So after leaving Entre Lagos we took the really spontaneous decision to go to Puerto Fuy (there is a bus going in a few minutes, let's just take it and wing it!) to cross the mountain lake Lago Pirehueico on a ferry. We took the last bus to Puerto Fuy from Panguipulli around 6 in the evening and expected to get there at the latest by 8. Wrong thinking, the bus took about 3 hours to get there taking tiny gravel roads (dust everywhere in the bus and in your lungs!) through the middle of nowhere and literally stopping every 50 feet in the one or two villages we passed on the way. Generally buses in Chile (especially minibuses and rural buses) stop anywhere as long as somebody stands on the side of the roads or yells to be dropped off. In towns it can be really really annoying when the bus seriously stops every 15 seconds to pick somebody up or drop someone off. Of course people don't bother walking 50 feet to form a group to reduce the number of stops...
So we arrived in tiny tiny tiny Puerto Fuy (our travel guide said 500 inhabitants) around 9.15pm after having been in buses four about 9.5 hours that day. On the way we (mainly Tine...) were a little concerned if we would actually be able to find a hostel there but the bus dropped us off right at the doorstep of one. They basically had to reopen their hostel for us (remove duct-tape from windows, put up sheets, clean bathroom) because we apparently were the first to stay there in quite a while but the hostel was not too bad and really cheap (10$ for two people per night) so that was fine.
Arriving in Puerto Fuy with true "end of the world"-feeling. The building down at the lake is the only hotel and the only really nice-looking building in town.
The next morning we went out to roam the village (gravel roads only...) for some breakfast, which proved to be harder to find than we expected. We found a small shop selling us some fruit, yoghurt and deli-meat but that guy did not have any bread. But of course he would not let us go without sending his 5 year-old daughter to show us the way to a house where a lady sold self made bread... awesome! Nevertheless we felt a little weird, because we were being stared at all the time and felt like some local attraction. Even the village's single bum (at least we suspected he was a bum) tried to talk to us and help us find some breakfast...
We went down to the dock around noon because the ferry was supposed to leave at 2pm. There we were told that the big baby in the picture above would not be running because it was somehow broken...
... instead they were going to take this tiny nutshell across the lake but we were told that we would not have to pay for that in exchange for the inconvenience. We were not too unhappy with that because we were not taking a car or anything anyway and just wanted to get a nice cruise. Nevertheless when talking to the captain (who was a really nice guy) we learned that he would probably not be leaving on time because he didn't have any gas for the boat's engine yet. So he spent the next one and a half hours trying to figure out where to get gas and who would pay for that. In the mean time we talked to a guy who had ridden his bicycle over the Andes from Bariloche in Argentina on gravel roads (!) and was now on his way back. We eventually figured out that he actually spoke quite good English after trying to speak Spanish (at least for me that is still really hard!) for more than an hour!So at some point in the conversation we also picked up that the captain had 17 cyclers from Argentina who were waiting to be taken across on the way back. There was no way that he was going to fit 20 people (himself, us two and the 17 Argentineans) on the tiny boat and so when we asked if could guarantee usbthat we would be able to come back with him that day (it was the last day the tiny boat was supposed to run. After that, service would be suspended until the big ferry was overhauled) he said "to be honest, if I think about it... probably not". At that point we had been waiting for about 2.5 hours in the hot sun... aaaaaarrrggh!
There goes the boat without us on board. Such a pity because the scenery of that lake was just awesome and I bet the cruise would have been a blast as well... but whatever. So: change of plans, running back to the hostel, grabbing the backpacks and taking the last bus out of the village (leaving at 3.30pm!!) back to Panguipulli.
Panguipulli 71 Kilometers (45 Miles)... another 3 hour bus ride on dusty gravel roads lay ahead of us. On the way the driver actually stopped for about 10 minutes at what we suspected to be his own house, probably to have a coffee or something...
The strenuous ride was made up for by absolutely awesome scenery we passed on the way. We passed the volcanoes Mocho and Choshuenco and Lake Panguipulli... so beautiful!
The first leg of our trip that day from Puerto Fuy to Panguipulli. The white spot in the south is Volcano Choshuenco.
The second leg of our trip that day. Panguipulli to Pucón. In total we spent about 6,5 hours in dusty buses that day. What a trip! As you can see on the maps, we got some pretty nice views of several lakes and volcanoes though. Southern Chile is awesome!So, more about our long stay in Pucón is hopefully soon to come. I am sorry about the long time it takes me to bring these posts online but as you read I was pretty busy last week and had to spend a lot of time on the beach in the last days...
