Archiv der Kategorie: Chile

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Puerto Varas – more volcanoes

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We spent two days in Puerto Varas – one day we did a lot of shopping: Mathijs needed new shoes, I needed a warmer jacket and pants and we both needed to stock up on food and plan our upcoming adventure going South on the Carretera Austral. We also visited the information office for Pumalin national park and enjoyed the pretty views over the lake of Osorno volcano. 

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The other day, we went active again and hopped on a bus to Vicente Perez Rosales national park to go on a hike. Right from the beginning we had amazing views of Osorno volcano. What made it even better were our favourite yellow bushes blooming everywhere. Later on our trip we learned that these are apparently an invasive species… Oops! We still find them very pretty.

What was less nice during this hike were the hundreds of horse flies constantly buzzing around our heads and biting when we stood still for too long. Guess we just had to hike fast then! We soon reached the Mirador, the endpoint of our hike from where we had pretty views over the surrounding mountains and lake while enjoying our lunch.

It was a nice hike to do from Puerto Varas and easy enough as a day trip. After one more night in our hostel camping, we set off for the Carretera Austral next morning…

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Pucón – in the shadow of the volcano

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Time for a long bus ride again! After all our relaxing time in Viña del Mar, we were ready for a change in scenery and hopped on a night bus down to Pucón where our Couchsurfing host picked us up at the bus station. We had not slept much that night and the weather was grey and windy, so we got some organizational stuff done, checked out some camping gear (still need to buy a stove etc) and then dropped into bed! (the photo below is from a sunnier day in Pucon)

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Well rested, we were ready for a hike. The sun was shining again and we were looking forward to see Huerquehue national park. It was a 1 h ride on the bus and we realized that we had to hike quite fast in order to make the 14.10 bus back to the city. The bus times are a bit stupid: You arrive at 9.45 to then go on a 5 h hike whereas there’s a bus at 14.10 and the next one only at 17.10. Annoying. Anyways, we decided to give it a go and try to make the 14.10 bus to still have some more time to buy outdoor equipment in the city. So we power-hiked through the forest, through the mud and up many steps. Up, up, up we went. Luckily, the trail wasn’t that interesting until the first two viewpoints – which were super pretty with volcano Villarica being the star of all photos.

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Later on, the path straightened out mostly and we reached the three lakes: Lago Chico, Lago el Toro and Lago Verde. The first two were very pretty and we took so many pictures! Especially Lago el Toro was very picturesque with a snowy mountain in the back. We should have stayed here for lunch, a perfect spot and quiet, since most people went to Laguna Verde first…

…which was also pretty but not as much as Lago el Toro and there were very few spots to sit and have lunch. By that time, we had decided against the 14.10 bus and instead decided to walk a bit around the lakes and enjoy the scenery a bit more, rather than feel rushed the whole day. So after some time in the sun and lots more photos here and there, we hiked back – which actually took longer than expected! So in the end I guess the 14.10 bus would have been unrealistic anyways and we were glad we had decided for the later bus option.

Next day – next national park! This time we were off with all our luggage to Santuario El Cañi – a private reserve which offers camping. We had to stay at the reception camping which was not nice and didn’t have any facilities except a basic and dirty toilet and cold shower. If we had less luggage, we would have preferred one of the campsites higher up the mountain.

So after setting up our tent, we started the hike with our day bags only – which was good, because the trail went up very steeply for quite a while. I enjoyed the hike much more than the day before though: We were in no rush to make some bus at the end of the day, there were much less other people and Mathijs found me a good walking stick. Also, we got a really nice map from the park with little stations, descriptions, time estimates etc. It made the walk as a whole really enjoyable because instead of thinking about the whole trail, we went from one station to the next – some with some nice views over the area. Later, the trail flattened out a bit and we reached a couple of pretty lakes where we took our lunch break when we found a good spot. Learned from the day before!

Re-energized, we made our way up the last steep climb to the mirador. So far, we had missed the WOW factor about this hike… well, once we reached the top not anymore! We were treated with an amazing view in all directions, lakes to our feet and snow-capped volcanoes on the horizon. A total of four volcanoes can be spotted from up here, of which Villarica and Lanin are the most picturesque ones. What added to the views were the cool araucania trees growing everywhere – some of the strangest looking trees I’ve ever seen.

We thoroughly enjoyed the views and then slowly made our way down the mountain, taking our time not to arrive too early at the campsite where there was not much left to do other than have picnic dinner and fight over our food with numerous cats and dogs. Camping life!

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Colourful Valparaíso & down-time in Viña del Mar

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After all the wine and mountain views around Mendoza, we hopped across the boarder again to Chile. Well, hopped sounds quick – but it took the whole day. In Valparaíso, we were staying at a basic and not too nice (but central) AirBnB which made it easy to explore the hilly town over the next 1.5 days.

Valparaíso is kind of an artist town that spreads out across various hills. From the hills, there are nice views over town and the ocean. It felt really good to be back at the ocean after spending so much time inland recently!

What Valparaíso is really famous for though, are all the colourful graffiti that are covering houses and sometimes whole streets. They are the main sight of the city and beautiful! You can clearly see the difference between some talented and not so talented artists. I really enjoyed walking around on the hunt for more street art to photograph. Sometimes, we also took some of the old escalators up to viewpoints, saving on energy and walking time – plus, it’s kind of a must do experience to be in at least one of these old escalators once.

We had talked about taking a bit of a break from travelling for a while already and spontaneously decided that now was a good time. There was no nice apartment left on AirBnB in Valparaíso unfortunately, but we kind of also liked Viña del Mar when driving through by bus, so booked ourselves a little place there. The next three days, we didn’t leave the apartment all that much, but chilled a lot, got some things organized and ate some good food. When you’re traveling for a longer time, sometimes you need a little downtime like this!