A walk in the park

I’ve enjoyed my stay in Talca, staying a little out of the city and enjoying some rural life. Today enjoyed a walk in a lovely nearby national park in the Andean foothills. Beautiful forests and lovely views.

My trip from Valparaiso to Talca was by bus and via Santiago. I am pleased to be travelling fairly light, with just a small backpack and my new smaller suitcase. We fitted easily into the ascensor to leave my hilltop B&B and had down to the bus station. The long-distance buses in Chile are very comfortable, and the trip offered some spectacular views of the Andes as we motored down the Panamerica Highway (which runs down the length of Chile). My attempts to photograph the views from a moving bus with dirty windows and the sun in the wrong place were pretty dismal, but I’ve included one photo as a reminder of the trip.

My accommodation in Talca is fabulous … it’s called Casa Chueca, and is a little out of town with a small ranch-like collection of buildings, built by a German chap who lives here with his wife and two young boys. They are tour experts, and have developed a deep knowledge of Chile. The property now has a small environmental museum (which hosts school visits), shown below; in addition, Franz has now written five books about the Chilean environment and also developed an app for trekking in Chile! Here are a few shots around the lovely property:

There are few guests here at present, so I feel like I’m part of the family. Everyone eats together and I have enjoyed two lovely evening meals and a delicious continental breakfast. It’s a very pleasant environment, quite different from my urban experiences so far in Chile (part of the reason I chose to stay here, of course). Franz just today finished a long-term project of building a botanical garden with native Chilean plants, which he tells me will be added to the museum experiences, assuming that things grow!

I had originally planned to take a tour from here to see a national park, but it’s very early in the season and a tour would be very expensive if I was the only member, so I got advice from my hosts on how to do it myself, and take a trek into a nearby park called Tricahue. (Well, not that nearby … it was a 90-minute local bus trip, itself an experience, of course!). The park was in the Andean foothills, and I was excited to be so close to snow-capped peaks and dormant volcanoes. Click on the photos for a better view.

I had a lovely time, and took heaps of photos, but I’m afraid that they just don’t do it justice. There was a wealth of trees and bushes in the park, and lots and lots of climbing! I didn’t see anyone else at all during my walk, so felt as if the park was mine. Here are some snaps of the foliage:

I was pleased to have pretty good signposts to help my directions (sometimes through quite thick forest), as well as blue spots painted here and there on trees to show the way, so only got a little lost and even that only occasionally. I also found Franz’s free app (called Trekking Chile) very helpful, as it gave me a precise GPS fix on where I was (the blue dot), and even the elevation (without using any data):

You can see that this spot was at 635 m above sea level, which is regarded as pretty low here, as the nearby mountains go over 4000 m, but it felt like a long way up to me, and I was certainly feeling my age! The spot above is just near a very large tree that started growing  just before Columbus arrived in 1492, so is more than 500 years old. Just near this tree was a rapidly running stream, allowing me to refill my water bottle (which was drained by then). I was surprised, but pleased, to encounter running water up so high. Again, there were many lovely views, and I enjoyed the solitude of having them all to myself, but the photos don’t really capture it.

Being up high allowed some pretty good views of nearby mountains and valleys when I emerged periodically from the forest. One of them is the selfie showing at the top of the blog (my first selfie this trip, I think). Here are a few other shots from the climb:

I was surprised to not see many flowers, as it is spring time, but I saw a few, again finding them hard to photograph (well):

I didn’t see much wildlife, and had trouble photographing it, but did manage to get a picture of a small lizard (about 7 0r 8 cm long) that scurried out of my path and tried to hide in the bushes, very effectively camouflaged:

I also spotted some local farm animals, at the end of my walk, passing through a farm to leave the property, but these don’t really count as local fauna, I think. The turkey is probably pleased that Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Chile, too.

I’m not really an experienced trekker or even bushwalker, but thoroughly enjoyed my day, helped by my hosts at Casa Chueca, and also helped by the equipment given to me by family. Without these, the day simply would not have been possible. So my grateful thanks to Anna for the hat, Zoë for the backpack and Marian for the shoes:

But the (indispensable) walking stick (resting above on the backpack) I found myself! All of this trekking equipment is visible in the selfie.

The first beer I had when I returned to Casa Chueca just in time for my evening meal did not touch the sides … a lovely day out, but pretty tiring too!