11/25-A Rest Day in Chaitén

You might be thinking…a rest day after four days? The answer would be, yes. It’s like when I did the Appalachian Trail. It was strongly recommended to take a day off after the first four or five days. The adrenaline of starting out, and figuring out how things are here, in addition to Alex and Markus having been off their bikes for three weeks, it seemed a day off was a good idea. Plus, now we are planning for the next few days to La Junta. We need to have an idea of where to stay. Wild camping is a little tricky here. There are lots of fences, and where there are no fences, the vegetation is very thick. 

We went back to the Supermercado we went to last night (mostly, last night was to check it out so we would know what is available). It is quite small, but seems to have a little bit of everything!

There is more on the other side of the wall on the right. 

We really had to look all around. Most likely, if we looked long enough, we would find what we wanted. The only thing I wanted that they didn’t have were paltas (avocados). But, then I decided I didn’t really need them anyway. 

Walking back to the apartment, I spied this pretty flower. 

It really is Spring here. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s November. The weather today is not as sunny as yesterday, but we are on the Coast. I’m glad I got the photo of Volcán Corcovado yesterday because we can’t see it today. Maybe later…

There’s also another volcano that is active. It last erupted in 2008 (I think). They evacuated the whole village. Now it is still emitting puffs of steam. 

You can see puffs of steam coming up from the one with the snow. 

After a little siesta time, we walked to the water. We were guided by the dog from the cabaña. I named him Floyd (Christy, if you are by chance reading this, it seemed like something your Floyd would have done). 

Volcán Corcovado is out now!

Floyd took a real liking to Markus. 

These were already here. 

The overnight ferry from Puerto Montt. How do we know this? Because we met a couple from the US (Alaska), Robin and Caleb, who had just gotten off the ferry. 

Paño of the mountains. 

Beach art. 

Floyd loves to chew on wood. 

And bring big chunks! However, he was not good at fetch. He’d chase, but not bring back. 

Wherever we sat, Floyd sat too. 

There was lots of obsidian on the beach. These were just a few pieces I found. 

We named this island “Sleeping Dragon” (the head is on the right).

Clouds of coolness. 

We walked back to town, and went back to the restaurant we first went to yesterday. Alex and Markus had coffee. Markus and I had kuchen. 

Now that’s a piece of kuchen!!! And no, I’m not calling it “kuchen” because I’m with a couple of Germans. They actually call cake “kuchen” here. There is a fair amount of German influence in Chile…okay, I’ve only seen two things (besides the German imports at Jumbo)…kuchen, and Berliner (filled pastry kind of like…a filled donut). 

Later we are going to dinner. The restaurant has a king crab soup. Sounds good to me! I’m going to upload this now because there’s already 18 photos. 

Tomorrow we head out again…it’ll probably be a few more days between posts.