Valle de la Luna

Today’s tour guide was Vicente who originally comes from Concepion in the south of Chile. We had two pleasant young American travelling companions called Chris and Abby, a cardiologist and a biologist specialising in algae, which she monitors in Lake Superior. They live in Minnesota. 

First we had breakfast watching the sun rise over the mountains, with a lively and knowledgable commentary from Vicente. Then off we set to the famous Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), a stunning landscape. It really is otherworldly and almost completely barren, no wonder it was named after the surface of the moon. It’s a mixture of stone and sand formations, including huge sand dunes. We could see expanses of salt lying on the surface in the distance. We walked up the sandy trail to a high lookout point, it became increasingly hot and the earth dropped away alarmingly at the side of the path into a deep ravine. Apparently it can be very windy but not today. NASA has used the Valle de la Luna to test autonomous rover prototypes for movement, drilling, and sample collection because it’s the area on earth most like the landscape of Mars. Back at the minibus we set off to Ayllu, a tiny traditional community, where we walked round the vegetable gardens and adobe houses. James was encouraged to pick a pomegranate off the tree (you do it by twisting, not pulling) and we all enjoyed eating the seeds. We saw a huge variety of fruit like quinces and pears, and vegetables including asparagus, which they grow very thin and tall here. We had lunch on a shady terrace; Sopapaillas with the freshest salsa I have ever tasted. We tasted arrope de chañar, a thick, dark sticky syrup made from the fruit of the chañar tree (Geoffroea decorticans) and then a dessert which was a mousse made with arrope, which we sprinkled with crunchy dried quinoa seeds. Back in San Pedro we visited the pharmacy because James got water in one of his ears when we were white water rafting in Puerto Vargas, and it’s feeling sore. This has happened before on holiday so hopefully we can nip it in the bud before it gets worse. 

Toconao and Laguna Chaxa

After a delicious breakfast in the hotel, we walked the very short distance into the centre of San Pedro. It has low buildings, many made with adobe, little tourist shops and restaurants. We stopped for cool drinks in a wee café. 
Rodrigo was our guide for our afternoon tour.
The drive was dominated by Licancabur, the perfect 6000 metre cone shaped volcano on the border of Chile & Bolivia and there are several other volcanoes visible nearby. 
We drove along past the salt flats, which have lots of minerals and chemicals such as lithium. We arrived at Toconao, a traditional, 12,000-year-old oasis village, fed by the small Toconao River which flows down from the Andes. It is known as the "place of stones," because the houses are built from volcanic liparite stone. The San Lucas bell tower in the village square has a door made out of cactus wood! Our guide introduced us to one of the local farmers who gave us a tour round the carefully irrigated orchards and small gardens which were filled with lush fruit; pomegranates, quinces, avocados, grapes, figs, apricots and much more. We were given a big bunch of grapes straight off the vine and they tasted so sweet. We bought delicious Aryamp ice cream from a tiny shop. 
We continued on the road across the salt flats and Rodrigo said that the road is actually made of salt which has been compressed and hardened. The Atacama Salt Flat is located in a depression formed by the rising of the Andes and Domeyko mountain ranges. The central block sank and was then covered by a layer of volcanic material, and over the years, salts and minerals were washed down from the hills by water flowing from the Andes. You can see these salts crystallized on the surface of the desert.
We arrived at Laguna Chaxa where flamingos were standing in the shallow lake eating microscopic algae, brine shrimp, and small crustaceans filtered from the salty water. It is amazing that such a seemingly inhospitable area can support life. We also saw two wee lizards circling each other and fighting. Rodrigo drove back to the outskirts of San Pedro where he laid out drinks and snacks as we watched the mountains light up and change colour as the sun set. Later we strolled into the village for a late dinner. 

Star-gazing in the Atacama Desert

Arturo got us to the airport in good time this morning for the 09.58 plane to Santiago. The airport wasn’t too busy and it was all rather pleasant. Our next flight was the 11.53 from Santiago to Calama, again no waiting and hardly any queues. By twenty past three we were being driven to San Pedro by José, a quiet chap whose playlist consisted entirely  of pan pipes music. The landscape couldn’t have been more different from the fertile green fields of Los Lagos; the long straight road cut through desert with only scrubby little plants dotting it sparsely. The snow-capped Andes could be seen in the distance to the east as we headed south-east. There were little shrines every now and then at the roadside. We saw a few guanaco standing on a small rise. Eventually we started descending into a big wide valley, still very arid, and there was the small oasis town of San Pedro. Our hotel, the Noi Atacama, is very pretty. It has adobe walls and ceiling fans to keep the rooms cool. We went for a swim on the small but delightfully refreshing swimming pool. After dinner we were picked up by minibus to go on a star-gazing trip out in the desert. It was brilliant; the guide used a laser pointer to pick out the different stars as we sat round a camp fire. Of course the sky was absolutely clear and it was a new moon which was great. We saw the Southern Cross, its kite shape easily seen by the naked eye, and on its side because it’s autumn in the southern hemisphere. 
Then we used two large telescopes to take a closer look at the skies. 
We saw “the fleas” on the Dog Star (Sirius) which is a faint star cluster (aka the little beehive cluster) which consists of thousands of stars when you look through the telescope. 
Jupiter was the only planet visible, and through the telescope we could see three of its moons. 
We looked at Beetlejuice which is a rusty red colour, and the Orion Nebula which appears as a fuzzy "star" to the naked eye, but through the telescope you can see that it’s a gas and dust cloud where stars are being formed.
Looking south we saw that Alpha Crucis, which looks like one star to the naked eye, is actually two stars. We saw the “firefly” cluster in the constellation Carina, again many thousands of stars when you look through the telescope. It was an amazing evening. 

Cycling and white water rafting in Los Lagos

On Sunday we were pleased to wake up to a sunny morning in Puerto Varas, because we were going on a cycling trip. Our guide Jorgio (Jorge) and driver Santiago picked us up nice and early and drove us via the main road to the little town of Frutillar (means strawberry) which we visited on Saturday. Apparently the road that goes behind the lake is Pan-American road from Alaska all the way to Chile (although it’s not quite continuous because it’s divided by waterways in Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua.)
It was lovely to see Frutillar in the sunshine and the cycle was great fun; we had electric bikes which were handy for the few steep climbs. I used the “turbo” setting liberally on these while purist James hardly used any electricity at all. We cycled 26 km from Frutillar to the village of Llanquihue. Jorge pointed out various landmarks and views on the way. At one point we had a brief rain shower but we had waterproofs and the sun soon came out again. Before going back to the hotel we all went to Bravo Cabrera for pub lunch where we had giant burgers (mine was a beetroot burger) and James quaffed some beer. 
Then this morning we were collected from the hotel at 8.30 a.m. to go white water rafting. Two very pleasant Americans, Steve and Julie, were in the same minibus, and another six people met us at the rafting centre so we were ten in two boats. 
We travelled by minibus further up the Petrohué River which has class III rapids and is surrounded by volcanoes. It is a stunning setting, even in a rainy day. We were provided with wetsuits, life jackets, neoprene booties, and helmets. 
The guides gave a short but thorough safety talk,
where they explained what to do in case you fall into the water. This spooked me quite a lot; I didn’t like the fact that you have to sit right up in the side of the inflatable boat and that you have to hold on only by bracing your feet under the side, because your hands are wielding the paddle. However once we got started I thoroughly enjoyed myself! James bravely took a seat right at the front of the boat so he got the brunt of the water. Our guide Filippo directed us when to paddle and when (alarmingly) to duck down onto the floor of the boat at the most bumpy bits.
The descent of the river took about an hour and a half, going through eight sets of rapids and we had spectacular views of the Calbuco volcano looming through the mist as well as lots of tree clad hills. We stopped at one point where some hardy souls (including James!) got out of the inflatables to climb on rocks and jump into the river. Back at the rafting centre we had a nice pizza lunch in their wee café before being bussed back to our hotel. 

Lake Llanquihue

The weather forecast was correct and we woke up to wind and rain. Although from the comfort of our very nice hotel room rather than a campsite I’m glad to say. This mean that our trip to the volcano was cancelled; it’s lucky that we saw it from our balcony yesterday because it was not visible at all today! Instead we were taken by car on a lakeside tour by driver Arturo and tour guide Reubèn, stopping at several villages along the way. The lake is called Llanquihue (pronounced Yankee-way) from Mapuche language meaning “sunken place” We saw plenty of Germanic estancias in this very agricultural area, wooden houses and huge wooden barns, with hydrangeas around their fences. The fields were full of cows or horses. 

Reubèn told us so many interesting things that I can’t remember them all, but here are a few. 

• Pisco is the Chilean national drink. It is also the Peruvian national drink and although they both claim its origins, it probably was invented in both places around the same time. 
• Chilean strawberries are white.
• In the 19th century in Valparaiso there were many British sailors; English nautical phrases often got Hispanicized by the locals. For example Bad weather” was used in local speech as “baduera”  
• In Chile, “la once” is the name for a late afternoon meal, similar to the Scottish “high tea” and nowadays consists of a light meal or just coffee and cake. The reason that it’s called “la once” is that the Spanish word for brandy has eleven letters: aguardiente. People used to say “tomar las once” (drink the eleven) as a discreet way to say that they were going to have a brandy! Over time the meal evolved into afternoon tea or coffee and snacks, but Chileans still say “tomar once!” And they specifically use the verb “to drink” even though it’s now food as well. 
• In Puerto Varas the German influence is still strong and people refer to cakes as küchen.

I’m sure that many more facts will come back to me! At the village of Frutillar we went to the Museo Colonial Aleman which was a farm museum with several buildings and attractive gardens. There was an old mill, a blacksmiths shop and a farmhouse, with furnishings and equipment from the 19th century, all very interesting. 

After a brief stop in the pretty little village of Puerto Octay we had lunch in the traditional Chilean / German Espantapajaros restaurant. The food was great but the restaurant was disconcertingly empty. I suppose that we are at the end of their tourist season. And thence back to the hotel to relax for the rest of the afternoon. We had dinner in the excellent Restaurante Las Buenas Brasas where James drank a pisco sour out of loyalty to Chile! 

Puerto Natales to Puerto Varas

I woke up in Puerto Natales feeling so refreshed. However I think that’s I’m allergic to the adhesive on hydrocolloid patches because my blistered toe is dreadfully sore, so I removed the patch. My toenail on the big toe of my left foot is completely black too, but my right foot is unscathed. We had an early start to get the 10.18 plane from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt, where we were met by a driver who drove us 25 minutes to Puerto Varas also known as the City of Roses. 
It’s a little town in the Los Lagos (Lake) District of Chile on the shores of Llanquihue Lake. It was founded by German immigrants in the 19th century and a lot of the German-inspired houses have wooden shingles on their roofs and facades made from the rain-resistant alerce (Patagonian larch) tree. Our hotel is on the lakeside and has views over the lake to the Osorno and Calbuco volcanoes.
We went for a pleasant stroll along the promenade and drank freshly made juice sitting outside a wee café in the sunshine. We could see the volcanoes across the bay, wreathed in clouds. The weather forecast for the next few days is dreadful, however it was hard to believe that as I sat on our balcony this afternoon on such a hot and rather humid day. Dinner in the restaurant was absolutely delicious and we are having an early night; neither of us has quite caught up in our sleep yet! 

W Trail addendum - The Story of the Lost Dad

Two lovely people that I met today, Floyd and Zack, told me what happened to them when they walked up to the Torres viewpoint two days ago. Floyd is Zack’s Dad and was walking slower, so they agreed that Zack would head down the hill to get ingredients for dinner at Central Rifugio before the shop closed. He thought that his Dad would arrive about an hour after him. Meanwhile Floyd stopped briefly at Chileno and continued past Windy Pass. However at some point he took a wrong turning and got lost in the woods. Zack was waiting for him at Central, growing increasingly worried, and eventually reported Floyd missing. The rangers forbade Zack from heading back up the hill because it was getting dark and they didn’t want another person to go missing. They checked the cctv at Chileno and Floyd could be seen setting off from there only an hour after Zack, as expected. Meanwhile Floyd was lost and it was completely dark. Zack had carried a lot of Floyd’s kit down for him so Floyd had no food, head torch, emergency blanket or first aid kit. He had only a little water. His phone and watch batteries died. He kept walking along the trail looking for signs, and when he realised that he wouldn’t find his way back, he sheltered under a tree. It began raining, lightly at first so the leaves protected him, but then harder and harder which was very unpleasant despite wearing waterproof clothing. He nearly fell asleep at one point but was wary of getting hypothermia so he forced himself to stay awake and paced up and down for hours until eventually he saw the sky getting lighter. Once he could see a bit he started following a trail along the side of the mountain and in time he met some people heading the other way so he found out that he was going in the direction of Francès. One couple noticed that he was looking exhausted and gave him water and food. A bit further on he met a ranger who had his photo on his phone as a missing person, and walked him back to Central. A very relieved Zack was waiting for him, and they were allowed to stay an extra night; Floyd slept for the whole day. Strangely enough, Floyd wasn’t the only person missing in the mountains that night; the rangers told Zack that two other couples were also missing. So this must be a regular occurrence. I presume that they turned up eventually. The rangers told Zack that when people go missing it’s usually because of one of three reasons: 

1. They are fed up with hiking and have set off back to Puerto Natales without telling their group. 
2. They have found their way to the wrong rifugio and are getting drunk there.
3. They really are lost.

Thank goodness that Floyd was ok after his ordeal, and in fact was back hiking a day later in great spirits.