31 Januari 2019: Biking & hiking

After saying goodbye to Coco following our lovely lunch at the beach, the three of us (Jirka, Hans and me) cruised east to Santa Cruz, the center of one of Chile's famous wine areas.

And what do you do in a nice valley with vineyards? You hop on a bike and go cycle the wine trail. It was very, very hot, especially in the afternoon, about 28 degrees, but we still enjoyed the ride.

Coco had advised us that she had a lovely meal at a winery here and that it had been so 'cheap' for winery standards... So we set out to find this winery. That turned out not to be difficult as only Montes La Finca Apalta estate had a restaurant that was actually open for lunch on Mondays.

The restaurant was in a very nice building in an amazing setting where we did feel a bit out of place in our sweaty clothes and 'helmet hair'.... But hey as long as you pay who cares? We discovered that Coco probably had one too many wines when she paid her bill when we looked at the menu, but the food was delicious and the chardonnay the best we've had in Chile so far. We did finish the remainder of the 32 kms wine cycling route including part of a big hill (Jirka all of it but our excuse is he is 32) but didn't taste any other wines as we found out that tasting is always part of a tour and starts at certain times. The nice enthusiastic Canadian guy of the rental company failed to mention this to us.

Now it was time for our first visit and hike in one of the two national parks closest to Santiago, the Reserva National Altos de Lircay. Nice cabana in the woods, BBQ and lots of chickens and dogs; bienvenido a la campo!

Jirka was doing a training programme including healthy eating so he was happy to be the chef which suited us fine!

In the evenings we got a flashback to our Dutch life in The Hague where we had lovely neighbours who became good friends and introduced us to the game The Colonists of Catan. It had been 13 years since we played this game a few times, but after Jirka explained the rules it was good fun again and Hans even won on night number 3.

We had a look at the map and decided that we would walk to the  Endradillado, a large rock plateau with apparently great vistas that we had to see for ourselves. There we would decide whether we would do the same trail back, or add the hike to the Laguna Alto and return that way.

We couldn't drive our car to the start of the walk so had to add another 2km each way to the start, adding to what was going to be a loooong day...

It was again a stunning day with blue skies, we have been so lucky with the weather - only one day with some specks of rain in 5 months!

Hans climbing up to the plateau - described in the travel books as UFO landing platform - trying to make sense of a very large flat rock space in the middle of a mountain range.

And yes the view is really worth the effort, just amazing. The canyon drops down 700m to the Rio Claro and you see two volcano's with snowy tops.

The old folk having a well earned rest, but not for long as we did decide to go for the full loop since we were already 'half way' (we thought).

So after some sandwiches we started the hike to the Laguna del alto. This full trail is dubbed the best hike in central Chile and we couldn't agree more. The landscape changes to pampa plains with beautiful colours and little streams. The rangers told us from the plateau it's more or less only downhill, but that was of course not exactly true...

Here I was still smiling even though we were all getting tired after 6 hours of walking up and down hill. Nice pic that's true but having to go downhill for almost three hours from this point to get to our car proved to be hard and my almost 52 year old knees didn't like it one bit. At 7.30 pm we were back where we started at 10 am - in total we walked 28 km and climbed up 1300 m.

Very proud of ourselves of course that we finished the hike, but we also decided that this many km's in this many hours is too much of a good thing. It was a boost for our 50 plus egos that the next day Jirka  was a lot more sore and feeling his calves than we were - sorry Jirka!

We still managed to cook some decent food and the cold beers tasted mighty fine :-). Hans his hiking shorts started to tear when he sat down during our hike and by the end of the day he was showing his fashionable jocky undies with every step so he decided to ritually burn them after we finished the BBQ.

Mum chook with her brood of 8, looking for bread crumbs after breakfast - very cute these little ones.

The next day naturally became a lazy day and we drove to Lago de Colbun to go for a swim. This proved not to be easy as there is not much access to the lake, a lot of land is privately owned preventing access. The only public access place was also the crowed municipal camping so we ended up driving to the end and taking a plunge in the river at the start of the lake, watched approvingly by swimming teacher Jirka.

From the Lircay Park we dropped Jirka at the bus station in Talca and we headed south and east again to Embalsa Bullileo where we wanted to camp for a couple of days before visiting Concepcion.

A beautiful lake, but no safe places to go for a swim, so we checked out Cascada Los Escondido instead. Too many locals there so we took one picture and headed back to the campground.

This little guy I would call a funky lizard but it's official name is Liolaemus tenuis, very posh. You see them everywhere you go, dashing away on rocks and climbing trees.

Because temperatures were soaring I took my second quick dip in the river next to our campsite. Probably about 6 degrees or so, in and out but a very nice instant cool down. Hans only tipped his toe in, he's becoming a real Kiwi :-)

Our little camp next to the water, nice fire pit which made us feel right 'at home'.

In Concepcion we were very warmly welcomed by Alicia, one of the sisters of my (Chilean) aunt Maria. We had a lovely evening, also meeting James, his partner and their daughter Grace and a friend. With a lot of Spanish and a bit of English it was so  nice to hear about their lives and talk about lots of stuff.

The next day Alicia took us to the rural area where she works with small farmers trying to improve their farming and sustainability. We visited two farms and talked to the families that run them which was very interesting, all such lovely people. For lunch we met with Alicia's other son Bryan and his partner. Delicious local empanadas!

Back in Hualqui with Alicia we walked past this sign that tells you they sell sandwish there. We thought that was funny of course and had to explain this in Spanish to Alicia, something like 'deseo arena' ('I want sand' literally).

We were also invited by Ruthy, another sister of my aunt and again a very warm welcome by her and Claudia and Mario, two of her three children. There we also met the other brother Francisco and his wife. What a lovely family, we felt very spoiled and at home away from home.