2. the first day

Already before we started our already rather short trip, we had to make adjustments. Less time, so cut down further on the program. We sacrifice the colourful Mapuche markets and the museum of Temuco. We just sleep in Temuco, but only because the plane arrives there, and the car rental company is based here. What hasn’t helped is that I forgot the charger for my camera batteries, so we spent considerable time finding a solution. Which, of course, didn’t work, because nobody takes pictures with a camera anymore, in the age of mobile phones. So I am afraid you will have to do with photos taken with my telephone, this time.

Oh, and about Temuco, we do have our first pisco sour of the trip here, or rather, a local adjustment made with gin. In a gintoneria. I am familiar with the panaderia – pan means bread, in Spanish -, and the polleria and carneceria – pollo is chicken, carne is meat -, I have seen cervecerias – cerveca is beer -, but a gintoneria, that was a new experience altogether. For the rest Temuco has little to offer on a late afternoon stroll, except that it does have some strikingly Brutalist constructions, like a church and an apartment building – followers of this site are familiar with our recent obsession with Brutalism, which started in the Balkans a bit over a year ago.

Right, off we went, with rented car and truncated plan, in the direction of the many National Parks that Chile has, stacked against the Andes. No thermal bath, no waterfall, but straight to Curarrehua (you ‘ll have to get used to some tongue twisters, from now on) for a special restaurant that serves authentic Mapuche food. Great experience, including a wonderful tasty selection of sauces with the sopaipillas, deep-fried pastries made from dough that are common in all of the ex-Spanish colonies of South America.

From the restaurant we drove up to the Argentinian border, just because driving into the Andes is always a spectacular activity. And today didn’t disappoint: ever closer to Paso Tromen, and with increasingly clear skies, Volcan Lanin, the one we know from the Argentinian side, presented itself to us increasingly forcefully, until we were standing right at the base of it. On the way, we stopped at Lago Quilleihue – I told you, tongue twisters -, one of the smaller lakes in the Chilean cordillera. But nice enough, with lots of wild flowers around, and dark blue water.

In an attempt to avoid the most touristic areas, especially the towns of Pucon and Villarica, on either end of a large lake, Lago Villarica, we found ourselves a hot spring hotel in the middle of nowhere. Warm water distributed across three outdoor pools of different temperature. From the clientele, a large group of rather old and limping people, we interpreted that the waters must have healing powers, although until now we haven’t noticed the effect of floating in any of the pools, under a pleasantly warm sun competing with the water temperatures, on our health other than utter relaxation after a not-so-stressful day. The pisco sours at the pool enhanced this effect.

next: Panguipulli