Thursday, January 10, 2008

Our Triumphant Return to Chile!

Hóla todos!

After several amazing days of travel in Argentina, we have reached Chile. We are currently staying in a largish town named Lonquimay, a name drived from the Mapuche words for the area. We arrived last night in the pouring rain, an amazing shock after more than a week of hot, dry weather. This morning we awoke to find that it had rained all night, and the tops of the hills were dusted with snow! We set out this morning to see Llaima, a local volcano that has been erupting as recently as yesterday! We drove through a most beautiful countryside, green fields all around in the valleys, surrounded by hills composed of old lava flows, the stately Arucaria trees lining all the ridgelines. Everywhere you looked there were goats and cows grazing, and even the occasional sheep. We passed tiny towns of a few scattered wood houses, and even the occasional bar with horses tied up out front. The air was cold and fresh, and the hilltops were wreathed in mist most of the day. Rain fell intermittently. The landscape strongly resembles New Zealand, but also looked to many of us as if it were straight out of Jurassic Park.

As we proceeded into the hills, the rain turned to sleet, and then, amazingly, snow. We eventually had to stop the bus due to the mud beginning to freeze and become dangerously slippery. As the bus turned around, we all ran around in the snow, laughing and capering, heady with the experience of snow in the middle of summer.

We lunched at a beautiful glacially carved lake. The water was quite warm, probably in the 70s, and the rocks on the shore were warm. Geothermal activity in the area is common, and we saw areas of the hillsides that were steaming faintly.

Much to our chagrin, we did not see Volcan Llaima, as the mountains were totally obscured by fog. Tomorrow, however, we set out for Pucón, and hopefully will catch a glimpse of the veiled lady on our way out.

In case you are wondering, this weather is highly unusual for this region. Normally at midsummer the weather is in the 70s and 80s, lovely and temperate. It would appear that climate change is bringing this region unusual cold instead of unusual heat. It was certainly a shock to us, coming from two days of blistering heat and dust storms, but in many ways it is a welcome change. It will be interesting to see what the weather does over the next few days.

I will let Jon update on our visit to Parque Payunia when we have pictures again, as words cannot do the strange volcanic landscape justice.

For now, Ciao, and thanks for reading!

Erika

1 comment:

Jolene G. Ness said...

Karen & Jay,

Great to hear about your journey ans see the photos. Looks like a great time. Nice to see the prof in action.
Wish we were there. Mom and Dad are hear for dinner celebrating Mom's B-day. They like the blog as well.

Your sis