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Published: July 16th 2017
Geo: -41.4843, -72.3015
After leaving Castro I arrived quite late (11:30 PM) to Puerto Montt. Since I wanted to take the bus at 7:45 AM to Cochamó, I didn't need a fancy hostel, I just wanted a bed somewhere near the terminal. The nice guy in the only open shop at the terminal recommanded me a cheap guesthouse warning me to close well the door at night and a nice taxidriver took me the 300 m because they said it really isn't a good idea for a girl to walk around the terminal alone by night. I saw why... ! This area looked really bad... The room was small and dirty, just disgusting ! But it was cheap. I slept in my sleeping bag because I didn't trust this bed but I couldn't sleep because I was too scared ; it was like in a bad horror movie where any second somebody could break into your room and kill you... :S At 6:30 AM I happily left this building.I took the bus of 7:45 AM and arrived to Cochamó at 10:15. I wanted to go to the "Las Bandurrias Eco Hostel" but I learned that it was 5km (steep uphill) out of
town so I went to the "Patagonia Nativa" hostel. Owner Christian and his mother gave me a warm welcome and he explained me what I could do during my time there. I rented a bike from him and went to the 5 km away river Cochamó and enjoyed the beautiful view over the river, the fjord and the volcanos and mountains. Cochamó valley is really amazing, I loved it! The water was completely clear and of a shining blue color and with the volcano Yates in the background the panoramo was spectacular. This fjord is the first place in southern Chile where the Pacific Ocean reaches the Andes. Later that day I had a nap at the beach of Cochamó (where I completely burned) and I hiked up to a viewpoint from where I had a panoramic view over the town, the volcano Yates, the volcano Osorno and the Parque Nacional Alerce Andino. It was fabulous!
In the evening I talked a lot with Christian, the owner of this hostel (I was the only guest so he had time). He's originally from Santiago and sold computers at a mall but then decided to live in Cochamó (he had travelled all Chile
to find the place where he wanted to live). When he moved there 5 years ago there was no tourism at all, no infrastructure, nothing. He helped to develop it and so since 3 years more and more tourists are coming and the infrastructure is better.
The next day, I left the hostel at 8 AM with Christian and his son to get to the entrance of the reserve "La Junta". It's 15 km to this entrance and I was happy they would hike up to La Junta and could take me to the entrance with their car. There I met Edson who would be my day's guide for the horseback-riding-tour to La Junta I had booked. It took us 3 hours up to La Junta and almost 3 hours back. His own horse was sick so he just guided my horse. It was quite nice and I regained confidence in horses and horseback-riding after more than 10 years without doing this. The way was quite steep and there were a lot of rocks, so in the beginning I was really scared the horse would slip or fall or something and I was more preoccupied about where the horse
puts it's feet than the horse itself. After 1 hour or so it got better and I could finally enjoy the landscape and the ride across the rainforest of La Junta. It was truly beautiful and the weather was perfect. Once up at Ka Junta I had 1 hour of free time before we had to get back and so I went to the "Tobogan" (slide) and enjoyed this fascinating landscape and the people sliding diwn this stone-slide into the cold water. :-)
I loved this trip and for sure I'll go back there some day to spent a few days up in La Junta.Back down at the entrance there was a mini-bus going to the cross way and for a bit more money he took me to my hostel in Cochamó. I was running to get my stuff and reach the bus station before the kast bus at 5 PM passed. I was lucky and managed to get it, leaving this paradis with the deep wish of coming back one day.
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