Today was our last serious walk of the trip and it didn't disappoint. The walk was in Huerquehue National Park: 12,500 hectares of rivers, waterfalls, lakes and forest. A prominent feature of the forest - along with Beech and Fuchsias - are the Araucarias or Monkey Puzzle trees, some of which are a thousand years old. The original inhabitants, the Mapuche, used both the leaves and the fruits as a diet staple. The invading Spaniards used them for masts, as the trunks are tall and straight and relatively consistent in diameter throughout their height. Araucarias are related to the Wollemi Pine.
Villarrica puffing away - view from town on the way out
Looking up to the top of a large Monkey Puzzle tree
Our walk skirted Lago Tinquilco at around 700m altitude and then headed steadily uphill on a well-made but muddy track, full of roots to trip the unwary, to Laguna Verde and Laguna Toro where we had lunch (about 1250m altitude). The weather was beautiful but we were content to watch some brave souls swim in the lake - which would have been pretty cold. We were treated to some magnificent views of the Villarrica volcano gently smoking along the way.
The volcano looked pretty innocuous today but, on the same tour, this time last year, Mel and Franco - our tour guides - were woken up at about 3 am by cries of 'Volcán!' followed by a fire alarm and got out of bed to see it erupting. It was spectacular and fortunately no one was killed - unlike the previous eruption in the early 70s which killed quite a few people - a result of the deadly gases emitted.
On the way back from the lakes, we made a couple of diversions to waterfalls. We returned to the very pleasant garden of our guest house for surprise drinks and nibbles for a member of our tour group who had come on the trip to celebrate her 70th birthday.
February 20th - free day in perfect weather
Activities were optional today. Evan hired a bike and did a ride of about 40km to the Ojos de Caburga waterfall mostly, along corrugated gravel roads with a few hills involved.
Kurt, Kitty and Gillian opted for some cultural input with a trip to a Mapuche 'village'. It was not quite what we expected as the Mapuche people that we met don't actually live there - however they do 'hang out' there. The Mapuche have been regarded as second-class citizens in Chile though our guide estimated that 90% of the population have Mapuche blood but many don't acknowledge it. Some Mapuche - aided by the (adventure) tourism boom in this area - are now trying to revive their pride in their culture and traditional way of life (with some concessions to modern conveniences like lights and running water). We were treated to reminiscences of the old ways from a 72yo woman with translations from our guide, who unfortunately struggled a bit. Kurt and Gillian were dressed up in Mapuche dress and we listened to some traditional music. We were invited to play a traditional hockey-like game, which was a bit too energetic for our liking! We had been led to believe that we would have the opportunity to try some traditional food but, apart from the drink of 'pre-fermented' wheat - quite pleasant, lunch was sourced from the more recent tradition of barbecued meat and chicken, and salad!
It's hard to stop taking photos of Villarrica. Here it is in the background this morning, just before the start of a 5 km fun run.
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