Day 50 - hide and seek with a volcano

Pucon to Conaripe (75km) Thursday 20th October (another 1000m climbing day, but we didn't know it until the end!)

Funny thing about traveling is just as you get attached to a place it's time to leave. With every longing to stay, you remember the next cool place you might find on the way. If we hadn't left Cusco we'd not have found  Copacanaba; If we hadn't left Copacanaba we'd not have found  San Pedro de Atacama; the list goes on... Jujuy, Salta, Mendoza, Santiago, Pichilemu, Buchapereru, Concepcion, Pucon... Where's next to add to the list?

That's the question you have to ask yourself as you leave a beautiful place, "where's next?". That way you get excited about what's to come rather than asking the question "why can't we stay", which would only promote feelings of a desire to be in one place, have a base and a home, which inevitably leads to missing home...

...so where next...???

Tonight we'd be sleeping the other side of the volcano - at Conaripe, the little town that could... If it wanted to!

It has everything that Pucon has, and yet lacks everything that Pucon has. It has the volcano, the rivers for rafting, the beautiful setting, many more thermal spas, waterfalls... But not the alpine-esque tourist infrastructure to make it top-notch adventure town. Clearly it's a tourist location, camp sites a plenty, cabañas, restaurants, but a sleepy one (at least in shoulder season), with many of the above closed and shabby looking - a town clearly waiting for Summer and (unlike Pucon) is refusing to come out and play any sooner.

So that was where next... But how?

We cycled West from Pucon sandwiched between a beautiful lake and traffic. The road to Villirica was good, but full of people wanting to get between to two towns, including many dreaded busses (drawback of nice tourist reputation). The wind was on our back though so we made good progress on the rolling terrain.

20km later we were heading South East, circumnavigating the Volcano, which would hide between towns and trees, then eventually reward our big climb out of Villiarica by peeking out from behind gaps in trees to say hello.

Playing spot the volcano and watching the scenery was really all that kept us going today.  A beautiful part of the world that tricks you into thinking it's easy cycling, because your eyes and mind are so well occupied. But whilst stopping for lunch in our favourite lunch stopping location, a bus stop (seats and shelter - what more do you need?!), we both confessed over our empanadas that we were finding it tough physically.

This was a day that was most definitely good for the mind, but hard on the legs!

So digging deep and channeling Jens Voight, we told our legs to shut up and continued to climb. We had no idea how climby our road would get or when it would decide to be un-climby again, we just got on with it.

One thing we realised is that when we're feeling beat, our conversation (which usually fluctuates from philosophical bubble babble, family & friends, home life, Christmas plans, Chamonix, would you rather (usually limited to types of terrain we could be cycling, discussing traditions and cultures we've seen in compare and contrast, future route options ... ), resorts to that of a six year old:

Emma "tree"
Ant "pretty tree"
Emma "where volcano go?"
Ant "there he is!"
Ant "cow"
Emma "moo"
Emma "sheep... Fluffy sheep"
Emma " ooooh lake"
Ant "pretty lake"
Ant " hill"
Emma strops a little
Emma "windy"
Ant says nothing but looks like he wants to punch the wind

And so it goes on.

This was one of those days when our six year old selves emerged just after half way and stayed with us.

As we descended towards Lican Ray, the town before our final stop, we were treated to beautiful lake and volcano views... And flies!! Clearly they had come out with the Sun that was beaming all day.

Emma "yukky yuk... Spit... Close mouth... Cough"
Ant "flies"
Ant "ouch" (even small flies hurt when they hit you at a relative velocity of more than 40km/h)
Ant "buggers"
Emma "mmm mmm mmmmmm" (trying to speak with mouth closed)


Flies aside, it really was a beautiful decent and meant we were now just 15km from Conaripe with plenty of time in hand. Enough, in fact, to stop for our final pastry to fuel us the rest of the way... Damn it, people actually using this bus stop! Will have to resort to choice number two... Barrier low enough for us to perch on, high enough for boys to lean on.

We came into Conaripe and soon both agreed that camping looked very appealing (says something about our opinion of the hotels on offer - strangely al lining the main road and none lining the lake?!), plus we'd not camped for a while and would be good to save some money.

We surveyed the campsites (which lined the lake) and picked our home because it was the only one open!! A lovely helpful and very interested man owned the site and had Bobby, the one-eyed, old shaggy dog to guard it. Bobby had all the bark but really no bite, no bite at all - mostly because he seemed to find distances very hard to judge. But he did like keeping us company whilst we set up camp and thankfully guarded our things well whilst we ventured into town for feeding time.
Some home made chips from real potatoes to accompany salmon and chicken and we were happy. We snuggled into our tent and got ready for tomorrow - it would likely be a big day on mostly gravel... So we needed good sleep and knew we'd sleep well with Bobby there to guard us.

3am. Emma stirs to find Ant's in Meer cat pose peeking out the gap in the tent...
Emma "you ok"
Ant "shhh animal... Food bag"
Emma "what is it"
Ant "don't know, racoon? mini bear?"
Animal "claw, paw, claw" (trying to get into our butter)
Ant "shooooo shooo "
Animal "meeeow"

Seems Bobby's not quite the  guard we'd hoped dog after all!