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Sunset gilds the deceptively serene Volcan Villarrica. While staying in the area some enquiries were made about climbing the volcano, wondering about safety as Villarrica is known for being one of Chile’s most active volcanoes.
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An outfitter in the town of Pucon supplied ice axes, boots with crampons, and outer wear for the ascent of Volcan Villarrica led by the personable Rodrigo. We started shortly after sunrise for the day-long climb to the summit of the smoldering giant, a puff of volcanic smoke guiding us to the top.
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Hours later we could walk around the rim of 2860 metre-high Volcan Villarrica……………….
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…………and peer into its lazily-smoking lava underworld. One minded one's footing.
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The black sand beach at Pucon is thanks to the frisky Volcan nearby which belches inappropriately now and then. Water sports dominate the lakefront though the black sand can quickly saute the bare foot in the summer sun.
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Volcan Villarrica also supplies the beach around nearby Lican Ray with black sand deposits on the shoreline of Lago Calafquen.
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A potato crop blossoms under the ever-present Andes.
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Subsistence farming graces the warm shoreline of Lago Panguipulli, just south of Villarrica. Over millenia the volcanoes throughout Los Lagos de Chile have steadily enriched the soil. Small farms proliferate, ranging from subsistence and co-operative farms to large corporate holdings.
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A hillside near Villarrica gets an unwelcome haircut. Resource industries, as in Canada, dominate the Chilean economy.
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Timber thrives in the rich volcanic soils around the shadow of Volcan Villarrica. As logs are unloaded a pair of oxen need some convincing that it’s in their interest to ‘all pull together’. This could take awhile……..and it did.
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A Mapuche toddler appears completely at ease in tending the family's oxen.
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The aboriginals here are the Mapuche, a gracious people with many living at a very basic level. This young Mapuche attends his pair of oxen near Lican Ray.
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A couple of young guys in Lican Ray are swamping their favorite product.
Shrinkage may occur.
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Families flock to a river draining the snowmelt from lurking Volcan Osorno
on the eastern horizon.
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The boardwalk promenade in Frutillar is a popular diving platform with a fine view of Volcan Osorno across expansive Lago Llanquihue.
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In the lake-side town of Frutillar ‘beach boys’ are reveling during their summer holidays on the second day of 1994.
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About 30,000 German immigrants arrived in Chile from the mid-1800s until the start of the First World War, most settling in the Zona Sur area that includes the Lake District. In the tidy town of Frutillar at the south end of Los Lagos de Chile their influence is apparent.
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A private garden in the village of Llanquihue allows a high degree of self-sufficiency with rich volcanic soil being a natural fertilizer.
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Viola is a fourth generation Germanochileno, her heritage being German and her appearance strikingly different from the darker Chilenos. Viola ran somewhat more than the usual bed & breakfast in the town of Frutillar and was certainly ‘home on the range’ with our initial supper being a platter of mixed vegetables, spuds, home-made bread, a hefty hunk of a very tasty fish, and a salad of local fruit for dessert washed down with raspberry juice and unlimited local wine. And all this, plus her effervescent personality, for a song --- no wonder we stayed at her hospedaje for four nights.
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After a month of spanning about thirty degrees of latitude in Chile my travel chum had to return home to work. I stayed on another couple of weeks to rendezvous with my life-long pal the Jester who was met in Puerto Montt. The same seedy bar beckoned.
Clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop. etc.
The Jester loved the ambience, both the audio and the libations. While pisco sours slaked parched throats he was easily convinced that his first couple of weeks in January 1994 would be in the Lake District. For me, a second journey through the area was a blessing.
The length of Chile is a continuous area of geothermal activity. The Andes run over 4000 kilometres down the country from north to south, essentially a long series of volcanoes and their remnants. Throughout Chile there’s constant awareness of the geography in the vast latitudinal stretch with an average of less than 200 kliks between the high mountains and the open Pacific --- Los Lagos de Chile nestles into the sweet spot between these.
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Hot springs abound from bountiful geothermal activity. Here at Termas de Puyehue the bathers have a full range of related facilities.
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Park warden Erasmo radiates local hospitality before
a standard backdrop near Petrohue.
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Lago Todos los Santos is reputed to be the prettiest of the lakes…..but aren’t they all? Tour boats ply beauty-seekers around this opalescent turquoise gem flanked by the ever-present Andes.
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A firewood truck rumbles along a dusty backroad near Entre Lagos with the craggy peak of Volcan Puntiagudo towering behind.
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Likely after too many pisco sours the night before we decided the next morning to swim in as many lakes as we could in one day. Backroads like this near Lago Rupanco and some paved roads connected enough lakes to test the waters of five different lakes, most with volcano backdrops.
There was a downside to the day’s expedition --- in our haste to get to the sixth lake a backroad rogue pot-hole bottomed-out the car, transmission oil drained, and frivolity briefly came to a sudden and expensive denouement.
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She loved the ride but after a month she was home again to make herself an honest living, confident that further adventures awaited……..
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Thirty years later we wonder how the country and our favoured district have changed. Is the Lake District over-run by tourism? Are oxen still prominent in this rural area? Are the aboriginal Mapuche regarded as equal citizens? Are rural pot-holes being filled?
If a return is ever planned, we know exactly where to go.
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