Alvaro greeted us at the entrance to this gated community halfway between Villarica and Pucón on the south shore of Lake Villarica. His grandfather bought the land in the 1960s right down to the water’s edge where they still have homes but the family created the community and sold parcels reserving the grassy area of the campground and surrounding woods for themselves. And campers.
It happened a Colombian traveler who had lived in Miami and bought a camper to travel South America came here just as the Covid lockdowns began and during the three months of his confinement he worked with Slvaro and his brother Christian to build a full service campground in the field. And so they did with hot showers, sinks to wash dishes and 220 volt power plugs scattered around the field. Alvaro with the beard and his brother Christian under the cap.
What’s weird about Chile is these people look totally American. You’ll see people wearing shorts which in most of Latin America only tourists like me wear in public. Chileans are of European ancestry, this family emigrated from Germany originally and the indigenous people of Chile and Argentina have been largely wiped out after the Spanish conquest. There are so far as I can tell no short black haired dark skinned Quechua people such as you will see in Peru and the countries further north.
The Lake District of Chile is an area we have barely started to explore but we plan to drive around several and take a side trip to Valdivia and the coast before we land in Puerto Montt where we want to take a four day ferry into the far south of Chile, penguin country.
Meanwhile the Lake District feels like a cross between the Pacific Northwest and Switzerland. Alvaro showed us the path to the lakeshore below the campground through his property.
Technically the campground is closed but Alvaromlikes to welcome overlanders out of season so we had the beach to ourselves.
Imagine a windless 80 degree day and as you can see not a cloud in the sky. Just lovely.
Rusty prefers freshwater to salt as not only do waves not attack him but he can also drink it.
The chemtrail convinced us to go back to GANNET2 and seek cover. Or it would have did we believe that nonsense. Mind you if the government really does control the weather I’d like to send the person responsible a thank you note for this perfect weather we’ve been having.
We wandered back up the hill admiring the empty summer homes that would not look out of place in the suburbs of Seattle.
Home sweet home.
