Moody Views

4th April Termus Pellaifa to Puerto Fuy (24.5M)


The forecast was right. The rains had started again. It'd rained all last night and was looking pretty miserable this morning. We debated about staying at the Termus another night, free use of the hot pools was certainly very attractive. However the forecast was for 4 days of rain so there really didn't seem much point waiting it out today only to get wet anyway tomorrow.

Moody views

Thankfully when we did leave, except for the wet roads and slightly 'moody' scenery it was dry for the first 1.5hours. Enough time for us to continue gently up the valley and then take the small signposted road to Puerto Fuy. According to our map this road just followed another river up a valley and then on to Puerto Fuy from there. We passed a sports car heading the other way at the start of the road so surely it couldn't be too bad. What soon became apparent after climbing 200m or more was that we were following the river but the river was in the valley about 200m below us and I have no idea how the sports car got through this road without taking its floor out! There were certain rewards for all the climbing however as we got lovely views of the surrounding valleys and volcanoes. Sensing impending rain we stopped for a break and food before it reached us. It was quite an anxious break in the end as we sat watching the grey clouds roll up the valley towards us. After enjoying our final minutes of sunshine we quickly managed to get our waterproofs on before the rain hit us.
Cold and quickly becoming wet we continued onwards and downwards. Definitely a road for mountain bikes, definitely not for sports cars. In some ways we were lucky as the weather continued to be showery for the rest of the day and except for frequent stops to put on or take off waterproofs we did get to enjoy some scenery in the sun and the volcanoes weren't always shrouded in clouds.

Enjoying th 'BEST' empanadas

Riding into Puerto Fuy was during a wet spell and downhill. By then I was pretty cold and ready to finish for the day. Puerto Fuy was very quiet and felt like a ghost town. Except for a few cabanas (lodges) advertised as we entered town, a few houses and a couple of closed stores there was very little else. We checked out the times for the ferry that would leave tomorrow and thankfully found that 'Cafe del Lago' was open. It felt like a town hall with a couple of ladies chatting in the kitchen at the back, but they served good coffee and 12 freshly made empanadas, which Gareth and I both agreed were the best we'd had throughout the trip. We'd ordered 12 as they were at a cheaper price and I thought we'd take some away for later, but no chance. They were warm and tasty and we were cold and wet.
Feeling refuelled and warm we ventured back outside during a dry spell and headed down to the lake beach where the lonely planet had said there was free camping. There was certainly evidence of others having camped here in the past, but we spent quite a while deciding on exactly where to pitch the tent. Finally as we were putting it up an incredibly fast speaking Chilean on his way out rabbiting came up. He seemed friendly enough, but had 2 dogs, snares and 2 huge knives with him. It put us both off camping here a bit, but there really seemed to be nowhere else. I had understood some of the conversation. He definitely said we could camp here, but he'd also said a lot of other stuff that I just didn't understand (no entiendo!).

The tent didn't stay dry for long