Stuck in San Martin

I took a bus to San Martin de los Andes along the route of the 7 lakes, which was very beautiful althought, again, I had the problem that I couldn't stop at the places I would have liked to. Plus, I must confess, I have seen so many lakes in the last days, that I was beginning to lose interest on them.

When I arrived in San Martin, I had very bad news: all buses to Pucon were full until monday (it was thursday), so I was stuck in the place for 3 days more. At least the weather was fine most of the time (cold and a bit of rain), so I decided to take advantage of the place: I walked up to a nice viewpoint over the lake Lacar that same day, went mountain-biking along the lake the next day, took a boat across the lake afterwards and visited Junin de los Andes, Huechulafquen lake and the Lanin Volcano my last day.

The volcano was really incredible and it's been the first one that the clouds have allow me to see, after my frustrating experience in Puerto Varas and around. In fact, this volcano had been impossible to see for many days due to the weather.

I also learned a lot about Mapuches, the local Indians, both because the guide of one of the tours new a lot about them and because I met a mapuche kid when I climbed to one of the viewpoints by myself. Apparently, they live on land that the government has lend them (not given to them, to avoid the problems they had in Chile where Mapuches sold the land that had been given to them) and they have their own schools and their own social organization.

And finally, I was able to get into the bus to Pucón and enjoy the nice road trip from Argentina into the Chilean Lake Region. Ironicaly, I the Argentinian customs control was next to the Lanín Volcano and it was a day of complete blue skies, so I had a much better view of it than I ever did on the tour.

So, after waiting for 1.5 hours for the Chilean police to open and search all (yes, ALL) the bags of every passenger (and keeping my sandwich cheese and a tangerine), having my mobile phone stolen at some part of the trip and taking 6 hours to cover approx. 250 km., I made it to Pucón. It was a perfect sunny day with blue skies and the impressive view of the Villarrica Volcano (which, after all, was the main reason I went there) and the smoke coming out of its crater. But I had to, again, wait a few days to enjoy the view from its top.