Saturday, October 17, 2009

Crossing the Andes into Argentina


It seems an eternity ago, but after enduring the end of the winter, our last couple of days in Chile were in fact very warm.  We spent almost a whole day wallowing in the wonderful hotsprings called "Los Pozones" (the pits) about 20km away from Pucon. The bus drive up through the foothills of the Andes, slowly leaving the majestic Volcan Villaricca behind, was pretty, and made all the more enjoyable by the happiest bus driver we have met (including up to the time of writing this blog, and there have been a fair few).  On arrival we walked slowly down the deeply incised valley to the main spring, located along side a vigourous snow melt fed river.  Not knowing at the time that there is a series of pools along the river side, each getting cooler as one heads downstream, we tried to hop into the main spring, which was almost scalding hot - only a few minutes was bearable.  Hero thought it was all quite amusing!  She did love the cooler pools and so we spent a few hours hoping between the various ones, before catching our bus back into town at dusk.  The hostel we stayed at had a very thourough heating system, so our last night in Chile was nice and comfy.  We left before sunrise on a 4 hour trip south to Osorno where we waited in the terminal for a couple of hours before catching the next bus to Bariloche on the other side of the Andes in Argentina.











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