Wine tastings, and camping round two

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Greetings again, can´t believe its been 9 days since my last update, sorry! I´ll try and fill in the gaps as much as I can.....

We managed to make it back to Talca from the national park in one piece and wandered thorugh the city both slightly resembling tramps, to find the guethouse mentioned in the guidebook. The city is not really on the tourist trail so we were planning to just get some kip and move on further south the next day after the several showers it would take to clean all the dust off! But we were really pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the hostal ".Los Castaños", which was so cute and run by a really nice local man who spoke a little english and played songs like "Ferry across the Mersey" and lots of Cliff Richard on his grammaphone, and kept the place like a quaint seaside B&B in Blackpool. He convinced us to stay an extra night and as well as having a nice wander around the city we visited a Vineyard called Balduzzi (followed by a hilarious wine tasting with actually quite horrid wine, leaving Phil and I slightly tipsy at 3 o´clock in the afternoon on a school bus back to the city!). Despite the dissapointing wine, the tour was really interesting and the vineyard and ranch absolutely beautiful, especially in the wonderful sunshine we were enjoying. We also managed to squeeze in a 3 hour trip on the last remaining rural train of its kind in Chile, which plods 80km to the coast at Constitution, taking in untouched rural countryside and tiny remote stations along the way. A mad 7am dash to the train station with our lovingly made breakfast sandwhiches from our host, then it was sit back and relax and take in the views. Unfortunately I can´t seem to get any photos on here but I will put some on Facebook and put the link on here when I get a chance. Definitely a great unplanned side trip, and after an hour or so in Constitution (a tranquil seaside town with a really nice atmosphere), we headed back to Talca by bus to catch the bus to Temuco where we would transfer to a bus to our next destination, Pucon.

As often happens, our plan didn´t quite work out as smoothly as planned and we ended up spending teh night in Temuco (a bit of a dump!), when the bus dropped us off at a staion we had no idea where it was, and a hilarious psuedo converstaion with man with very good intentions, but the thickest accent ever didn´t make our location any clearer! A bit of of an expensive jaunt around the city to find a place to stay left us at a very over priced Hospedaje, again a bit of a dump, but run by a lovely women who pointed us in the direction of the nearest beer shop and guided us through the english channels on teh cable TV. Ended up having quite an enjoyable night in eating junk food and watching Friends on TV, ready to hit Pucon the next day.


Pucon is a quite tourist centric town, never-the-less set in a stunning location on lake Villarrica, under the shadow of the Volcanoe with the same name, definitely warrenting its popularity. We set up camp at Camping La Poza, a well equipped campiste, but unfortunatey being off season the gas supply was laternated between the showers and the kitchen, leaving us alternately dirty and hungry! We were surprised at just how much difference a couple of months from the hight season of February makes, and teh campsite and even the town seems almost deserted, despite the pretty warm and sunny weather. However we came to understand teh lack of fellow campers wehen night fell and it got bloody cold! Our lovely warm sleeping bags definitely came in useful, and after our first nights dinner of red wine in front of a lovingly prepared campfire by our only fellow hardcore campers from Holland, we retired to our snug tent ready to take on Pucon the next day.

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