Temuco and Malaleahuello, Chile

Monday November 23-Thursday November 26th

The bus ride from Pucon to Temuco was around 2 hours. As soon as we were in Temuco, we began the long and some how short search. Each person we talked to kept giving us different directions to different bus stations or stops to get to Malaleahuello (the town at the base of Lonquimay). We were sent for about an hour back and forth down this one street walking over a mile, each of us carrying 2 heavy packs. Finally we found the right bus station, which turned out to only be about 2 blocks from the bus station we were originally at. That bus ride was about two and half hours long. On the bus we met a couple from Spain who were there on vacation and could speak some English. They helped us to get off at the right stop, which was conveniently the same stop as theirs.
Malaleauhuello turned out to be a very small town that consisted basically of farms, cabanas, some rundown homes, a very small rundown looking library that had maybe a bookshelf or two, a ranger station for the national park, and one small convenience store. We went to the ranger station and struggled to talk to them for an hour to find out about Lonquimay Volcano. We weren’t able to find out to much, other than that there was no overnight hiking in the park because of all the snow and as long as we did it in a day, we could climb Lonquimay. They did have another ranger come in that they claimed could speak English. Turns out he couldn’t speak any more English than the others, he just talked more confidently and as though he understood us. We found out it was about a six mile hike to the base of the volcano, there was no bus there and the only way to get there now is to rent a car, which they said we could in one town over. After talking to this nice girl in the info center in town, we found out that really to get a rental car we had to go all the way back to Temuco. So after hanging around Temuco with nothing much to do, we caught the bus back to Temuco.
That night we checked into a hostel and hit the bar, to relax after a stressful, frustrating day of riding buses back and forth and talking/hand gesturing with people who didn’t understand a lick of English. Lets not call this a wasted day but a “Recon.”
The next morning we rented a car and headed out to Lonquimay, hoping to hike it that afternoon. Unfortunately the weather was against us. So we drove through a really long tunnel to the town of Lonquimay to check it out. It turned out to not be that exciting, not much to it except the beautiful views. We soon headed back to Malaeahuello, and did a short easy two hour walk in the park and then headed to this Swedish restaurant that was suppose to have fantastic desserts, and most importantly, people who spoke English. Dinner the was pricy but delicious (I had this traditional Swedish dish I’ve had with catering, but I wont lie, theirs was far better) and our waitress could speak English so wonderfully that after she listened to me rant about our past two days, she helped us a little with planning our climb up Lonquimay and a beautiful drive we could do afterwards.
The next morning was a slow start, for the weather was still against us. We stopped in town briefly to extend our rental on the car and pack up our gear. Around noonish, we slowly starred our hike up Lonquimay, hoping the weather predictions were right and the clouds on top of Lonquimay would clear away completely in a few hours. We took our time, afraid of getting caught in a white out and using a GPS to track our position so we wouldn’t get lost. Once in a while the clouds would clear enough that we could actually get some views. It was a pretty nice climb. Very steep towards the top, my calves reminding me of how little I had used them of late every time I dug in with the toe of my crampons to step up. We harnessed up and tied together as we got close to the summit for it would have been a very long, steep slide down at this point if one of us should have fallen. We were maybe a hundred feet from the summit though, when an icy wind came at us from over the summit and blew snow and ice in our faces and a cloud descended upon us so that I could see Tom 15 ft away and nothing else. After a minute or two of debating and waiting to see if the cloud would lift, we began to make our way down without a claim to the summit.
When we finally made it back to the car, it was rather frustrating for we could look back toward the summit and see the clouds that shrouded it, but they looked so calm and peaceful from where we stood. How deceiving. Still, a good hike, felt good to be moving and not sitting. Well after our hike, we headed back through the long tunnel toward Lonquimay town, but turned before it onto a dirt road that passed through the mountains. We stayed at a small village that night and left early in the morning to be able to arrive at the car rental place by noon. It was a very scenic drive both in the evening and the morning. When we finally arrived back in Temuco, and within a couple of hours we were on a bus to Valdivia to enjoy our last days in Chile with hopefully minimal stress.