The Lake District, Chile (8th to 20th November)

 Santiago was like a totally different world after the Atacama Desert.  We caught the underground metro train from the bus station to our hostal and found ourselves in a city that looked a bit like home (but hotter).  To get to our hostal we had to walk past lush green parks, high rise office blocks and several university buildings.  Chilli Hostal was fine for the first night, although the free dinner involved an interesting looking beef burger (it was grey/white).  I am not sure what we expected for free, but we will not fall for that offer again.  However by a stroke of luck the hostal was full the next night and the staff kindly pointed us in the direction of La Chimba Hostal.  La Chimba is now our favourite hostal in the whole of South America.  It is in the trendy Bellavista area of Santiago, which would normally put us off, but its relaxed atmosphere, comfy sofas, big open spaces and friendly staff make it feel a bit like home.   Not to forget Chimbe the resident cat who loves to be stroked.  We also felt safe leaving our spare luggage here whilst we went off on various trips.  Our first trip was to the Lake District.

We decided the best way to see as much as possible was to hire a car and camp where possible.  So we headed out to Santiago airport and picked up a white Chevrolet.  Mr Greenhead was driving and I was natigating, which meant I couldn’t doze in the passenger seat and leave the Sat Nav to take us there.  Somehow we managed to navigate our way out of the airport, around the ring road and onto route 5 south.   The Lake District starts about 500 kilometres south of Santiago, so our first day mainly involved driving.  We did stop at some pretty waterfalls just north of Los Angeles (Chile not USA) called Salto de Laja.  Then a quick stop in Los Angeles for the supermarket and petrol before heading onto Parque Nacional Laguna de Laja.  

 As we got nearer to the national park it started to get dark, but we had put the tent up at night plenty of times, so we weren’t worried.  However we did start to get a little concerned when every campsite we went past was closed.  We knew the main camping season didn’t start until December, but we thought that the campsites might at least be open in November.  We finally stopped in Antuca, the last town before the park entrance and the lady who sold us some water assured us the campsite in the park was open.  Without any other options we followed her directions and took the bumpy, narrow dirt road to the park entrance and onto the closed campsite!  By now it was 10.30pm and a long drive from anywhere, so we decided the only option was to cook ourselves some steak sandwiches and sleep in our car.  With the chairs reclined and our sleeping bags to keep us warm it was surprisingly cozy.

 We were woken the next morning to sunshine and views of stunning views.  We drove further into the park and found a beautiful laguna, snow-capped volcanoes and a tiny ski resort.  We also found the park office which said everything opened on the 15^th December and after this date the entrance fee is £30.  Without a map with hiking trails marked on, we decided to drive on to our next stop – Pucon.   

 We had to drive a further 300 miles to reach the town and by now were in the heart of the lake district.  Pucon is a ski town in the winter and an adventure town in the summer.  It is full of outdoors shops, cafés and restaurants.  It has a laid back, friendly atmosphere and is very close to a couple of national parks. We found Parque La Poza campsite and set up for a couple of nights – the location was great and it only cost £9 a night, but the toilets were disgusting with freezing showers!  We were sharing the campsite with a group of British tourists, who were traveling the length of South America in a giant truck/bus with a company called Oasis Overland (www.oasisoverland.co.uk).  The company does tours in various continents and after chatting to one of the girls, we reckon it sounds pretty good.

One of the parks near Pucon is Parque Nacional Huerquehue, so we decided to head here for a hike.  The road is paved as far as Laguna Caburgua and then it is bumpy gravel.  The gravel road was mostly ok, although we did take a wrong turning and almost got stuck.  This could have been a bit of a problem, since we weren’t meant to take our car onto dirt roads.  We got to within 3km of the park entrance and came across another steep down-hill section, by now we thought we had pushed our luck enough and decided to park the car by the roadside, then walk the last few kilometres.   As luck would have it a bus was passing and gave us a free lift to the entrance gate.  After paying our £5 per person entrance fee, we set out on the 5 hour Andean Lakes hike.  The hike took us past Lago Tinquilco and up through the forest, with great views of Volcan Villarrica from the lookout points.

 We climbed uphill for a couple of hours, then at the top we reached a forest of lush araucaria trees which surrounded several stunningly beautiful lakes.   We took a path which looped around Lago Chico, Lago Toro and Lago Verde.  Each lake shone and sparkled in the sunshine, giving the place a magical feel .  After taking lots of photos it was time to head back, unfortunately no bus passed us this time so we had to walk back uphill to the car.

The other park near Pucon is Parque Nacional Villarrica, which is the reason most people visit the area.  At the heart of the park stands Volcan Villarrica which is a 2840 metre high volcano.  This volcano is the easiest to climb in Chile and is therefore very popular.  Most people hire a guide to climb it, but after our recent ascent of Mont Blanc we decided to climb by ourselves.  To enable us to do this we had to hire ice axes , crampons and helmets from Agua Advenutra, the local gear shop (run by 3 French men!).  Then at the park entrance we had to show the park warden that we were members of a climbing club and we had insurance.   This is the first time we have ever had to prove we were experienced enough to climb a mountain!  The route itself up the volcano was very straight forward and we basically had to follow the footprints in the snow left by others.  There was a ski lift part way up to save you a bit of walking, but we decided to save our pennies and strengthen our thighs by walking instead.  

 At the top of the lift there was another guy who checked our equipment again and then we were free to head for the summit.  It was snow all the way, but the slopes weren’t too steep and the snow was crunchy, so crampons were not needed.  We were lucky that the early morning mist cleared quickly and the sun shone down on us, but colder weather might have meant icy conditions.  It took us about 4 hours to reach the summit.  The views from the top of other volcanoes were impressive, but the active summit crater was the reason we were here.  Whilst we were there the volcano belched out some disgusting sulphurous gases  and we had to cover our mouths.  It is very strange to see the snow suddenly end at the rim of the crater and you can peer into lava bubbling up out of the depths of the earth.   

By the time we had taken our photos and eaten our lunch the sun had gone in.  This was good for our decent because the snow stayed crunchy, instead of going slushy.  Some people had hired skis to ski down, but we slid down on our bums.  It was great fun and only took an hour or so, but our waterproof trousers were a little more worn by the time we reached the bottom.

 Our next stop in the Lake District was Lican Ray, a town on the shores of Lago Calafquen.  We found a lovely campiste called Cabanas y Camping Foresta, which only charged us £7.50 to pitch our tent and had lovely clean bathrooms with powerful, hot showers.  It was another hot, sunny day and the campsite opened out onto the lake, so we decided to go for a swim.  I don’t think I have ever swam in such cold water, not even the sea in Scotland is this cold!  I think we lasted about 5 minutes.  Fortunately we were the only people on the campsite, so no one could laugh at us as we shivered our way back to our tent.

 Lican Ray is the gateway to the Siete Lagos (Seven Lakes), a particularly rural part of the Lake District.  We decided to avoid going on too many dirt roads and therefore did not make it to each of the 7 lakes, but we did manage to see Lago Calfquen, Lago Panguipulli and Lago Rinihue.  All were huge and very picturesque.  On route, Mr Greenhead decided to give a lift to a local couple, who were hitch hiking.  The only problem was they spoke no English and our limited Spanish meant a very short conversation, followed by silence!  To make matters worse the girl looked petrified because Mr Greenhead was enjoying driving round the countries lanes rather fast!  

 We dropped them off in Panguipulli then left the country roads behind  to rejoin route 5 south.  We passed the towns of Los Lagos, Osorno and Entre Lagos on our way to Parque Nacional Pueyhue. Just before reaching the park we stopped for an amazing view of Lago Pueyhue.

 Parque Nacional Pueyhue has two main entrances - Aguas Calientes and Anticura.  We headed to Aguas Calientes first to find out hiking information at the parks office (CONAF) and for a soak in the hot springs.  At £5 per person this was the cheapest of the many hot springs in the Lake District region.  It is basically a swimming pool filled with very hot water (40°C) that has been naturally heated due to volcanic activity underground.  Whilst in there we had an interesting chat with a Canadian girl who is a mountain guide and she recommended some areas for back country skiing when we are in Canada.

 Next stop was the other park entrance at Anticura, the site of the camping ground and the treks we wanted to do.  The campsite (www.anticurachile.cl, £8 a night) was run by a very friendly man, who spoke excellent English and invited us to play a table tennis match with him.  We were yet again the only people on the campsite and we soon found out why.  The volcano we had come to climb was erupting and had been doing so for 4 months, as a result all the treks up Volcan Pueyhue were closed.  Luckily there were other hikes nearby, so we drove to Atillanca ski resort and hiked up Volcan Casablanca instead. 

 The hike started from a rustic ski club where we had a cup of tea and piece of cake.  We followed the ski lifts up, then followed the ridge above the crater and headed for the summit.  The slopes start off as scree (loose rocks) then become a mixture of scree and snow.  Normally the snow is white but the ash from the erupting volcano meant it had turned grey.  The views of Volcan Osorno, Volcan Puntiagudo and Volcan Tronador were also hazy due to the ash that was spewing out of Volcan Pueyhue.   You could actually see the volcano erupting, but fortunately the wind was blowing the opposite way so we didn’t get covered in ash.  We took a quicker but steeper route down to the crater, then followed the road back down to the car. 

That night the wind changed direction and we woke up to find our tent and car covered in ash.  The tent was now grey instead of green!  There was also ash falling from the sky, which is not good to breath in, so we packed up quickly and left.  Our next destination was to be Parque Nacional Vicente Perez Rosales near Petrohue.  We drove past Lago Rupanco and Lago Llanquihue on the way.  We hoped to camp at the park, but the campsite was shut due to a rat infestation!  However we did hike along Paso Desolation to get great views of Lago Todos Los Santos  and Volcan Osorno.

 After leaving Petrohue we headed for Puerto Varas, the most southerly point in our trip.  We had intended to camp here but they wanted £25 a night, which was very expensive.  So instead we stocked up at the supermarket and started our journey north.  We started to lose the light about 9pm and happened to be near the city of Valdivia.  According to our Lonely Planet guide book there was a campsite (Isla Teja) on the edge of town, so we followed their instructions and headed for it.  Unfortunately their distances were not too accurate, but after a lot of driving around we found it and were yet again the only people camping.  The weather really was pretty mild, but I guess too cold for Chileans to camp.  We spent the next morning washing our tent to get rid of the ash, much to the amusement of some old ladies who were staying in the wooden cabins.

 We hit the road north again for another 200km until we reached Curacautin, the gateway to Parque Nacional Conguillo.  According to our guidebook there was a campsite and a great hike near Lago Conguillo.  The guide book didn’t mention that you would need a 4x4 car and rally driving skills to get there.  In a moment of madness we decided to go for it and hope that our car and Mr Greenheads driving skills would cope – which they did!  However we never reached the lake because the road was blocked by snow at the park ranger s station.  Fortunately there was a campsite open on the way back to Curacautin.  It was run by a very patient lady who let us practice our very basic Spanish – we managed to discuss our trip, the weather and order some bread!

Our final 500km drive north took us from the drizzle of Temuco to the bright sunshine of the Cajon del Maipo, east of Santiago.  The only campsite we could find open was £30 a night, so we decided to treat ourself to a cabana (wooden chalet).  The one we chose was run by a gaggle of crazy ladies who were midway through building them.  They gave us a discount to make up for a broken tv and settled us into our tiny little cabin/shed!  Whilst Mr Greenhead cooked dinner I went for a shower, only to discover freezing cold water.  Then to make matters worse I had to climb out the window because they had put the door on back to front, which meant you were locked in!  It turned out they hadn’t connected up the hot water, so they moved us to their luxury big house!

 The Cajon del  Maipo Valley was a bit of a disappointment after the beauty of the Lake District, even the hot springs at Banos Morales didn’t look as good.  There was a hike up the El Morado valley but the cloud and drizzle put us off – we had been spoilt by great weather in the Lakes. Though we did manage to find a campsite for our final night, just outside San Jose de Maipo, which sold cold beer and had a tap for us to scrub our rather muddy car!   The Cajon del Maipo is where people from Santiago go at the weekends, but we were quite happy to head back to the city and the comfort of La Chimba.

Lake Titicaca, La Paz and The Salt Plains, Bolivia (16th October to 8th November)

It was time to move on to a new country, so we boarded a bus and headed for Puno.  Puno is a town on the northern shore of Lake Titicaca and one of the border crossings from Peru to Bolivia.  The bus ride there was pretty spectacular because you cross the altiplano.  Altiplano means high plains because the land is on average 3750metres above sea level.  We watched the weather change from calm to a full blown storm and forgot about the fact that we were on a dirty rickety bus (our worst in Peru), which we had been overcharged for.  The actual price was scribbled out but we could read it!

 We stayed in Puno for just one night which happened to be Halloween.  They celebrate Halloween in style here, so every kid and several adults were dressed up.  Whilst we sat in the Chinese (Chifa) restaurant, we saw lots of kids trapse in and ask the waitress for sweets, unfortunately we didn't have any to give therm. 

The next morning we caught a bus to Bolivia.  The bus to the border was comfy, air-conditioned and had a toilet.  However once we had gone through passport control into Bolivia, we had to squash into a tiny old minibus!  Fortunately this was only for a few miles, until we reached the town of Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  This was our lunch stop and the departure point for the floating islands, which we were not visiting because Mr Greenhead went there 10 years ago.  It is a strange town, which has a beuatiful location, but is a bit run down and has lots of rubbish flying around.  The strangest thing is the hundred or so swan pedalos that line the beach - you could be in Skegness if it wasn't for the 30 degree heat and clear blue skies. 

 After lunch we boarded the next bus which was to take us to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.  The bus was bigger than the minibus but just as squahsed, especailly since we were on the back row with a rather large, sweaty French lady next to us.  Part way through the journey, our limited Spanish let us down again.  We thought we were getting off for a toilet stop, but next thing we knew our bus was floating in a pontoon (wooden barge) across to the other side of Lake Titicaca.  Fortunately there were small boats to ship us across too, which we guessed we had to get on, when the rest of the passengers on our bus did.  I guess if we had stayed in the bus it would have sunk.

 Finally, we arrived in the city of La Paz, which is 3650 metres above sea level and the highest capital city in the world.  It is surrounded by the snow capped Andes mountains and is built on a hill, so you are forever walking up or downhill.  We were dropped in the centre and were a little disorientated, but quickly found a hostal that was in our guide book (The Lonely Planet).  Hostal Maya was very central, so we could explore on foot.  La Paz is a busy city of contrasts,  We saw lots of poor people and run down buildings, but there was also a fancy Plaza del Armas (central square), tree lined streets and fast food resturants (McDonalds, KFC etc.).  The street markets and shops were full of traditional knitted goods made from Alpaca and Llama wool, so we did our Christmas shopping here and had fun barganing with the shopkeepers.  Eating in La Paz was cheap, but we struggled to find good food, espcially bread which was sweet and stale. However we did manage to find a curry house owned by an English guy and an organic restaurant with fresh bread (right next to our hostal!).

We stayed in La Paz for a couple of days, then caught a night bus to Uyuni in southern Bolivia.  We got on the bus to find big thick blankets in our seats, which we soon found out was due to the fact that the bus had no heating and the journey was cold.  However with the help of the cozy blankets we soon dropped off.  This bus didn't have any toilets, so about midnight we stopped for a toilet break.  We soon found out why, the tarmac ended here and it was bumpy, gravel road the rest of the way (6 hours).  So if you didn't go to the toilet, the bone shaking journey would make you need to go.  As you can imagine, we barely slept the rest of the way and arrived rather tired in Uyuni.

 Uyuni is the town where you leave for the Salir de Uynui (The Salt Plains).  From the moment you step off the bus people are trying to sell you tours, but we resisted their charms and headed for the hostal we had booked.  Arriving so early meant our room wasn't ready, but the hostal kindly let us store our bags.  The desert heat (over 30 degrees) made it too hot to be carrying big rucksacks around.  We decided to have breakfast first and talk to a few other travellers before we booked our tour.  The boy who took our order looked about 12, but he served us a decent breakfast.  Then we couldn't put it off any longer, we had to choose a tour.  We trapsed round about 10 agencies and found out that all tours were identical, but the price was about 10 pounds higher if you wanted an English speaking guide.  Some agencies were helpful, others rude, but what sold it for us was the silly photos one of the agencies showed us.  So for no other reason than the photos made us laugh, we chose Quechua Tours.  We then spent the rest of the day eating pizza for lunch (served by another 12 year old) and dinner (from Minuteman Pizza run by an American).  Tasty!

 At 10am the next morning we met our guide Jose and our group (a German couple and a Brazilian couple).  To our surprise Jose spoke perfect English and was very funny - we hadn't paid the extra so were expecting to only hear Spanish.  Also the Germans and Brazilians spoke excellent English so we could understand what was going on.  The Salt Plains Tour is a 3 day, 2 night trip and involves travelling by jeep driven by the Jose(Jack Sparrow as he liked to be called).  The first stop was the train graveyard.  This is a place where trains are brought once they no longer work and are left to rust.  It is a bizarre place, but we had good fun climbing on the trains and taking photos.

Then you head for the Uyuni Salt Flats.  The first stop is the salt factory at Colchani where they take the raw salt and process it so you can eat it.  There were also market stalls here where you could buy all kinds of ornaments made from salt e.g. a salt ash tray.  Then you go onto the salt flats themselves in the jeep.  They cover 4000 square miles and are surrounded by volcanoes.  At the edge of the plains is the Salt Hotel (with an island of international flags).  Guests once stayed here, but it is now a musuem because it was having a bad effect on the environment.

When you are in the middle of then plains, the edge can be seen, but it is hazy.  The size means you lose your sense of perspective, so you can put an object next to the camera (such as a toy dinosaur), stand about 10 metres away and it looks like you are tiny in comparison.  We spent ages taking silly photos.

 After a tasty lunch we headed for Incahuasi Island, otherwise known as Fish Island due to its shape.  This is one of several islands in the middle of the salt plains and is covered in giant cacti.  The cacti grow at a rate of 1cm a year, so the larget cactus (9metres) is 900 years old.  Until recently there was a 12 metre or 1200 year old cactus, but it fell down in high winds.  You can walk to a lookout point on the island and get a great view of the plains. 

From here we headed to Pïa Pia Island, this was the first place in the tour that there weren't 50 other jeeps - only our company comes here.  We explored the cave here and walked up to the viewpoint.  Then it was back in the jeep and off to our accomodation at Chuvica.  On the way Jose dropped us off to watch sunset, we weren't sure if he was coming back, but thankfully he did because the temperature drops very quickly once the sun has gone down.  The tea and biscuits were very welcome at the hostal.

 The hostal was made from concrete and was not on the actual plains, but the floor in the dinning room and bedrooms was salt!  Also the stools we sat on to eat out delicious dinner were made from salt.  There was so much food for dinner, that even Mr Greenhead couldn't finish it all.  After dinner we went out to see the slat plains by night - the stars were incredible and the full moon meant it was really bright. Then at the end of a tiring day we collapsed into our salt beds (only the base, not the matress or covers) and slept very well in the silence. 

On the second day we headed towards Laguna Colorada and make several stops on the way.  Our first two stops weren't scheduled though!  Firstly we had to find our food on the roadside after the coolbox fell off the roof whilst we were driving along and spilt everything onto the road. Amazingly some of the eggs survived unbroken! Then the jeep stopped working, but apparently it was a common problem caused by the dust.  Jose fixed it in no time and we were on our way.  The first proper stop was at the viewpoint for Volcan Ollague, an active volcano. You can see the smoke coming out of the top!

After the volcano we visted four lagoons - Canapa, Chiarkota, Ramaditas and Honda - all surrounded by volcanoes and mountains. We had another delicious lunch at the first lagoon and met our first flamingos.  Each lagoon after that allowed us to get closer and closer to the birds, as a result we ended up taking over 200 photos of flamingos! Apparently the micro-organims they eat give them their pink colour. 

 Next stop was the Arbols de Piedra or Stone Tree.  The clue is in the name, it is a stone that looks like a tree.  There are also lots of other rocks to scramble on here, so myself and Mr Greenhead had lots of fun climbing. 

 Then it was the final stop for the day, at the entrance to the national park.  Here there is Laguna Colorada which is a beautiful red lake with white islands (and more flamingos).  The lake contains white borax and red algae.  We walked up to a viewpoint and got some great photos looking over the lake. 

 Then it was time for some more tea and biscuits, whilst Jose managed to rustle up a delicious dinner from our slightly squashed ingredients.

 The final morning we left very early (4am) for the Sol de Manana's geysers. A geyser is a hot spring in a volcanic area, that erupts and throws water or steam into the air. The ones we saw were pumping out steam that felt hot when you put your hand in it.  The sun wasn't quite up yet so it was pretty chilly, but we soon forgot about that when we reached the hot springs at Aguas Terminales.  We were the first group to arrive and had our own private hot springs for about 15 minutes.  It was very hard to drag ourselves out, but the pancake breakfast did the trick. 

 After the hot springs our trip continued south towards the colourful rocks of the Desierto de Dali and Laguna Verde (Green Lake).   The final destinations before we reached the Bolivia/Chile border.   Sadly we said goodbye to our group here who had been alot of fun and headed fro San Pedro de Atacama.

 The border crossing was the most through we had experienced in South America.  They searched all our bags and checked we had no food because they don't allow any food into the country.  Fortunately they didn't discover the pasta and beef jerky at the bottom of my bag, or I might have been fined!  After a narrow escape we headed into the town of San Pedro de Atacama, grabbed some lunch and pretty much jumped on a bus straight away.  We had had enough of the desert and wanted to see the green parks of Santiago.  Thankfully Turbus can whisk you there in a mere 23 hours and for only 40 pounds each.  The buses weren't quite as luxurious as Cruz del Sur in Peru and no dinner was served, but they did have films, a toilet and a dinner break at a huge service station (where we thought we lost our bus, but it was refueling).