Happy New Year...If we can stay awake!

So far we've managed to get by with our meager knowledge of the Spanish language. On our way to Talca, we had our first real test. We were pulled over by the cops!! Not for any moving violation, just a random ID check they seem to do. They see a car coming and flag you to the side of the road. The conversation went something like this:

Officer: Documentos

Me: Pasaportes?

Officer: Si

LOLOL. This town is no joke. We drove through it.

And that was it! Success! We were on our way from wine country down to Talca, where our destination for the next  couple of nights would be Casa Chueca, a hostel/b&b on the outskirts of town, that scored high marks on trip advisor. We never actually made it into the city of Talca. No one had anything nice to say about it! Casa Chueca has 3 hectares of property, large enough for a multiple buildings, a pool, nature museum, children's driving school, etc. It's a very nice place with one downside in that it's not really close to anything.

Random shots of Casa Chueca

We spent most of our time here hiking. Problem was that it took us anywhere from 90 minutes to two and a half hours to get to the trail heads! The hikes were all great, but the drive back was a bit much. The upside was the the owner of Casa Chueca, Franz, had actually developed an app called Trekking Chile which gave us the trail info we needed. 

Our first hike was at the recommendation of Franz. We headed off up the mountain road towards the border with Argentina (at this point you can get from border to coast in around 4.5 hours). It was a stunning drive following the river up into the valley with mountains on both sides. He told us to head to the 134km marker and just pull off the road and walk to the waterfalls. Easy, right? The 134km sign was nowhere to be found and the pull off (as we found it later) required our rental car to jump the curb. We found some parking (a gravel road) about a kilometer up as we saw other cars there and headed down to the waterfalls.

The start of our hike. People were camping here as this is a very popular climbing spot.

It was a very fun hike because there was no trail. We just made our own as we went. The landscape was dusty with large rocks. We totally could have been walking on the set where they faked the moon landing (they didn't really, but this was the place). We had many little gecko companions scurrying about as we made our way over to the river Maule to follow it down to the waterfall.

The river Maule

As we followed the river down, it was more and more impressive. We finally reached the waterfall except for the part where we were at the top of it instead of down below! 

Just needed a barrel to head over the falls!

It was a beautiful waterfall from a vantage point we had never seen before being at the top. Where the mist settled at the bottom, a lush green color appeared from the well watered vegetation that was growing. We checked our app and sure enough, we were right on the path. We navigated over the second waterfall to see what it was all about. The second waterfall was higher but we couldn't really get a great vantage point due to our location up high. The cool part about it though was that the wind was strong enough that the waterfall appeared to be going against gravity.

Water shouldn't go up! Notice how green it is behind the falls where this seems to happen a lot.

After working our way back up to our "car park" we had an equally stunning drive back to our place where we washed up and headed out to dinner not once, but twice! The website for the restaurant said they were open from 1pm until 12:30am. We showed up at 6:45, knowing it could be a bit early for the normal Chilean dinner rush, but they weren't even open. They must have all been on siesta! We finally found someone who worked there and they didn't open back up until 8pm. With it being only 2km from our hostel, we drove back, waited the hour, then returned. The grilled platter was a nice touch given the hostel meals were all vegetarian and we needed the protein from the hike

Plenty of meat after a long hike!

New Year's Eve rolled around and we decided we were up for another hike. Today we settled on a more traditional hike up a marked trail at the National Reserve of Altos del Lircay. This was another fun drive as it required about 20km of travel going up a dirt and gravel road. Our trusty rental car was up for the task with only a bit of dust to show for it! Along the way we even saw a chicken cross the road. We did not stop to ask it's reason for the journey though. We also managed to see a spider cross the road. Yes it was big enough that we could see it as we were driving. It was probably no bigger than a tarantula, but was very impressive.

Definitely covered in the rental agreement

We parked the car to set off on our hike, only to be informed that the registration was 2km up the road but we'd have to walk the rest of the way. They did not mention that the 2km was all up hill. I'm sure the ranger was very excited to see someone drenched in sweat tell them "I'm ready for more!" He did however appreciate the fact I told him I was from Chicago and was able to ask about the rock band while playing his air guitar. Some things like the air guitar just transcend language. We set off on our way to see how far we could get as we needed to get back for the special New Year's Eve vegetarian buffet at Casa Chueca.

View of the valley and mountains from our NYE hike

It turned out to be a very nice hike as it was quite different from our waterfall hike as most of this hike was done in the trees, sometimes peaking out over the valley below. Our alarm went off and we set off back back to the car to get back for our celebration.

Our NYE buffet spread

We took our seats for dinner, looked around and I quickly realized I was the only one in the place that didn't speak any German. This place draws quite a bit of German tourists to it. Plus the owner and his family had some friends over as well. We were joined by a solo traveler who was also from Germany but wanted to speak English for a while. After dinner, the festivities were laid out for. There was to be a big movie showing of "Dinner for One". This is apparently a very German thing to do, even though it's a English film and is only 18 minutes. Then everyone was going to jump in the pool at midnight. We were so exhausted from our hike, we ended up falling asleep after dinner, briefly waking up before midnight, watched our phones go to 12:00 then went back to bed. 

New Year's day was a rest day for us. We took care of some trip planning for the coming months but were generally lazy. Jess' fitbit reported a decline in steps from 20k on NYE to less than 1k on NYD.  We both got to skype with our families to wish them well in the new year as well. In searching for a place for dinner, we kept the relaxed theme going and ordered Papa John's online and then drove to pick it up. Even that was a 15 minute drive! But as they say here: Mejores Ingredientes. Mejor Pizza.

It even came with the garlic butter!!!!

After a sluggish New Year's day, we thought it best to get active again so once again it was out for a hike. This time it was to the Parque Natural Tricahue. This was only a little over an hour drive so it was a nice change of pace. It was a nice little hike, only 9km out and back. Downside was we gained over 1000m of elevation during our 4.5km out. Every bend seemed to produce another incline. But in the end we made it and were rewarded with amazing views of the valley below with the volcanoes in the background

The view from the lookout

The hike down was definitely a bit less sweaty but still challenging. After completing the hike, we were walking back to the car when we had our first llama encounter. Not sure where they came from but they were oddly staring. Jess posited that perhaps they were confused by my beard and were curious if I was in fact, a llama (not a llama).

I hope was of them was named Lorenzo Llama.

On the drive back, we noticed that everyone seemed to be coming on down to the river. We hadn't seen this many people during our time here so we took a quick stop to see what the fuss was all about. I guess when it's hot, people drive up or come down to hang out and swim and party in the river. At this point the river has already been used for hydroelectric power so it's not very deep and flowing rather slow.

This feels like it should be a country song

People had even used the rocks to create their own mini dams to back the water up and make it a bit deeper. We put our feet in and the water seemed a bit cold to be swimming but it was 90 degrees (F)/ 31 degrees (C) out, so anything goes. 

After a quick market trip to restock on car snacks and a bite to eat, we're celebrating the end of this destination with a cold, local beer brewed near where we hiked on NYE. It's brewed by a woman in the woods using no electricity

They have a hotmail email address if you're interested!

-Nick