Travel-Trotter

On Saturday night the twins had a legendary dance off, lots of energy expended, without going out into the rain.  After Maddy and I put the kids to bed, I went out on the town to check out the nightlife, somebody needs to right.  I had a pint of beer at the local Irish pub and watched the end of one of the local soccer matches and even the bartender said the match was a nothing game, it didn’t seem like it by the crowd and the cheering.  Afterwards I walked down to the local casino in Puerto Varas, it was interesting to see the scene, pretty packed on a Saturday night.  I played for about an hour on blackjack and craps and came out about $15 ahead, check me out.  I met some nice people at the tables mostly Chileans on their last few days of break before heading back to school or work.  I cashed in my winnings and went to a local pub for one more beer, there were no typical bar stools so I grabbed a booth, drank my beer as I seemed a bit out of place and zipped out of there.  On my way walking home I witnessed a hit and run or more like I heard it, a taxi was speeding away but I didn’t get the license plate.  An interesting night out no less.

The next day it rained and rained and rained, Caroline came down with a cold and she didn’t want to do much of anything.  It seemed like a good down day since we were heading out the next day.  We finally got Maddy’s Indian food as take out which was good but not great.  I uploaded lots of pictures and videos to the blog because we had great internet, we reserved a few places to stay reserved about a month in advance.

We left Pucon on Thursday after an amazing 11 days with incredible sunny and warm weather, I mention this because on Thursday it started raining and it seems like it hasn’t stopped.  We drove 4 hours south to the northern part of Patagonia where the weather has highs around 60 degrees Fahrenheit with lots of wind.  The town of Puerto Varas is located on a lake with a large volcano on the other side, giving us amazing view… unless it is cloudy.  The town is located at the beginning of a pass through the Andes that was important even during prehistoric time.

On Thursday we checked into our airbnb house that was located close to town, we then wandered around town and got some food which seemed like a late lunch, because everybody had a case of the “hangries”.  We went down to the shore and all the girls got their shoes wet in the lake.  On Friday the girls all decided to use their goody girl get out of school free cards (three good days of school in a row).  It was raining cats and dogs so we played some iPad in the morning then I took the girls out to lunch, hamburgers and papas fritas all around, Caroline was not feeling great so I dropped her off with Maddy and the twins and I went bowling.  We had a great time, the bowling alley was only about 1/2 the standard length in the US.  It felt like I was going to break the alley, and the twins got a few spares.

We went out for dinner and tried to go to a vegan Indian restaurant that Maddy really wanted to go to but it was not open at the appointed time, so we went to sushi, natural substitute right.  The girls were well behaved so we ate some ice cream at a local shop, the downtown was preparing for a concert but we went home because the weather was rainy and winding.

We slept in on Saturday but the day ended up not being too bad weather wise, we travelled an hour east to Petrohue which was located further up in the mountains between two volcanoes.  The views were spectacular with water falls, volcano views and a big river.  It was still a bit cloudy otherwise we heard the water was a stunning shade of blue from the glacial run off.  We had trouble getting the girls to eat and crankiness had followed us everywhere, we made the best out of it and had fun anyway.

Here is an update of how far we have come and the distance we have driven from La Paz, Bolivia to Puerto Varas, Chile.  We have traveled a total of 4,728 kilometers or 2,938 miles over a total of 48 days.

A – Copacabana and La Paz, Bolivia

B – Sucre, Bolivia

C -Uyuni, Bolivia

D – San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

E – La Serena, Chile

F – Vina del Mar, Chile

G – Santiago, Chile

H- Santa Cruz, Chile

I – Pucon, Chile

H- Puerto Varas, Chile

So we have great wi-fi in Puerto Varas this weekend so I will be sharing some video and pictures of the last month that we were not able to upload due to slow or challenging internet…. enjoy!  Feel free to subscribe to our youtube channel.

Volcano Villarrica looking into the crater.

Sunset on the Solar de Uyuni (timelapse)

Walking on the clouds in Uyuni

Timelapse of the kids climbing on rocks

Sunset timelapse over Lake Villarrica

On our last day in Pucon we went to our second Termas or hot springs, this time we went to Termas Rio Trancura.  It was just 20 minutes outside Pucon and although not as spectacular as Termas Geometricas is was very nice.  They had 8-10 pools with views of Volcano Villarrica, great last day.  off to Patagonia tomorrow.

We absolutely loved the area around Pucon, the activities, the lake, the volcano and the weather was spectacular.  We were able to take it easy for 10 days and re-charge our batteries to prepare for a lot of driving in the next couple of days.

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody from the travel trotters!

I woke up today before the sun came up and was picked up by van headed to the Volcano Villarrica.  I went up the mountain with a guided tour and a group of 4 Americans and 1 woman from Valparaiso,  the hike started with a ride up a ski chairlift.

We then hiked through volcanic rock for 2 hours, we then strapped on crampons, and hiked up through snow for another hour and a half.

The top of the volcano was devoid of snow and after a short hike we arrived at the crater.  The crater was about 1/4 mile across with a small hole (maybe 10 feet across) with lava visible at the bottom.  Unfortunately it was not burping lava at the time but it was very exciting anyway.

After 20 minutes of taking pictures at the top we descended using little sleds and then hiked the rest of the way.  It was quite amazing and my first scent of an active volcano; kind of a big deal for a geologist, thanks to Maddy for watching the kids while I completed my adventure.

Volcano Villarrica is a stratovolcano type which means that it has layered like buildups from different types of eruptions.  It has Stromboli type eruptions basaltic lava, which look like orange geysers coming out of the top which happened in 1995 at Villarrica.   It can also have Plinian type eruptions which are more rare which can include pyroclastic flows which kill lots of people like what happened at Mt Vesuvius.

We decided to take advantage of the beautiful lake and a gorgeous Saturday so we went down to the local harbor and rented a two hour boat ride, we decided that we would get the afternoon ride so the kids could swim in the water instead of the sunset cruise. We able to get an 8-10 person boat and we were the only people who wanted to go at that time, there wasn’t much room left anyway after the kids took over the cutty cabin.  We cruised out of the harbor being followed by a huge double decker duck boat, the kids loved it.

The captain let us help with the rigging and other boating activities, it made be long for my boat at home.  We sailed across the town peninsula around the rich resorts and moored the boat so we could visit a private beach, we swam into the beach and played in the sand for a while before heading back to the harbor.  Overall we had a great time, we might have had a major argument about chips and who decides who gets to eat them, par for the course as they say.

We had dinner at home and I ran back down to town after the kids were in bed to retrieve my water bottle which we left at a restaurant at lunch and there were so many people out in town and so many little kids up at 11pm.  We are definitely the early birds around here.

On Thursday maddy had a full day of work and the girls had a bit of trouble finishing school so we went down to the Plaza de Armas and had lunch and whoever was done with their work got to play on the playground.  The girls were a bit more motivated then and got their work done.   After finishing school and playing on the playground we went to the black sand beach in Pucon.  Maddy thought she might meet us but was too busy, we ended up picking her up after the girls wore down at the beach.

This week we instituted a new policy for schooling, whoever has 3 straight days of concentrating on school and getting their work done without whining and complaining gets one free day off school.  This helped a bit, Mirabelle was the only one who completed three straight days, she was going to save her get out of school free card but she was having trouble concentrating on Friday and decided to use it and got the rest of the day off.

After school on Friday we went north of the city to A waterfall the Los Ojos del Caburgua which was a lovely falls, we ate lunch there and traveled to lake Caburgua and enjoyed some more beach time.

With as incredible weather as we have been having why not take advantage of the beach time.  We left at around 5:30 and it was a mad house getting out of the area, we learned that this was the last weekend before the schools head back into session after summer break.  We also ran into a massive traffic jam outside of pucon, since there is basically only one way of the area, poor planning since the road can be cut of if the volcano blows….

We decided to postpone school the next morning to go to an amazing thermal hot springs located on the far side of Volcano Villarrica, the drive was about 2 hours away from where we were staying.  It was so worth the drive, the springs were located on a flank of the volcano in a gorge with vertical walls, the valley was likely caused by faulting.  We got there when they opened at 11am and bought our tickets and ate our lunch, we then hiked all the way up the gorge which was lined with pools that were built out of shale in angular shapes, hence the geometricas.

The valley was filled with ferns and trees that towered over your head, the hot springs typically seeped out of the walls of the valley and were captured in the pools or conveyed to other pools further down the valley.  The valley bottom was a natural stream where pools could be drained and cold water was diverted; red bridges suspended over the streams allowed you to walk through the area.   When you sat in the pools the sound of the stream created unique ambiance.

There was a waterfall at the top of the gorge, we stored our clothes and tested out the 15 to 20 pools that were available.  We spent the better part of 4 hours playing and swimming in the pools that were usually no more than 3-4 feet deep.  We had a second lunch so the girls didn’t run out of energy and then headed home.  We stopped in Villarrica and had dinner and watched some break dancers, the kids were pretty amazed, I was too back in the 80’s.