As we’re running a little early it’s still really cold further south, so there’s absolutely no hurry to get anywhere soon.

This does not suit our personalities at all but we’re trying.

So we kicked around Pucon a couple of days, paid too much for an oil change and debated where to go next.

We have a little road map that has a mark on a town called Valdivia and the word ‘bohemian’ written next to it.

So Valdivia it is.

The ride there took us through an area called the Siete Lagos route, (Seven Lakes). Lots of lush scenery, really nice riding.

Other than a university district, the town itself was not all that bohemian, but there was a colony of seals living on the river bank in the middle of town.

An enormous one took a lunge at Sally when she got too close trying to take a pic, causing her to trip over and land on her ass, I think that was my highlight of Valdivia. Oh and the brewery.

From Valdivia our route took us back to the lakes where we did a lap of Lago Ranco and then Lago Llanquihue complete with 3 (or 4?) volcanoes surrounding it. Amazing.

We got our first bit of rain late in the day, and decided to call it at Frutillar baho, another cute town on a lake where we found a cool little bnb without too much hassle.

From here we debated whether to spend another couple of days on a detour to see a peninsula sw of Puerto Montt (the start of the Carreterra Austral) or just get moving onto the Carreterra A.

Surprisingly we chose the detour. Loaded up, fueled up, and travelled 60km before getting the shits with riding around in circles, changed our minds and detoured to Puerto Varas.

As a side note, there are a lot of well cared for dogs in Chile. Never seen so many people walking dogs, and one such dog has just tried to join Sal and I in the Cabana we’re in for the night…

He was quite insistent, and almost pushed Sal over trying to get in :-). Two falls in one week… Now that would have been worth blogging about.

Back at Puerto Varas… we went through a check list of stuff we wanted to get done before embarking on the C. Australis.

Get more Chilean pesos and spread out the various bits of cash we have between our riding suits, no small task. But done.

Recharge the phone (fail).

Replace a headlight (fail x 2)

Find a bag to store the smelly fuel bladders in (fail)

Get a bit of hose to syphon fuel if needed (done) and…

Find some antacid medication for me (done) thanks pm.

Pay an etag bill (fail)

Get insurance for Argentina (fail)

Do some housekeeping for life back home (win).

I realize all of this is somewhat boring, and the extremely strange hotel we stayed in, with it’s cast of equally strange residents, burning smells wafting thru at all hours and pillows full of critters would make better reading, but life on the road is not all roses (or weird hotels).

(inside Sally’s pillow, there’s critters in there!).

Stay with me though, I’m almost done. Now it’s today.

Back to not being in a hurry and waiting for the weather to warm up a bit… So next destination we chose was just 60km away at the foot of a Nat Park called Alerce, which contains among other things an Alerce tree that’s 3000 years old. That’s not a typo. 3000.

Todays forecast was for rain, so we reasoned it would be better to walk in the rain than ride in it, so we did the short stint to this cabana where the same black dog still wants to get in…

… unloaded all our stuff and went hiking in the rain.

Good thing our rain suits are in good nick because it rained solid for the three hours we were walking…

(Sals hood isn’t waterproof so she put a plastic bag on her head to stay dry. Bag head.)

There was a nice waterfall at the end, and the 3000 year old tree too… Did I mention it’s 3000 years old. Holy shit! That tree was here 1000 years before Jesus!

Tonight we’re staying in a cool little cabana (small holiday house), that looks over the Reloncavi Estuary. A lot of the accommodation along here is in tiny self contained houses so we’re making the most of the kitchenette.

We have a bottle of wine, 2 beers, some locally smoked salmon, a pack of pasta, an onion, a few small tomatoes, some salami and cheese, peanuts, and a bunch of saggy asparagus to turn into dinner.

Should be a wild night!

(our view)

xoxo