In the morning (6th February) I said goodbye to Tim who left to climb the volcano. After getting breakfast from a nearby supermarket I rented a bike again, and pedaled up the road to the west a little way, to see some more of the surroundings.
After an hour I returned the bike, checked out of “Luisa House”, and soon caught a bus back to the village of Villarica. From there, after a short wait, I was able to get a bus southwards to the recommended village of Lican Ray on the north shore of Lake Calafquén.
A plan has been forming in my head, following discussions with people in Pucón, and from reading my guide book. I’m hoping to be able to do a rather complicated route crossing into Argentina through a relatively remote part of the Lake District, and then cross back to Chile further south, again via a remote and scenic route. The complication is that both these routes involve combinations of buses, boats, and (very likely) some walking.
In Lican Ray I came across my first problem. There was no bus onwards that afternoon to Panguipulli, which was where I needed to reach in order to continue towards the border (and the first boat trip) the next day. I had lunch and looked at the map. The route from Lican Ray to Panguipulli seemed to go east and loop round back south and west to Panguipulli.
I started walking east, waving my thumb at the very few cars that came past. A car stopped and an American gave me a ride for several km, but during the trip told me that the route I was on did not continue round to Panguipulli. This seemed strange, but it was clear that there was a westerly route too. After thinking for a while, I crossed the road and after a long wait managed to hitch back to Lican Ray with some locals.
I found the westerly road out of Lican Ray, and after waiting for half an hour for a lift that never came, I decided to start walking. I figured that I might get stranded in the middle of nowhere, but felt that with my bivouac bag and sleeping bag, I could if necessary sleep under a tree. I was given a short ride by a mother and her kids and then walked some more. The countryside was beautiful and there was a nice view of the south side of distant Volcán Villarica, now to my north east.
After a few km of walking, my luck changed when a VW Kombi stopped and some Chilean tourists said they were going all the way to Panguipulli and would happily take me! Half an hour later I was there, and was in time to catch the information office open, where the friendly people gave me invaluable information about the times of the bus and boat that I will need in order to get over into Argentina.
After checking in to a simple hostel, and a chat with some cyclists, I had a bite to eat and headed for bed.
Hi Malcolm, really enjoying this “trip”. Definitely finding it inspiring for a post retirement trip in South America. Paul
Nice to have you along Paul!! At least one person (well, 2) won’t have been at all surprised by my “Laredo no passport stamp” anecdote!!