Nikki and I said our last goodbyes to Matt and Clarissa as we watched them pass through security of the tiny Temuco airport. Our time with them was so special! We got to share our life on the road, overloading with them in one of our favorite places ever – the Cochamo valley. Our time with them felt like a shared a vacation, but now we were back to the two of us to brave the South American world. The first item on our to-do list was to finally find some propane… an issue that had been dogging us since we shipped the truck back in September.
When we shipped our truck from New Jersey, we forgot that our two 10lb propane tanks were not completely empty and therefore we decided not to ship them with the truck due to the shipping regulations. We figured we could find the same size thanks in South America and use our adapters to connect to our US system. How wrong we were. Ever since arriving in Montevideo, we had been searching for these tall and narrow sized tanks. We had struck out everywhere in Uruguay and Argentina and then gave up looking while Matt and Clarissa were with us until a truck passed us on the highway and we saw the sized tanks we needed!
With Matt and Clarissa off, our only goal for the day was to get propane. If we could accomplish this single task, we said we would go for a beer to celebrate! We drove into the city of Temuco and stopped at the first propane vendor we found. They did indeed have the 5kg tanks that we needed but they only exchanged tanks and would not allow us to buy a new one. They did direct us to another shop that was willing to sell us two tanks. We officially had propane but it wasn’t quite usable yet. The tanks in Chile use a QUICK RELEASE valve and therefore we needed either an adapter or someone to help build us a new propane inlet system. This is where the beauty of the the app iOverlander comes in. This app is an offline crowd sourced database of anything an overlander would need. All we had to do was turn on the “mechanics and parts” filter to see hundreds of potential mechanics in the area. After reviewing the possibilities, we found a parts shop that had nothing but stellar praise from other overlanders. We knew this place could solve our, seemingly simple, problem.
When we got the shop, we could see it wasn’t just a well-kept overlander secret. This shop was obviously famous in the area. It had a line out the door with everyone holding some car, electronic or any other type of part you could think of. My anxiety grew as I realized I would have to communicate our propane issue and what I wanted all in Spanish. While I am very comfortable speaking in Spanish about travel related items, I wasn’t fully confident in my ability to discuss an in-depth problem with our propane system. But with our US propane adapter in hand, I joined the line of other problem-havers. I watched as each person got to the counter, put their part of issue on the counter and explain their issue. The worker would then go to the back of the crazy shop and return with a solution. When I got to the front I confidently gave my elevator pitch that I had been practicing in my head and then the real game started. We went back and forth for another 5 minutes but in the end I felt confident that I had explained what we needed. He said he would need to make the parts but we could come back in 30 min. Sure enough, we came back to the shop to find he had fabricated a new inlet hose that would directly connect our new Chilean tanks to our camper. We had done it! We had full propane tanks and an ability to use them! We left the shop feeling so accomplished and it was only 3 in the afternoon… That was until we tried to hook the whole system up. The parts from the shop worked perfectly but the 5kg propane tanks were about an inch too tall to fit into the propane cabinet in the camper. We struggled for over an hour trying to get the tanks to fit while connected but it was not going to happen. In the end we found a way to have one tank connected and sitting at a 15 degree angle in the cabinet. We decided this was the best option but then we had to return the other tank and be at peace that we would only be at half capacity for the trip. But according to our goal at the start of the day, we had succeeded! We had propane and could finally cook in our camper and we did end up celebrating with a burger and beer at an Irish pub in the area.
Chiloé
We were finally cooking with gas (our favorite turn of phrase now) and ready to explore a new area of Chile. Our first new destination was the island of Chiloe on the western coast of Chile. This sleepy island is known to be different from the mainland due to retaining its alliance and collection with Spain during the country’s independence. Due to this, the island is still heavily Roman Catholic and houses 10+ wooden churches designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites. The island is also known for cute towns with colorful houses, penguin colonies and oysters. We thought this would be a excellent place to relax for a bit after our hiking focused time with Matt and Clarissa.
To get to the island, we drove our car onto a ferry that took us across the channel separating Chiloe from the mainland. The ferry took only 30 min but in that time we got to take in the beauty of the Chilean fjords and see a few sea lions. Once on the island we made our first camp on the shores of the fjord and watched a beautiful sunset over the Patagonian mountains. We spent a total of three days on Chiloe and explored all it had to offer. We made a trip to the Capital city of Castro to see the brightly colored houses, do some local shopping and see one of the UNESCO World Heritage churches but the highlight of the island was an early morning kayak to a penguin colony. We had rented kayaks from a local and found ourselves at 7am on the water of cove protected from the Atlantic by a series of towering rock islands. These rock islands were also the perfect location for the colonies of Magellan and Humboldt penguins. We learned this is the only location in Chile were both of these types of penguins live together. The kayak out to the colonies was beautifully peaceful and seeing the hundreds of penguins starting their day was amazing! It was fun to see how awkward penguins are on land but then how adept they are in the water. We watched the penguins for the better part of an hour and then continued our kayak around the islands. As we were rounding the last island and watching all the other sea birds, something in the water caught the corner of our eye. We kept looking to see a sea otter pop up to the surface with a crab in hand – or paw! The cute otter then proceeded to swim on its back to the island and eat the crab. We both felt so lucky to have seen such a cool and unexpected encounter. Once back on shore, the kind man who had rented us kayaks, shared some of his own fresh caught crab for us to indulge in.
The last thing we had to do on Chiloe was to eat the oysters the island is known for. On our last night there we found a very cute but empty oyster restaurant and enjoyed 15 oysters and a bottle of chilean wine with a lovely view of the ocean. Our time in Chiloe was exactly what we needed, some time to relax and getting settled into the rest of our time in Chile but then we were ready to get back to our true love of hiking!
Vicente Perez Rosales National Park
Our first hiking destination was a smaller, lesser known park called Vicente Rosales National Park. The park is in the lake district just north of the Patagonia region. The park is situated between the ever imposing Osorno volcano and Todos Los Santos Lake. We did one hike in this park and it was beautiful! The hike climbed up into the foothills of Osorno volcano before meandering around the crystal clear lake. The clear views of the volcano were breathtaking but then so was the cold afternoon plunge into the lake. It was good to get back to hiking!
Huerquehue National Park
Once we were in the hiking mode, we looked for our next destination. Luckily the lake district of Chile is full of of options. We made our way back to the Pucon area and to the Hurquehue National Park. We were excited for this national park because it contains some long and hard hikes that peak some of the mountains in the area and have views of Villarica, Llanin and other surrounding volcanoes. We were braced for two to three days of intense hiking. Unfortunately when we got into the park and talked with the ranger, almost all of the we had planned to do were closed for maintenance and there was only one hike open in the whole park. We were bummed to hear about the trail closures but the one open hike was one that we had planned to do. The hike was still pretty long and intense at 15 miles and 2,000 feet of elevation gain as it wound its way through many of the lakes in the park but it did not have the summits and views of volcanoes that we had hopped for. We still enjoyed our hike there even if it wasn’t what we had planned.
Termas de Chillán
After being slightly disappointed with our hiking in Huerquehue National Park, we set out for our next hiking destination, a small ski resort with a hike to a hot spring! Nikki is a huge fan of any hike that ends in a swimming destination so this hike already had good marks. It ended up totally exceeding our expectations and being one of our top 10 hikes we have ever done! The hike was a long 13 mile out and back with over 2,000 feet of elevation gain but it had so much to offer. The hike started with a steep forest section that quickly opened up to a fumarole valley with hot pots, geysers and the lovely smell of sulphur. The trail then quickly climbed up and over a mountain pass that gave amazing views over the ski area and two valleys. We then descended into the next valley to find numerous hot springs and beautiful mountain streams. At this time of the year the snow was still melting but the hot springs underneath created ice caves which we could walk both through and on. Finally the hike ended at the aforementioned hot springs and they were amazing! The hot spring was just upstream of another mountain stream so the hot water mixed perfectly with the cold snowmelt. Just by moving a couple of feet up and downstream you could be sitting in water that ranged from roughly 100 degrees to 40 degrees. We also were the only people at the spring the entire day. All of this made it the best hot spring experience we have ever had and added the hike to one of our all time favorites!
Constitution
At this point in the trip it was getting close to mid December and we had planned to travel back to the United States to spend Christmas in Colorado and then drive our dogs back to Pittsburgh to meet our house renters. We were looking forward to seeing some family and friends for the holidays as a short intermission to the trip. To prep for returning to winter in the northern hemisphere we thought it would be wise to soak up the South American sun while we could. We found a cute beach town close to Santiago called Constitution. We then spent three lovely days there just relaxing on the beach, and enjoying the unique rock formations on the coast. It was a nice chill way to finish off the first leg of our trip before driving to Santiago and going home for the holidays!
Nikki and Colter's South American Travel Blog 