We immediately set up the tent, quickly made dinner, and then soaked in the hotsprings for about 3 hours. We had our bottle of Carmenere wine, and a clear sky above us, which was great for looking at shooting stars and made it super cold outside, definitely below freezing. The cold was nice though because it kept the thermal pool at a reasonable temperature, and allowed us to thermoregulate better by switching between pool and air.
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| I look like Green, the Edelstein tortoise |
The next morning I did a morning soak while Acacia slept. Of course my towel and suit were frozen so I had to dunk them in the hotsprings in order to use them. Then we packed a day pack for a hike up into Huequehue national park, which has several lakes and good stands of Monkey Puzzle trees which are native to the region only above 1,000 meters. First we had to cross a bridge to get to a fancy hotsprings resort, and then find a road leading up into the valley in front of us. While searching for the road we saw some Chileans milling logs with this fancy field milling machine. The hike was a gravel road for the first couple of miles with some logging going on (Acacia can tell you more), and it went past several homesteads that appeared to be empty, at least for the season. Past the homesteads the gravel road turned into a fairly steep path when we reached the park boundary. Near the top of the first crest we started getting some Monkey Puzzles and it flattened out a bit. The ground was frozen which was pretty fun, we got to crack some ice covered puddles and some icy mud. Then the trail went back down to a valley where there were some buildings/refugios and other infrastructure that seemed pretty closed up for the season. We saw a sign for a place selling bread and beer, but followed a different trail up to a lake (bet you didn`'t see that coming!), which was another pretty good climb. The lake was pretty incredible. Surrounded by Monkey Puzzles with mountains on the oposite side that we had come from. We hung out there for a bit, ate some delicious apples we had brought, and then headed back to the hotsprings so get there before dark. We ended up timing it pretty well because it started sprinkling right when we got back. We quickly jumped in the hotsprings for some more soaking which lasted quite a while.
Baby Monkey Puzzle
A Friend on the Trail
Forestry of Sorts¿
We had a late start. a morning soak, and then cruised on a dirt road around a couple of lakes and to a town about 60 km north. From there John competently directed us to Parque Nacional Conguiellio. We paid the admission fee, and were driving through the gate when we were informed that ´tienen una pinchado´- we had a flat tire. No problem, we figured. We put the spare on, planning to get the tire patched when we got to the nearest town on the other side of the park. Wrong. Our spare was flat too (I am blaming this one all on John, because I KNEW that we should check the spare for air when we bought the car, but after pushing on it a bit he was sure it was inflated. Turns out the weight of the car is a little bit more than John's little tap to see if it had air). We got pretty lucky, again, because one of the ranger told us he would drive us back into town, if we paid him. Sounded way better than trying toe hitchhike with two tires and two of us, so we accepted. In town he drove us to a shop that was closed. It was a long weekend and I was pretty sure we were stranded and out of luck, but then he drove us to a house, where there was a man who had the tools required for tire patching, and who inflated our spare. Only about an hour later we were back in action.
The road through the park took us across a fairly flat plain, where a volcano recently erupted, although we couldn´t see the volcano because of the clouds. We turned off of the main road toward Lago Verde, but the road split into 4x4 trails across the old lava. I had a bit of fun in the Sub, and after checking out the lake we continued. The road continued on near some lakes and through a stand of monkey puzzle trees. Up a hill some and then back down. We finally reached the campground, but it was closed for the season. We hadn't planned on that. We were met with more luck because the ranger directed us to the closed campground and told us it would be okay if we stayed for the night, free of charge.
Driving through the Park
The next morning started with a nice sunrise (for me too, uncharacteristically), ice, and a hike to a notable monkey puzzle tree (1800 years old and 2.1m dbh (diameter at breast height--about 5 feet off the ground--for the non-foresters) Canada, man, who uses feet^?!).
The Big Monkey Puzzle
After we checked out a trail called Sierra Nevada, which was a ridge walk above a lake, through quite the variety of plant communities, before arriving above the treeline in a cloud, and finally just below a glacier. We hiked back pretty quick, cutting the estimated trail time in half (it is kinda a disapointment when we can't do that). Hopped in the car. Listened to Shovels and Rope, who may be taking over my Current Swell/Jon and Roy addiciton. Maybe. We arrived to the next town in the evening and had to decide between a week long 2 volcano summit backpacking trip in mediocre weather (my choice) or heading farther north.
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| Me and a monster |
Spaghetti Burrito- Robbins family ingenuity
After some research we opted for north. Left town around 6:30, after dark. 15 minutes out of town we went down a hill with a couple switchbacks, across a bridge, and were starting back up when the car.. malfunctioned? John can tell you more since he was driving. It seemed like the brakes were sticking, or maybe he was just in the wrong gear. Either way, it felt like a big enough problem to drive back to town. We had no more issues on the way back and easily found a mechanic who seemed to just be waiting for us. He was literally standing in an empty garage with the light on, but no car to work on. He went on a test drive, checked out under the car, and told us there wasn't a problem, or at least not an immediate one and sent us on our way. It was great. We made it to Victoria, Chile, which is not nearly as nice as Victoria, Canada. We struggled to find downtown, went down a one way street the wrong way and after asking at a gas station found a place to stay, which was only advertised with an 8 1/2 x 11 paper in the window.
Best hospedaje ever? We´ve had some bad experiences in hospedajes that generally ends with us getting yelled at, normally for cooking food at un-welcomed hours. But, after asking this lady if we could use the kitchen she offered us some food. Red sauce noodles with mushrooms and pretty good spices. Then some bread with butter and jam. Then some bananas. And tea. It was the perfect meal before a bit of bedtime reading (strange, I know, but I was so close to finishing my third book of the trip). The next morning Acacia was up uncharacteristically early again, which was nice because we were showered and fed by 9am. Breakfast was the bread with butter and jam, which the lady explained was country butter and homemade jam, no wonder it was so good! No Vivio blackberry jam, but compared to the colored sugar paste they´ve called marmelade throughout the rest of the trip, it was a pleasant change. Then we hit the road north.
It was a big driving day, the longest and farthest one yet. We were considering a hike we had been told about form the Santa Cruz guys that was 90km southeast of Santiago, so we pulled off in Talca, a town we figured would be out of that 90km range, to do some internet research to figure out if it was worth heading to and how to get there. The cities were getting progressively larger being within 150 miles of Santiago and on the main highway, route 5, that runs north/south through Chile. Talca was no exception. We pulled off and then drove through the city streets for a bit trying to find a place with internet or wifi, a task that was surprisingly more difficult in a town without a central square and wasn´t particularly touristy. Eventually we found a couple promising looking restaurants. One looked like a typical American bar and grill type place, and the other claimed to have ¨Fresh¨ foods. So we went to the fresh foods place (my choice as well as Acacia´s), ordered two coffees and a smoked salmon sandwich, got some wifi, and determined we wanted to head to the park that evening. This meant we had to get some provisions for a couple days of camping. As we drove out to the highway we found a grocery store on the way. We enter the store, and I´m immediately grinning from ear to ear. Is that a 20 kilo bag of flour? A 6 pack of liters of milk? 2 pound chocolate bars? It was like Costco! Without the produce. So we did all of our non-produce shopping there and it took every ounce of mental strain for me not to load the cart with smoking deals on huge portions. Across the street was a market of produce vendors where we found ginger, the last ingredient necessary in the collection of ingredients we´ve been acquiring to make a pad thai for the previous week or two. It´s been really hard not to just devour the peanut butter.
Back on the road north. Driving highways in Chile differ from the U.S. in two important ways. First, every 50km or so there´s a toll station, so we ended up spending about 25 bucks driving through toll stations on our drive. Second, the toll stations force everyone to stop, which is a perfect spot for vendors to hang out trying to sell anything from beef jerky, to wine in the 45 seconds you have to wait to get through the toll booth. At one point there was even a ¨don´t eat pig¨ protest at one of these toll stations (that is completely false, it was a political protest about pig farming, nothing about vegetarianism). Anyway, we had not purchased any bread for our next couple of days. So, at one of the toll stations I rolled down the window and in my eloquent Spanish said ¨pan?¨. Well, this caused quite the uprour. All 20 people or so started screaming Pan! Pan!...Pan! until the pan guy got the memo, opened up this cooler full of warm bread I imagine, tossed it to the lady next to my window, we traded money for a bag of warm bread, and the lady tossed the change in through the window as we were pulling away. Quite the efficient shopping experience. Also, as we were getting closer to Santiago, there were these artesan shopping areas as a pull off every 20km or so, marked with an official artesan sign for the exit and everything. However, it wasn´t like a variety of artesans, it was more like ¨i´m driving by with my tractor trailer and just remembered that I want a huge stone fountain, so I´ll check out these 2 dozen artesans all selling the same giant stone fountain¨ kind of shops. Seriously though, there was the basket exit, the dining room chair exit, the second basket exit, etc..
To get to this park, El Morado National Monument, we had todrive through the outskirts of Santiago suburbs. This was a challenge. The park, nor the town we had to go through were not large enough to have signs while driving through Santiago, so we had a picture of the directions list from google maps, which had directions like ¨go 28km and then take the exit south¨. So we struggled getting around the highways, and then this strruggle was amplified as we had to wind our way through the suburb streets of Santiago. Eventually we ended up in a bus station and decided that the directions list had led us astray. So I decided we should ask the parking lot guard, who gave us an essay´s worth of directions all in Spanish, but it was enough to get us to the main road going the direction we wanted and then signs for the town started showing up. We ended up getting to the town of San Gabriel around 8pm and stopping at a kiosk for directions to a hostel or the park. After we felt good to go another hour or so to the park, low and behold, the car didn´t want to start. Perfect. Acacia looked under the hood (because I knew exactly what the problem was. It was the first thing that went wrong with Alfonso, the flaming cock that I bought in Port Angele-battery connection) while I tried to start it a couple more times, and then the kiosk owner came out, pushed the battery connectors a bit firmer onto the battery terminals and Al started right up. He then brought out a couple wrenches and tightened the connectors. After driving down what was obviously a resource road normally used by heavy equipment, but completely empty at night, we turned off toward Baños Morales. Right at the turn off we met a VERY drunk gaucho leading his horse and stumbling. He happily waved and we continued on) We reached the town of Banos Morales around 9pm, discovering that the park and campgrounds were closed, and that the town was closed. We were literally the only people in town. Not even dogs barking. After burning the clutch a bit trying to turn around on a muddy, curvy incline, we found a solid pullout and slept in th car. Definitely best car sleeping spot yet. Quiet, no rain, great view, no other cars going by us. We had a couple beers, worked on Cali´s birthday present and then I went to bed.
The next morning we walked to the park entrance, which was a locked bridge covered in barbed wire. On the other side of the river was a barbed wire fence that said ¨no pasar¨. Seemed like the thing to do was cross the river, squeeze through the fence and begin our hike. After all, the sign on the locked bridge gate said it was supposed to be open by now. The hike was nice. Up a glacial river valley through pretty dry terrain with some ¨wild¨ horses, desert looking bushes, and views of some pretty high, snow capped Andes mountains all around. It was a fairly gradual uphill, super sunny, comfortable temperature, and we were the only ones on the trail. Crazy scenery too. Pretty much the only disappointment was that the glacial lake at the top was pretty unimpressive, and looked a bit too grimy to drink out of. But we played some frisbee and took some handstand pictures at the top. We reached the park entrance on the way back around noon and the Chilean working there was like ¨did you guys register?¨ which we told him no, and then he just waved us through without paying the entrance fee or registering. We were on the road again to cross into Argentina over the Andes. We had to drive through Santiago, and then a bit north to cross over the pass into Mendoza. For this stretch Acacia was driving
Our Car Sleeping Spot in Banos Morales
Driving through Santiago was a smoggy, traffic-y, loud struggle. Then after fighting through the center of the city we drove around a curve in the main road out of the city and were on the side of a mountain! What!? Of course it was hard to see the buildings at the bottomw because of all the smog. Then we followed some highways towards the pass to Mendoza, and reached a road closure about an hour from the border at 4pm. We waited. And waited. Played some frisbee. Waited some more. Took some pictures of the sunset. Watched a movie. Made dinner. Ate dinner. Then the traffic started moving around 8pm. Ridiculous wait, and for no apparent reason. Once the road opened, it was a race to the border.
Line of Cars Waiting
Sunset While Waiting
Literally like a level in some racing game. The other drivers knew something we didn´t because they were in the lane for the opposite direction as if nobody was coming. And nobody was. But two lanes became 4 as cars, buses, trucks, and motorcycles squeezed around tight switch backy-y curves up to a 10,000 foot pass, with bolders fallen in the road, cones all over the place knocked over by the crazy drivers, tunnels, and construction. Luckily Acacia kept us alive. And we didn´t even get last place. (Obviously this means I won the race, and a certainly performed better than I do when I play those arcade games) After crossing the border we stopped in a town about 3 km past the border, Puente del Inca, because it had a natural stone bridge. After asking for beds at a couple hostels and determining it was too expensive, we crashed again in the car.
The next morning I woke up and was the first one awake in the town pretty sure. I did the 3 minute loop of town, and then found a guy walking out of what looked to be a restaurant. I asked if he had coffee and he did, so he invited me into his home and started the hot water. Was this guy just serving me coffee because I had asked? So friendly. Nope, he led me into a back room where he had a bar, a giant TV, and tables. I went out to the car to let Acacia know I was getting coffee, and then watched some of The Office as the hot water heated up. Acacia and I both got some coffee and then went to find the bridge. It was about 100m from where we had parked the car. I struggled through reading the Spanish signs to Acacia, then we walked to look at the bridge, which had some natural hot springs that helped form it and had been turned into a bit of a resort for a while until part of the resort collapsed. Then we checked out the artesan market, with a variety this time, and left the town around 10 in the morning.
Puente del Inca
We drove down from the Andes pass, flanked on one side by Aconcogua, the tallest mountain outside of Asia at 6,994 meters, and the only real excitement was Acacia attempting to brush her teeth in the car and then spit out the window.
We drove down into the city of Mendoza. It was a city! Way bigger than expected at just under 1 million people. We went to a Vegetarian lunch place, checked a hostel that seemed too expensive, and then drove to Maipu, a suburb town outside of Mendoza, which was also really close to a bunch of wineries. After stopping at the tourist info and being directed to the one hostel in town, we knocked on the door and this tall white guy with a marvelous beard peared through the window. Jeff! The guy who told us about the beer events was at this hostel. Apparently this was Jeff´s South American home, the place he had spent 2 months ´working´ at the year before. We had to stay here.
Jesus that's beautiful...jealous and hoping all is well :) Tanner
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