The owner of the hostel goes out of his way to make breakfast for us a 7am. I enjoy the cafe con leche (coffee with warm milk - no water is used). We find beautiful fuchsias and nerinas in the well-tended garden.


It is overcast. Vulcan Cabuco is covered in cloud. At Ensanada we turn towards Vulcan Osorno. (When travelling it is so important to buy a good map of the area. Sometimes it is difficult to find one and sometimes they can be quiet expensive, but they are always worth it.)

 
 
 
 

 
 We go through an open gate(officially it only opens at 10 – according to the sign on it). The winding road climbs like Sani Pass - up and up we go. Lago Llanguihue can be seen in the bottom of the valley and still we climb higher. We drive though a dense tree area and then suddenly we are in the snow and the car starts skidding because of the ice in the road. Here we find another gate – the entrance to a ski resort. The top of the volcano is visible in front of us. As South Africans, we are not used to snow – we absolutely love the scenery and the atmosphere and being here is considered a privilege! We get out of the car and take pictures and act as we have never seen snow before! The snow is old and grey and extremely slippery. We have to descend at a whopping 10km/h because of the ice on the road.

At Ensenada we refill the car with petrol and turn towards Rio Pertohue in search of Salto de Pertohue (a waterfall). The colour of the water is an incredible turquois here. A small distance later we drive into Lagotodos Los Statos (this town consist of a hotel, the tour boat and a ticket shop and a few staff houses).This is where the tours starts to San Carlos de Barilicha in  
Argentina. The lake is cyan in colour, the hotel has a witch on top of their weather vane and there is a volcano in the back ground - a very picturesque place!

The area surrounding Ralum is rural and lovely, the gravel road is in a good condition. We give a ride to very well clothed lady (most people in Chilli dress up with care- especially the older people).She cannot communicate in English at all and insists on paying for the lift when she gets out.

Insert from the present: Since then (2000) my attitude towards travelling has changed, When we now go travelling I am well prepared and I have better idea of what I would like to see –back then we were very ignorant(both working and with small kids can be an excuse?), so it has been more luck than anything else that caused us to drive along this road.

 
 

 The route we followed was: Bahia Rolum to Rio Raloncave, Rio del Este, RioCascajal to Rio Puelo. Salmon farms dot the lakes, neat wooden bridges cross all rivers, waterfalls can be found around every corner. We drive through Rio Blanco to Punta Iglesia. Somewhere along the road we pick up another hitch hiker – he speaks a very elementary English – but can explain (using mostly sign language) that he wants to go to the ferry that will take us back to Puerto Mont. We also have to catch the same ferry.
 
 
 
 

The richer farmers wear richly coloured ponchos and ride on exquisite horses – the homesteads in this area are bigger and are surrounded by walls built using local rocks. The area is mountainous and beautiful.

Our Chilean passenger suddenly becomes stressed and asks to be let out and we realize that we might have passed the turnoff to the ferry. We are enjoying the ride so much we forget that we have to look for the turnoff.

As we get to the lake's edge we see that the ferry has already departed – we also discover that this is the last ferry for the day (it is Sunday and the schedule is different from other days when the ferry goes more often.) We are going to miss our flight back!!!

The guys on the ferry must have spotted us, because they turn back (unbelievable!!) to fetch us. We decide to stand on the deck watching the sea birds and pelicans flying above us – it is really cold and the waves are quiet big, but we laugh.....we are gracefully held and very fortunate to be here.

 

The distance between Puerta El Morno and Puerto Montiss takes a lot longer than expected (it was already 4pm when we start the drive – we have been on the road since 8am this morning and we have to be in Temuco tonight as we fly out to Santiago early in the morning and we still have to return the car!)

So we decide to have some coffee and food before we tackle the road to Temuco. We find a Mac Donalds. We think ordering will be easy as you can tell them what combo you want by the number, but here you order each thing separately so you need even more Spanish than in a restaurant!!! Totally funny isn’t it!

We reach Temuco after 10pm and are fortunate to find a place to sleep at this late hour on the corner of Bulnes and Bello for $40. It is way past our bed time and we sleep like logs.

We get up early in order to visit the market before we have to go to the airport. Here we find high heaps of grapes (not joking, it looks like mountains!) on wooden wagons and piles of meat – the market is more expensive than the one in Santiago.

We wash the car (using bandages and "borrowed" water). The car is parked in and we have to call the owners of other cars to remove their cars in order to be able to get out. Karla at Econorent does not care much about the loose fender..