Hitting the open road

We arrived in Temuco on Wed morning at 6 in the morning and had to sit in the freezing cold for hours before anything opened! But by time lunch came around, we'd had a very succesful morning, having rented a car, booked our ferry south to Puerto Natales and gotten Erica and Lisa's flights sorted.



From Temuco, we drove up into the mountains through Vallarrica (a beautiful town on the shore of a huge lake, with a volcanoe as backdrop), Pucon (took a quick stop in this gringo mecca to use the local internet amenities) and on up into some of Chile's beautiful national parks. You can see all the spots we visted on my little map which I have to say I'm a big fan of. It's the nerd in me.



The roads rapidly decreased in quality, and eventually we abandonned our heavily-laided Toyota and hiked the last 2 kms up the dirt track to the beautiful Refugio Tinquilco, arriving just as it was getting dark.

Thursday morning we awoke to find ourselves in the spectacular surroundings, and after breakfast, myself and Oisin took a beautiful 4 hour hike up to three lakes, called Los Lagos, set in the mountains above us.

Lakes, waterfalls, 1000-year-old trees, bamboo, snow. A spectacular combination.

Loads of photos so I put them up here.