Lots of lupins
Christmas Day!!!
Joan woke at 3 am and caught up on the blog. Kevin was woken up by Joan at 9am as we had to be out the hotel by 10.
Ate breakfast in our room. The hotel added Pan de Pascua (Chilean Xmas cake) to the breakfast tray.
We managed to buy bread and Cheese at an Esso station before heading north. It was raining. The sights are beautiful and there are more gushing waterfalls than you could shake a stick at.
Our map shows a suspension bridge at Puerto Aisen as a highlight of Chile, so we went there to see it. It was just a small bridge...
Headed back along paved roads towards the Carreterra Austral, and we were making good progress. Then we hit a section of "ripio." Kevin swerved to miss something in the road and hit the stones on the side. 30 seconds later we were looking at one very flat tyre. By now the rain was heavy.
Kevin managed to change the tyre but this slowed our progress as we now had to creep along at about 30 kph to ensure we did not burst another on the rough roads.
We decided to find a new tyre and stopped at ......, a small settlement on the way to see if we could buy one. At the first house that was signed "Gomeria" (tyre fixing) a kind gentleman came out of his darkened home and said he couldn't do anything. But he was polite and wished us Merry Christmas and told us to go a couple of houses down and ask for Roberto. This we did.
We knocked at another house's door and were invited in. We gathered Roberto was not there but someone would find him. The mother of the house was icing and decorating a huge cake. There seemed to be a lot of folk hanging about there. Eventually Roberto came and took us to his hut, which doubled as a barbeque pit.
He looked at the tyre, signed with a slash across the throat that the tyre was beyond repair and told us to go back to Coyhaique to buy another. This was not an option as it meant retracing our steps.
So we heaed north at a much diminished speed to avoid other punctures.
We entered the Parque Nacional Queulat on dirt roads. It is lush, with amazing waterfalls tumbling down mountainsides. On a bend we saw a sign to the Sendero Padre Garcia, which led us to yet another amazing waterfall.
The foliage was lush and fuchsias grew wild along the road. In most places it was barely wide enough for one car. We tiptoed through the park, until we came across the junction to its highlight - the Ventisquero Colgante. This is a hanging glacier that used to shed ice blocks into a lake below. Regression means that it now feeds two powerful waterfalls that gush into the lake below. But still it is an awe inspiring sight.
It was very late when we arrived there and the visitors and the Guardeparques had gone home for the night, so we had the place to ourselves. Plus, miraculously, for Patagonian rainforest, it had stopped raining.
Initially we just went to the "mirador", but then took the path across a suspended wooden bridge to the lake beneath the glaciar. The sign by the bridge said maximum capacity 4 persons, but it was in English, not Spanish.
After a couple of touristy shots, we reluctantly got back in the car and headed towards Puyhuapi. The Temas de Puyhuapi are Chile's premier spa resort but as we are not rich, we opted to stay in the nearby village. On the way we passed several salmon fish farms.
We opted to stay in the Hosteria Aleman. The landlady was of German origen and we ended up speaking an un-nerving hotchpotch of German, Spanish and English. Joan explained that her father had worked for Messerschmidt in Munchen and the Frau explained her husband had flew Messerschmidt during the war. The rooms in her house were very un-Chilean and reminiscent of a Bavarian guest house.
The landlady recommended that we dine at Cafe Rossbach on the edge of the fiord. In fact, we had a fine meal there plus there was limited internet access so we could at least email our loved ones.
Joan woke at 3 am and caught up on the blog. Kevin was woken up by Joan at 9am as we had to be out the hotel by 10.
Ate breakfast in our room. The hotel added Pan de Pascua (Chilean Xmas cake) to the breakfast tray.
We managed to buy bread and Cheese at an Esso station before heading north. It was raining. The sights are beautiful and there are more gushing waterfalls than you could shake a stick at.
Our map shows a suspension bridge at Puerto Aisen as a highlight of Chile, so we went there to see it. It was just a small bridge...
Headed back along paved roads towards the Carreterra Austral, and we were making good progress. Then we hit a section of "ripio." Kevin swerved to miss something in the road and hit the stones on the side. 30 seconds later we were looking at one very flat tyre. By now the rain was heavy.
Kevin managed to change the tyre but this slowed our progress as we now had to creep along at about 30 kph to ensure we did not burst another on the rough roads.
We decided to find a new tyre and stopped at ......, a small settlement on the way to see if we could buy one. At the first house that was signed "Gomeria" (tyre fixing) a kind gentleman came out of his darkened home and said he couldn't do anything. But he was polite and wished us Merry Christmas and told us to go a couple of houses down and ask for Roberto. This we did.
We knocked at another house's door and were invited in. We gathered Roberto was not there but someone would find him. The mother of the house was icing and decorating a huge cake. There seemed to be a lot of folk hanging about there. Eventually Roberto came and took us to his hut, which doubled as a barbeque pit.
He looked at the tyre, signed with a slash across the throat that the tyre was beyond repair and told us to go back to Coyhaique to buy another. This was not an option as it meant retracing our steps.
So we heaed north at a much diminished speed to avoid other punctures.
We entered the Parque Nacional Queulat on dirt roads. It is lush, with amazing waterfalls tumbling down mountainsides. On a bend we saw a sign to the Sendero Padre Garcia, which led us to yet another amazing waterfall.
The foliage was lush and fuchsias grew wild along the road. In most places it was barely wide enough for one car. We tiptoed through the park, until we came across the junction to its highlight - the Ventisquero Colgante. This is a hanging glacier that used to shed ice blocks into a lake below. Regression means that it now feeds two powerful waterfalls that gush into the lake below. But still it is an awe inspiring sight.
It was very late when we arrived there and the visitors and the Guardeparques had gone home for the night, so we had the place to ourselves. Plus, miraculously, for Patagonian rainforest, it had stopped raining.
Initially we just went to the "mirador", but then took the path across a suspended wooden bridge to the lake beneath the glaciar. The sign by the bridge said maximum capacity 4 persons, but it was in English, not Spanish.
After a couple of touristy shots, we reluctantly got back in the car and headed towards Puyhuapi. The Temas de Puyhuapi are Chile's premier spa resort but as we are not rich, we opted to stay in the nearby village. On the way we passed several salmon fish farms.
We opted to stay in the Hosteria Aleman. The landlady was of German origen and we ended up speaking an un-nerving hotchpotch of German, Spanish and English. Joan explained that her father had worked for Messerschmidt in Munchen and the Frau explained her husband had flew Messerschmidt during the war. The rooms in her house were very un-Chilean and reminiscent of a Bavarian guest house.
The landlady recommended that we dine at Cafe Rossbach on the edge of the fiord. In fact, we had a fine meal there plus there was limited internet access so we could at least email our loved ones.
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