cloud !

Puerto Varas really marked the end of the trip . It is just north of it's larger neighbour Puerto Montt and it is here were re-joined Ruta 5 to head north. John and Theresa told MIke & I, when we got back they had lovely views of the volcano on the motorway too. Don't you just hate some people !!

It rained on the way home. Only for about 15 minutes but that was the first rain I had encountered since arriving in Chile. I called into Motoventura on the way back hoping they could sort out my sat nav, which they did. Unfortunately they handed be a bill for the damage to the F800GS. Apart from the scratch to the engine bars, which frankly would have been cured with a lick of paint they reckoned the wind shield was also scratched. Not sure I saw it that way but what could I do? I explained I had paid extra insurance so they could just make a claim but surprise surprise the damage was just under the excess so I had to fork out $400 USD which I hadn't budgeted for. Drat and double drat

When MIke & I arrived back at the hotel nearly everyone else had arrived. After e-mailling Lin and a shower, we all met for a beer and a team meeting. The trip proper was about to start !

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