This blog update comes to you from Curarrehue, a small roadside town in the touristy Rio Pucón valley. We find ourselves in a bit of a holding pattern here awaiting the delivery of a new Steripen, after it broke the 2nd night after leaving Temuco. While this is probably the best stretch of riding for not having a working water filter, since crystal clear mountain streams abound, our route when we cross back into Argentina will take us out onto the Pampas where we’ll definitely need some means of water purification. As such, we’re committed to waiting it out here until it arrives.
In contrast to how a lot of the riding on the Altiplano and Puna felt, the past week or so of riding since our Christmas break can without a doubt be classified as type 1 fun, ie. fun in the moment, not just in hindsight. Rarely have we been on the bikes for more than 5 hours a day and multiple swims per day has become the norm. The landscapes are lush and green, the rivers beautiful and clear, the climate moderate, although it can get a bit hot in the afternoons. We’re both amazed at how much more we’re sweating than on the Puna now that the humidity is not 0% anymore!
The only downsides are that it can feel a bit touristy at times – a very European sort of touristy, rather than some of the other tourist hotspots we’ve been to in the countries further North – and the prices are consequently high. Many things we find cost the same or even more than in the UK. Good ground coffee? Forget about it! However, as long as we plan our riding around wild camping spots and don’t eat out, we’ve found we can more or less stick within our notional daily budget.
Due to having to first, organise a warranty replacement filter over the Xmas period with intermittent signal and wifi and second, “kill” time until it arrives, our route on this section has been anything but straightforward. We set of first South, towards Lago Aluminé, one of the many beautiful lakes that dot this region in both Argentina and Chile. There was a strong wind that morning, unusual since it typically only picks up in the afternoon, and so our plan to make it up to crater lake at Batea Mahuida looked a bit optimistic. In the end, the Rio Litrán was just so beautiful and inviting that we stopped multiple times for dips and then ended up stopping for the day early when we found a gorgeous spot with its own private beach. Much better than paying for an overpriced pitch down by the lake!
We cruised down to the Lago Aluminé the following morning and hit the tourist town of Villa Pehuenia for a picnic and a rather nice ice cream.
Next up was the steep climb to Batea Mahuida. At the turnoff from the main road, I was flagged down by a motorist who was having car troubles and need a push for a bump start. Turns out, he was an ex-Londoner who had moved out here 20 years ago since his wife was Argentinian, and who had friends who lived in Pucklechurch, which is just down the road from us in Bristol! Small world indeed. He had retained a cockney twang to his English which was not something we were expecting to hear out here!
In the afternoon heat, the climb was a bit of a slog, but once above the tree line the views behind us open out impressively. To the West, we could see the volcanoes of Llaima and Lonquimay, which we passed close to before Christmas, and to the South, an impressively steep sided lake with the smoking Volcan Villarica just visible in the distance. That’s where we would be heading…eventually.
Next up was the steep climb to Batea Mahuida. At the turnoff from the main road, I was flagged down by a motorist who was having car troubles and need a push for a bump start. Turns out, he was an ex-Londoner who had moved out here 20 years ago since his wife was Argentinian, and who had friends who lived in Pucklechurch, which is just down the road from us in Bristol! Small world indeed. He had retained a cockney twang to his English which was not something we were expecting to hear out here!
In the afternoon heat, the climb was a bit of a slog, but once above the tree line the views behind us open out impressively. To the West, we could see the volcanoes of Llaima and Lonquimay, which we passed close to before Christmas, and to the South, an impressively steep sided lake with the smoking Volcan Villarica just visible in the distance. That’s where we would be heading…eventually.
We dropped back down and crossed the border back into Chile the following morning, our only casualty being a pot of honey that we’d unthinkingly bought in Villa Pehuenia. From Icalma, we headed North, instead of South, back towards Lonquimay as we wanted to do an overnight walk up to Laguna Espejo in the Sierra Nevada. We’d originally planned to do this before Christmas, but the delay due to having to wait for a replacement hub end cap had meant we’d had to skip it. Our route took us through some wide open farming country and then past another beautiful lake (Laguna Galletué). At the junction with the Reserva China Muerta road, we could hear the unmistakable sound of a waterfall and on closer inspection, found the perfect jumping in spot as the river funneled between two big rocks.
Post swim, we headed up the China Muerta road for a short while until finding a lovely secluded camp spot, just up river of one marked on iOverlander. Although this took us in the wrong direction, we were prioritizing nice camp spots and definitely hit the jackpot with this one. Type 1 fun, remember!
New Year’s Eve found us dropping back down to the Lonquimay valley and then to town for a 3 day resupply. We lounged about in the square most of the afternoon getting through a punnet of cherries, as we knew we only had a few kilometres down the bike path to ride later. Our celebrations consisted of a carton of wine (the most expensive one, mind you) and a bar of chocolate enjoyed at our camp on a small patch of flat ground literally next to the bike path. With the view of snow covered mountains in the distance and just the occasional cyclist passing by, it was actually a much nicer spot than it sounds!
We had another 10km or so of bike path to ride on New Year’s Day before we reached the start of the walk. It was another perfect morning in paradise.
The car park was looking pretty full when we arrived with 6 or 7 cars in it, certainly more than we were expecting. There definitely seems to be more of an outdoor and camping culture in Chile and Argentina than any of the other countries we’ve been through on this trip. After awkwardly maneuvering our fully loaded bikes through a barbed wire fence, stashing them in some bushes and transferring everything we needed into my rucksack, we finally set off on the walk at a leisurely 11am. (NB: you could easily wild camp at the starting point of the walk if you wanted to save on faffing, but we didn’t know this in advance.) Almost immediately, we were faced with a thigh deep river crossing in quite fast flowing water. Back home, there would probably be a bridge over a river like this, but things are a bit wilder out here. We joked that this crossing was a bit like the “qualifier” features found at the start of trails in bike parks, which are meant to represent the maximum difficulty level on the trail so that people don’t find themselves out of their depth halfway down.
On the climb up, we passed all those car owners who had clearly spent New Year’s Eve up the mountain. On the one hand, it was great to see people celebrating the new year out in the hills instead of getting drunk in town somewhere, but on the other, we were glad that we were a day later and might actually get a quiet night!
When we got above the treeline, we were faced with a wide morraine to cross and a lot more snow than we’d expected! Given that we were at approximately the same altitude as Batea Mahuida, we’d expected to find similar ground and lake conditions – another idyllic lakeside camp, we thought. Instead, we were faced with something altogether more bracing! The wind had a definite chill to it and there was only a small section of lake which was ice-free enough for a dip. Needless to say, we didn’t hang around for too long after going in and retreated back down the hill to find somewhere more pleasant to camp. Still, we were pleased to tick off the New Year’s Day swim box. Looking back, this walk was a highlight of our time in the region and somewhat unique in that it’s free!
After getting back to the bikes and reshuffling our kit back onto them the following morning, we reversed our bike tracks back into Reserva China Muerta where we once again camped by river. Not forgetting another jumping session at “the spot”!
We rode through the reserve proper the following day, marveling at the forests of petrified trees. We guessed that they might have all died in a volcanic eruption from one of the volcanoes nearby, but it turns out they were all burnt in a forest fire in 2015. From the top of the pass, it is a long descent down into Melipeuco valley; first steep, then rolling along with impressive views of Volcan Llaima and it’s enormous lava field off to our right.
In Melipeuco, we performed our usual routine of shop, picnic, ice cream, then spending too much time on our phones trying to do admin. It was only at this point that we confirmed the delivery address for our replacement Steripen.
The climb up from Melipeuco towards Sollipulli was a surprise, and not a pleasant one. In the heat of the afternoon, it was often on the pushing side of steep. Our target of making it past the lodge and into wild camping paradise (or so we’d been told) on the other side slipped out of reach, and we settled for a spot across a foot bridge from the road, next to an impressive series of cascades.
Feeling the effects of the previous day’s climbing and maybe the first hints of a sore throat, I chickened out of a pre-dawn raid on Sollipulli and we instead set off to tackle the last section of the climb at a more civilised hour.
Past the lodge, the track becomes much less traveled as you go through a gate and tackle a series of pretty deep water crossings. The valley as it continues on is indeed a wild camping paradise – grass, monkey puzzle trees and a crystal clear river – but we were just as happy bimbling along taking in the peacefulness of it all. More than worth the wet feet!
A rollercoaster descent – literally pushing on the short uphills and full brakes on the downhills – delivered us into our next valley. Again, we’d initially targeted getting to within 20km of Curarrehue and the main road before camping, so we could roll in early the following morning, but when the perfect camp spot presented itself in the early afternoon, we just knew we had to stop. This was meant to be type 1 fun after all! Under the shade of a tree, we read our books between occasional dips in the river, a routine that had become quite familiar by now.
Despite being hidden away below road level and next to the river, it turned out to be quite a busy crossing point for gauchos driving their cattle between fields on either side of the river. Just as we were setting up our tent, a group of them passed us and the following morning, we witnessed a cow driven cart being guided across!
We’ve spent the past couple of days in Curarrehue at the cheapest campsite we could find, catching up on more admin (like this blog) and waiting for this package to arrive. Without a definite arrival date or any tracking, we’ve sort of found ourselves in limbo, not wanting to stray too far and being a little put off by the fact that you seem to have to pay for everything in this valley if you want to leave the main road. That said, there’s a little side adventure brewing that will be covered in our next blog. Until then!
Finally, we’d like to say thank you to everyone who has voiced their appreciation for us taking the time to share our travels. It’s certainly not been easy to keep up with our ambitious schedule while also taking time to write, edit photos and find wifi to upload them all. We’re curious about experimenting with a creator account which allows anyone who is enjoying our blogs to support us with a small contribution (which will also sustain us in visiting coffee shops to use their wifi!). If you’d like to support us you can head to our new ko-fi page here. Muchas gracias.
Great update.
Keep writing, we love the updates!