Dace is writing:
After the Midsummer’s (Līgo) night we are waking up for John’s day, and a very rich breakfast table is set.
Afterwards we are passing through Antuco to Laguna del Laja National park, to hike to waterfalls. The plans change a bit as it starts to snow during our drive there. Very unexpected, but nevertheless beautiful. A strong wind is blowing, and it’s decided to skip the long trail, just make a small tour around. Everyone takes photos of the snowy landscapes. On the way back we stop at a roadside diner, so that everyone could get two different kinds of empanadas. They are warm and tasty. For some more fun we try out quite a muddy dirt road.
Further up we visit the 20 m high waterfall Saltos del Laja. Glorious. Walking past the souvenir vendors some of us buy some things. While driving towards Temuco we also get hailed on. For a while it gets charmingly sunny. Such a great variety for one day.
At around four in the afternoon we get stuck in our first big traffic jam. In the next lane there is a car with a trunk full of apples. Juris suggests going to it, Ilgonis does so and buys a big juicy apple for each of us.
25 km after Villarica in a place called Pucon after 8 o’clock in the evening we arrive at our housing. In a two-story row house territory. We get comfy there, prepare and eat our dinner. Ilgonis sings some Christmas songs, everything is as it should be.
Agnese’s comments:
When we see the first falling snow we are all excited, wondering if it will be enough to build a snowman. When later the ground and the roofs already have a snow cover we jump out of cars and build snowmen, endimg up with a whole family of 3 one bigger than another.
But later on we start to worry because our cars, even though having a big clearance, don’t have winter tyres while the snow is already till the ankles. When we reach the gate of the national park we are not allowed to go further by cars due to the snow, but there are still 3km to the beginning of the path while the path itself is 2km long. We decide that we don’t want to walk the 8km in wind and snow so walk a little bit near the gate to a Mirador, which today shows only fog. On the way back it clears up a bit and sometimes beautiful mountains are visible.
We stay in the traffic jam for at least half an hour because of a sudden couple of km section closure of the pan-american highway. Thankfully we have Waze and local mobile data – from the place where everyone is sent to the opposite lane to go back we can find a way to go around the closed section.