Port of Quellon
I lost the battle yesterday, once I had handed over the internet connection to Jan after I had uploaded my photographs, he hogged it for the rest of the day, evening and night. It is only now, I have a chance to update the blog text ha ha ha
Today, a day later than when we were originally told, finally we have been advised that we have to report to the ferry port at 16:00hrs for a 02:30hrs departure on Thursday over to Chaiten …. so we are saying our goodbies to the island of Chiloe today and heading back to the mainland.
So, below is our story for the past two weeks ————–
22nd/23rd/24th February 2013 : Fri/Sat/Sun : Bariloche at the lakeside. Friday, 22nd we called into the Vigia mechanic and got the front left wheel inflation system fixed up.
Saturday 23rd/Sunday 24th we managed to acquire internet contact and the photographs of the last two weeks were uploaded and some blog text added.
25th/26th February 2013: Mon/Tue : Bariloche – at Camping Petunia
Went out for a spin on the motorbike – both days, First day, we did a lovely look to the of the Penninsula, the second day, we went to Colonia Suisse and then into Bariloche itself. We stopped and had an icecream before we returned to the campsite.
I went for a lovely walk around the campsite on the Monday evening after we had dinner, took some nice photos down at the lake side.
Tuesday morning I did a huge clothes wash and got them all dry within the day. Used the washing machine on site. Went up to their ‘internet rest room’ on Tuesday evening and used it for about 2-hrs. We had internet access in the campsite but it fluctuated quite a bit depending on demand. A lot of people used 3G mobiles and tablets as well as laptops.
Inflatable needing a hand
27th February 2013 : Wed : Villa La Angostura – (Argentina)
Before we left the campsite we carried out the normal domestic chores, toilet dumping, grey water (as it turned out we didn’t do that in the campsite but on the route to V.L. Angostura) and upload water. During this event, a misshap occurred. Jan moved the car forward, Claire remained in the back doing last minute chores to close up. The camper stopped, Claire decided to get out and start moving the cabin stuff (cameras, maps, Spot, Toughbook etc) to the front. To save time, she thought not to bother with the ladder and just use the tyre, as she was climbing out, Jan started to drive forward another bit again … ahhhhhh my leg/my body … I manged to extract myself half up into the doorway and then another campsite local ran over and while the camper was moving tried to hoosh me into the doorway to save me falling out .. he did succeed. A definite ‘near-miss’, I gave him a bottle of wine in thanks afterwards. We got talking to the couple for a few minutes afterwards .. Jan thanked him as well.
Stayed just across from the Voluntary Bomberos. When we arrived and stopped opposite the ACA petrol station (hoping to overnight there perhaps) we discovered that we had parked outside the ‘Tinto Bistro’ (Martin Zoroguiette – Princess Maxima’s brother) resaraunt …. We moved around the corner and parked across from the voluntary Bomberos.
When we arrived, we also did some work on the major leak on the roof underneath the right hand side tyre. A very awkward place to work in .. to small for our arms to get into …..
28th February 2013 : Thu : Back in Chile – Entre Lagos (by the lake)
I am in very bad form today .. down and out and inclined to row very easily. I found myself tearful/crying in the camper as we drove along today.
We left Villa la Angostura this morning and crossed back into Chile. Jan picked up money at the ATM (Argentinian for our return) … no problems at the border. However on the Chilean side, they took all my fresh fruit and vegetables.
Our camper is not quite so old
We met a lovely German couple at the various stages at the border crossing. They travelled from 2nd January till 15th April.
1st March 2013 – Fri – Osorno
It was only about 40km from Entre Lagos, however we wanted to go into the city as we have planned if possible to get a few jobs done.
It was a very difficult city (like most in Chile) to find a parking place for the camper. We were not allowed of course to drive through the city centre. However on one of the ‘side’ streets we did risk parking and went on a walking trip to the central plaza to visit the tourist office.
We wanted to get information about ‘body building’ shops for trucks/campers and also to find out if there was a gas filling station anywhere to see if it is possible to fill our ‘European gas flask’. The tourist office was helpful for ‘tourist sights’ but not really for our two queries.
We continued on our walkabout in Orsorno, and Jan wanted to re-visit ‘Hotel Waeger’ where he had stayed in back in 1978 with the children. We did visit it, and got talking to the current owner – a grandson of the owner back in 1978. Even though he was born and raised in Orsorno, the conversation took place in German and not Spanish. We took the opportunity to ask him about our two queries i.e. a ‘truck body builder’ and a ‘gas filling station’ and he recommended two places for us. In both cases, they turned out to be extremely successful.
The auto body builder that he recommended when we visited sent us to their ‘sister’ garage which dealt with 4 x 4’s and trucks. This garage/shop was only about 200 metres away and around the corner. The owner/manager as it turns out is a car racer himself and we saw many of his medals, cups and photos of his successes. We expected this job to take several hours and the plan was for Claire to search for a hairdresser and have her hair cut. The job only took about one hour and thereafter we did walk in the direction of the town centre and we found a hairdresser, Claire got her hair done. After that, we bought some groceries for the next few days. As we were departing from Osorno, we visited the gas filling station and after we supplied them with a flask adaptor, they accepted the European tank and filled it with propane. As we are heading south, going down into the glacier area and also it is now Autumn and heading for the winter season we are delighted now to have a full tank of propane and also the local tank (which we bought in Argentina) with butane which we are using right now.
Church tower, Osorno
We are not sure how cold it will be in a months’ time, but we do remember back in 2002/3 in Uzbekistan when the temperature dropped and the butane just didn’t work anymore because it was so cold.
2nd/3rd March 2013 – Sat/Sun – Puerto Octay
This is a small (mainly unspoilt town) on the lake Llanquihue and its claim to fame is the fact that it is still not commercialized to the extent of many of the other lake areas. It also has a collection of old and very old houses still in existence.
On Sunday (3rd) morning we phoned Claire’s Mam to wish her a Happy Birthday. Later in the day we walked into the town centre and visited the tourist office to get more information about the area. Claire took quite a few photographs of the old houses along with the three volcanoes in the near distance to Puerto Octay.
Claire also put book (plastic) on the broken reverse light just in an attempt to keep out most of the dust. It is a lovely area, no doubt about that!
4th March 2013 – Mon – Petrohué
We drove on around the lake, from Puerto Octay we took a shortcut, but it did take us along the lakeshore on a dirt road. We headed for and got to a route that takes one 13km up the side of the Volcano Orsorno. It was a lovely drive up and we saw more than one of the 40 craters around this massive volcano. Apparently, the main volcano itself has not erupted in recent times, instead one of the surrounding ones have. The last 3 kms jumps steeply in elevation in a series of 6 elongated hairpin bends. Claire was uncomfortable for this last stretch. When we reached the top, we saw some absolutely lovely sights and from a view above the clouds. Stunning!
From here then we went onto a place called Petrohué, which is along a river and where it opens up to a lake. A lovely area. Just 6km short of this location there are a series of waterfalls which we visited on the way. A very tourist oriented place with parking, food stalls and typical souvenirs but also they had a lovely clothes stall. These sights are in the Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales.
We managed to park in a parking area overlooking the lake surrounded by the high mountains. Lovely!
Cascades
5th March 2013 – Tue – Quillaipe
This morning we left our parking spot, and the normal route takes one to Esenada, Puerto Varas and onto Puerto Montt. We decided however to continue south along another lake in the Rió Puelo valley. The road was surfaced as far as Ralun. The lake is in fact a fjord. We went onto Cochamó which is a 30km run on piste and then continued for another 30km on piste to the southern point of Puelo itself. From here then we headed east to Rampa Puelche and had to get a ferry to Rampa La Arena about 32 minutes duration. At this point we are now heading north direction Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas. The weather was not the best today, by the time we reached the ferry area, it started to rain and it has been raining ever since. It was so bad, that we could not even see the beautiful landscape at our departure point nor at our arrival point. Our parking place this evening is just in a sand pit off the road just north of Lenca.
6th/7th March 2013 – Wed/Thu – Puerto Montt
As Puerto Montt was only about 30km northwest, we arrived there about mid-day. However we went further north and decided to visit Puerto Varas first and then return to Puerto Montt for overnighting. We spent a lovely few hours strolling around the lovely village/town of Puerto Varas. Claire ended up succumbing to purchasing a lovely Apaca poncho/coat.
Before we returned to our camper, we had a coffee accompanied by ‘mushy and gooey’ cakes. The ambience of the café was pure Italy, the coffee he served was all imported from Italy. Curiosity got the better of us and we asked as to what was the link, it turns out the owner worked in Italy (Venice we believe) for over 10 years.
We returned to Puerto Montt, our first task was to check out the ferry companies to see if we could arrange and time the three ferries that we want, the 1st one to get onto the island of Chiloe, the second to get off the Island and the third one we wanted was to travel from Puerto Yungay to Puerto Natales. We discovered that the first two were possible, but the third one there was no ferries from Puerto Yungay, we would have to backtrack about 500km to Puero Montt to get the ferry, so we have abandoned that plan.
After this, we did a lovely walk in the Santa Angelmo area of Puerto Montt. We saw the artisan stalls and dedicated area that has many fish restaurants. The plan was to eat in one of them. The problem was the camper. We returned to it and then had to hunt for a parking place for the evening. We ended up parking at the seafront but it was too far to walk then back to the ‘restaurant’ area. We did eat out, but not at one of the lovely fish restaurants.
The next day we had to get plenty of provisions for our trip to the island of Chiloe which means that we are going further and further into more remote areas of the country. We discovered that we had internet access and managed to send off a few important emails all business related and later in the day, we telephoned Ireland to speak to Claire’s neice who celebrated her ‘Confirmation’ that day. All the family and some relatives and friends were down in the west of Ireland celebrating. It turns out, that we didn’t actually leave Puerto Montt as we had planned on Thursday.
Ancud street sign
8th March 2013 – Fri – Ancud, Chiloe Island
We were up early and with the camper in ship shape form, we started our route to the ferry point. Of prime importance was to fill up with diesel to the brim. Once we left the filling station, Jan said he could feel the extra weight while driving. We uploaded about 500-600 extra litres of diesel. All 3 tanks are full, so we have 1,300 litres of diesel on board. We got to Pargua within an hour and we had just boarded when we sailed. The crossing was only about 20/25 minutes.
Once we were on the island, we travelled to Ancud and spent the rest of the afternoon there. We visited the main museum which outlines the history of the indigenous people and their history around the time of the Spanish and Dutch explorers in the 1600’s.
After this, we went to another little museum that shows how the old wooden churches were made without the use of any form of metal. Apparently on this island there are about 120 churches with a variety of designs, out of this figure, 16 of them are now classified as UNESCO World Heritage sites. This museum has miniature examples of some of them with some artefacts on display and examples of the techniques being used to restore them. A very interesting little museum!
We continued our own little walking tour and saw the old Fortress and parts of the town that were flattened completely in the 1960 earthquake, now fully re-built. We also had a look at the little fishing port. The islands main source of income these days is all linked to the fish business both shell fish and other types.
9th March 2013 – Sat – Tenaún
We headed straight for Quetelmahue this morning to see ‘penguins’ and also we had hoped to overnight here for the night after visiting a restaurant that serves the local dish of ‘Corantu’ a soup/stew of shellfish, pork and chicken cooked for 2 hours, traditionally over stones. Neither of these events happened. About 2 km’s before the village we were sent on a 16km detour on very muddy roads, it was still raining and we can expect rain all the time here on this island we have been warned. To add insult to injury, on the ‘detour route’ just before the village, they had a sign and bar indicating that no vehicle above 2.90m could pass, we are 3.85m … however the bar has been disassembled (maybe because of the detour) who knows? When we arrived, we didn’t find the restaurant and we saw no penguins.
We continued on to Quemchi, we did have a lunch in a local restaurant … it was a stew with smoked ham and beef it was delicious. In this restaurant, apparently you have to make a reservation in advance if you want to have the ‘Corantu’ soup/stew. After the meal when we paid the bill we were given a drink on the house which we do not know the name of but it was a local fruit fermented. Very nice. We did not see any penguins at this little village either.
We travelled onto Temaún to see 1 of 5 ‘must see’ churches. It has been restored and looks lovely. This is also a village on the coastline and very pretty too.
Ferry crossing
10th March 2013 – Sun – Castro
Today we took a ferry across to the Quinchao island and back again. We went to visit two of the ‘must see 5’ old churches. All was well, until in one of them, we had no small change, when we handed over money expecting change, we got none back. This of course did not go down well with either of. This error of judgment on top of two navigation errors on Claire’s part did not make the end of this day very pleasant for the driver. We arrived at our overnight spot in Castro by about 15:30hrs a bit early for us. The one good thing apart from the lovely sights that we did see was the rain stayed away from us more today than it has for the past 4-5 days. When we were in Bariloche (Argentina) two weeks ago, we bought some ‘Jenever’ (Dutch gin) to all you none Dutchies, and Jan is drowning his sorrows in that right now having his aperitif before dinner!
11th – 13th March 2013 – Monday – Quellon
Claire was up early and went into the town to visit one of the big churches on the ‘must see’ list. After that she had a look at some of the local shops in the town and saw some lovely wool and home knit and home crocheted items. Extremely colourful.
When she returned to the camper, Jan and herself packed up and got it ready for driving. Just as we were about to go into the front of the car, there was a knock on the door. It transpired that it was a German couple ‘Jürgen and Ruth’ also travelling in a MAN (more modern that ours) who introduced themselves. The first question was did ‘Murph and Sarah’ make contact with us yet? It turns out no, they had not and of course Jan and I do not know who this ‘Murph and Sarah’ are. It turned out that the four of them had just travelled back from the southern part of Argentina and Chile and had travelled on the ferry from Puerto Chacobuco to Quellon. The ‘Murph and Sarah’ are an Irish couple travelling in a Unimog.
We had a long chat and great exchange of notes and experiences and tips. After this, we went our separate ways, Jürgen and Ruth are travelling north, we were heading south to Quellon to pick up the ferry on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Based on their ‘tip’ we parked at the end of the local road opposite the port area, it is a public park area and the view is absolutely gorgeous.
On Wednesday, we went into Quellon to pay for our ticket and find out where we were to board, only to discover that we have to wait an extra day for the sailing. We are not sure of the reason, we suspect it is a schedule change as Jan decided to check the website and noticed then that the sailing had been published for departure a day later.
Square upon square
In Quellon, they have an extensive public wifi internet system, however you are logged off every 30 minutes which was a disaster for me trying to upload all my photographs.
In our parking space, on one side of the car is the water and on the other some camping cabins and the last property has a house with a few fields on it. Over the past two days or so, Jan now thinks that the sheep in this field are his best friends, some relationship? … need I say more?
