Chile - The
road to Pucon
After a few days in Santiago we made the decision to start heading south
with our next main destination being the action adventure town, Pucon, which
is en route to Puerto Montt, the gateway to Patagonia.
After a couple of hours or so on the Panamericana going south from Santiago,
we suddenly came up behind four overlanding bikers from Japan, two of which
we immediately recognised from Nicaragua!! Although we had never actually
chatted to them at the time, Michael had leant out the window of the car and
shouted at them as we overtook them, "Anatawa Nihon-jin desu ka? Gambatte!"
which means, “Are you japanese? Go for it!”
Their number plates had made them stand out from other bikers due to the I
FOK KU written above the license numbers. Although we immediately thought
this was a Japanese ´joke´ it later transpired that this was actually the
code for the international license plate!
Anyway we pulled up behind them when they came to a stop and asked if we
could join them on their journey and follow them to wherever they were going
to spend the night. The next town up and only a few kilometres away was a
place called Talca so we agreed to find a campsite and stay there.
After half an hour or so of trying to find a place, we finally stumbled on a
woody area near a lake and got the tents up as dusk was approaching. It
wasn’t long before we were bombarded with various locals coming up to have a
look at the bikes and car and to have a chat. Making dinner and sharing a
cold beer and a bottle of wine was proving tricky… The Japanese were getting
increasingly nervous about spending the night in this spot so Michael got
chatting to some local youngsters who said they knew of a quiet spot in the
grounds of some friends who lived 10 mins up the road. Jumping in to the
souped up Honda Accord of a 21yr old who insisted on playing ear exploding
music and driving with 2 fingers as it ´looked cool´, Michael and him sped
off to have a look. Half an hour later the Japanese group, Michael and E-J
were safe and sound camped in a huge field on top of a massive hill, behind
a locked gate, with only a few dogs as company. Cooking up some noodles with
egg and spinach (not one of the better dishes it has to be said…) Michael
and E-J tucked into a hearty evening meal while our Japanese friends ate
white rolls dipped into the Chilean/ Argentinian speciality of ´Dulce de
Leche´- a kind of sweet condensed boiled milk spread that is extremely
popular. We felt a little sorry for them and decided to crack open our pot
of Nutella to offer them. One of the girls got equally as excited and
made E-J and Michael laugh by eating it straight out of the pot with
chopsticks!!!
The following morning we woke up to our Japanese friends eating more white
rolls dipped in Dulce de Leche for breakfast. We (slightly guiltily) cooked
up some porridge with fresh blueberries which we had picked up in Santiago
the day before. Yum.
We said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways hoping to meet up in
Ushuaia for some more Nutella and beers. Michael and E-J got on the road to
Pucon, stopping only for petrol and to check emails at the wireless internet
access points along the highway… genius!
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Pucon
Pucon is a big holiday destination for both vacationing Chileans and
Argentinians and other international travellers. The adventure capital, as
it's known in Chile, has loads of different things to do… from mountain
biking and climbing the active Volcano Villarica to kayaking, rafting and
paragliding. We knew we were in a good place when the first thing we spotted
on entering the town was a North Face store, the first we´ve seen since
Beverly Hills in LA. Making a bee line for the store (our current favourite
´technical´ brand which we are both walking adverts for), Michael was quick
to pick up a not-very-cheap waterproof jacket to replace his other one which
he claimed wasn´t waterproof any longer. E-J showed more restraint and
instead looked for a Chile sticker to add to our cars growing collection.
The place we ended up staying was called 'ecole' and lured in by its promises
of fresh organic food, we were not disappointed. We only meant to stay a day
– enough time to rent mountain bikes – but bad weather the first day meant
we decided to move on. However after checking out the morning of the second
day, the sun suddenly appeared out of nowhere so we though sod it lets stay
and promptly filled the two following days with a 5 hour bike trip to a
waterfall and a day of climbing the volcano. The former was good fun
although by the time we made it to the waterfall we couldn’t be bothered to
walk the extra 500 yards to go and see it, instead tucking into E-J´s new
favourite lunchtime meal of a ham baguette (without cheese or mustard). The
ride back was exhilarating going downhill along a very straight very paved,
very flat road. Excellent!
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The following day, we were up early ready to hike Volcan Villarica, a walk
which we were told was easy peasy and anyone could do. Not quite
understanding why we needed to each carry so much kit – crampons, ice-picks,
gas mask for the top, full waterproofs blah blah not to mention at least 2
litres of water each – we set off. We soon realised why…
It was a great day but a lot harder than originally thought… at least from
E-J´s point of view. Struggling within the first 5 mins it took plenty of
persuasion from Michael to get her up to the top. “I caaan´t. I caaan´t. I
CAN¨T” came the occasional whine. However, we both made it to the top and
boy it was incredible. Spitting bright red lava, hot sulphur gases and
plenty of noise made it a sight worth seeing. The ride down made it even
more worth it…. Wearing padded shorts which looked absolutely ridiculous, we
rode the whole route down on our bums in the snow which was A LOT of fun.
Click here for video of lava at top
Click here for video of bum slide descent
The day finished at 5 and pretty tired we headed back to the hostel for a celebratory meal with the 2 norwegians, 1 dutch, 1 irish, 1 english and 1 american we met on the trip.
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The following day we said our goodbyes and headed south to Puerto Montt.
