Cochamo Valley

Cochamo, right in the fjords with wooden houses and snow peak mountains around us.. I could stay here forever! We had heard about place called La Juna. 20km from town, rocky and muddy path where you can only get by walking (summer time you can hire a horse). Yes, that is place for us!

I could have left half of my stuff somewhere waiting us to come back, but only few small shops were open. What the heck, I can carry three books, three shoes and all my summer clothes which I don't need. We got a ride end of the road where we put our backpacks on (I am not lying when I say it was at least 25kg! with all the stuff and food for the next four days in it) ready to walk. Rob had left our map somewhere so we could only follow the path and hope that there wouldn't be any turns.

It was heavy. I was very tired when we got there, beautiful vast area with few shelter and huge cliff around us. Cochamo Valley is said to be Yosamite of the South (National Park in California). And it was! Many waterfalls and cliff reminding me of a Half Dome. We put the fire going and were thing could we just put our tent inside the shelter.. It was suppose to rain. At that point we didn't know it would rain the next three days. We ate and chilled and eventually set our tent inside because it had started to rain very heavily. Nobody else was around so we got the whole campsite and cabin for ourselves once again.

It rained the whole night!! And morning also. But what was more annoying was mice!! We had to move our food bags zillion different times during the night and still those f@#cking sh§%he%d bas@¡rds manage to get into our food. We got company from the next campsite, had tea and oaid our stay. Afternoon it eased little bit so we went for a walk. Those paths are not very well maintaned or sign posted. Got totally lost at some point and my heart started already racing what if we don't find back.. But we did, completely soaked and exhausted.

Second night those little friends of ours continued their fiesta and I was the biggest grumpy bum what you can imagine. Ready to walk back in the rain. Rob manage to cheer me up and convince us to stay one more night. We went for another walk, crossed the river to see Toboganes waterfall. It was rock formation like a waterslide, with beautiful turqoise water beneath it.

We cooked all our meals on fire. It usually took one hour or little bit more to get it going with wet wood. We had two pans to cook with so we had to prepare everything one by one. But I loved it. Even though it was cold and rainy, fire made it feel so cozy and cooking was it's own event of the day. We didn't have any hurry, we had the time.

Saturday we woke up when it was still dark, it was frosty outside and amazing starish sky! Clouds had finally moved :) Hike back down didn't feel much easier. It was still very muddy, lots of puddles and streams to be crossed. Wooden blanks were really slippary and I think climbing up the rocks was easier than going down. With one backpack infront and back. But we made it, tired but happy!

We took bus to Puerto Montt where I took a night bus back to Santiago and will head straight to Putaende (1200km journey), where I will spend the next 12 days, participating 10-day Vipassana Meditation course. You can read my feelings from my first course in Nepal (2012) from here! Rob stayed down south, he will go Chiloe island and few national parks. We will catch up in Puerto Chacabuco in few weeks time.

Lago Llanquihue

We have arrived to the Lake District! I don't even know how many lakes in total, but I can tell you that it is gorgeous in here :)

First we stayed in Puerto Varas, Mama Hostel was so cozy and warm! I can't remember the last time when I have been able to wear just a t-shirt inside. I could have stayed inside that hostel for days. Town was too pretty for that tho. Here are many towns with German influence, bakeries and hostels, houses and architect. We did a daytrip to Frutillar, which was total old people paradice with German atmosphere. I loved the houses and the view to the Osorno volcano. This county has more than 200 volcanos!

After that we moved little bit further on the lake, to Ensenada. It is still winter in here (oh this is the furthest south either of us has ever been) so nothing is open. No hostels, no restaurants. Luckily one campsite was open so we put our tent up right next to the beach.

Laguna Verde wasn't that amazing, but a cat who followed us like a dog was :) It was really hard to walk in that path, last year Volcano Calbuco errupted covering everything in dark, heavy ash. It was like black sand. We continued walking and thank good got a ride top of Volcano Osorno. There was a skilift taking you even higher but we desided to walk. You could see the very top of the volcano so close to you. But we were told it is a very difficult climb. It felt so weird to be so close.

We found a path which took us through a forest and lava field. Views.. I just can't believe how beautiful it is here every single day!! :D Path took us close to the Lake Petrohue and river with massive waterfalls. Not high, but wide. Enormous volume of water, they should use that power to make some energy.

Pucon

We had a quick stop in Santiago before heading here. Surprised positively. Nice street art also, great parks and exhausting cerros! But not much to tell, we walked around and went totally bananas in the market. So many different fruit, veggie and nut stalls.. We did our first (and last) walking tour, too much history and too little stories. 

Pucòn. Paradise in low season, but I can see this place being totally crammed during Jan/Feb.  Right by the lake Villarica, amazing volcano just half an hour away, three different national park around. You won't be bored here.

First we thought we would climb the volcano. Snowy cone and you can actually see lava from the top. Villarica errupted in March 2015, keeping climbers away for the next nine months. After that the price increased to 130$ which is pretty harsh just for a daytrip. We desided not to do it. Had amazing daytrip to El Cañi park, perfect snowy day in winter wonderland. Hike was steep but it was totally worth it, view from the top was superb! I only wished I would have had snowboard to come down :) We took a tour to Geotermatics ,one of the top 10 thermals in the world! Amazing, such a beautiful place. 16 pools with water around +40°C. Three hours went so quickly watching the stars and lying on the pools.

I feel old, boring and uptight. Really. I don't like backpacker hostels anymore with young people partying, but more than that I really can't stand weed smokers. And here (as in all latin-america) everyone smokes! I needed to escape our room to avoid people from our hostel, which made me really feel lonely when everyone else where laughing for stupid jokes, which weren't that funny unless you were high. Three very ill slept nights and walking all day longs isn't a very good combination.