tonight i had a really good chicken dinner at entre lagos, a small town just 50km from argentina. but let’s start with this morning, or maybe last night. i was having issues with the spot messenger device, and really wanted to get a reading from the end of the panamerican road. by the time i got a confirmation, it was dark and raining. so, i thought i might just sleep in the car at the end of the road….it could also be a good bonding experience. unfortunately, i was woken up three separate times by the cops (3am, 4:30am and 5am) — although they were just looking out for my safety and well-being. so, as soon as the sun rose, i hit the road towards national park chiloe, which was nice, although i prefer some of the other chilean parks i’ve seen (granted i only saw a small fraction of the park). from there, i quickly stopped by the darwin park (yes, he visited chiloe island too) which was very nice, and made me wish i had been there during the week and scheduled a guided tour. i also swung by some of the european inspired churches and houses (swiss/german).

then, a short ride on the ferry, a drop-in at puerto montt (hoping to find paul and his boat, but to no avail) and off to entre lagos. in puerto montt they had a strange (dangerous) three lane road, with cars going in both directions, but identical dotted lines separating the lanes. they also had a funny exhibit showing cartoons discussing male/female inequality. finally, just short of entre lagos, i swung by a car museum with tons of studebakers. i’m not much of a car person (…i know, i know), but one cool thing about all the studebakers is you could see how the same model car evolved over the years. as i neared entre lagos (and the argentinian border), i was greeted with mixed messages: a huge rainbow (like the kind in the lucky charms commercials) and a pretty serious car accident with an overturned oil tanker.

being a sunday and the holiday weekend (independence day), most places were closed for dinner — but i found one place, where i was offered meat, chicken or fish. she then proceeded to make the meal from scratch (it took 30min or so), but it was worth the wait…and a bargain at just $5. tomorrow: a good steak dinner?

i forgot to include the end of the road picture!

so, i’m not really sure where to go anymore…but i figured south made sense, so i kept on the panamericana towards the island of chiloe. if i had read ahead, i would have known that there’s no bridge connecting the island to the mainland…but i didn’t…after all, reading ahead can ruin the surprise. so, i kept driving until the road led to a ramp, which led to the ocean. i decided to stop. a few minutes later, there was a reasonable size queue of cars, and a few minutes after that, a ferry showed up. i drove onto the ferry, and it started moving. i paid $20, and before i knew it, i was on chiloe!

chiloe is famous for it’s national park, indigenous heritage and churches. it’s also where the panamerican road ends. who knew? well, apparently lonely planet; but, as i already established, i’m not the biggest reader. also, a cop yesterday warned me against reading…although i was driving at the time. anyway, mission accomplished!

and what’s the big deal with the panamerican anyways? i’m not even sure who, when or how it was formed. from what i can tell, it sorta just happened. neighboring countries decided to join their highways together (probably for transportation of goods/merchandise) and the idea of the panamerican sort of just evolved. and why didn’t argentina get any of the action? maybe just bad luck?

of course there are some gaps in the panamericana. the biggest one is between panama and colombia…and seems to be due to narcotics. another one i passed today, between the mainland and chiloe. which is kinda stupid actually. why not just end the panamericana on the mainland? chiloe doesn’t really provide much, and only adds an additional 150km or so.

oh well, i guess now i can move on to argentina.

today’s driving led me down to frutillar, puerto montt, puerto varas and parque vicente perez rosales — another huge and beautiful national park. frutillar is a small german village on the edge of a large lake. hidden in the clouds is the top of a snow capped volcano (can you spot it?). puerto montt is a small port town…vaguely reminiscent of fisherman’s wharf if it were a city, and not a tourist trap. puerto varas is a nice town about 50km further down the same lake as frutillar. but, those cities were all a bit dead, so i went instead to the park. here, i walked around for the afternoon (the park is very big, and includes the volcano visible from frutillar), then setup camp by the beach….by setup camp, i mean i parked, maneuvered the foam padded rear seats a bit and slept. i’m close, but still haven’t figured out the best way to sleep in the car.

so what’s the deal with chile’s obsession with 80s music? in some areas, over half of the stations are playing 80s. it’s like i’m constantly being rick-rolled. (not that i’m complaining)

parque huerquehue near pucon is really beautiful. i went on a four hour hike which climbed up a bit over a kilometer in altitude to some lakes and waterfalls. it got a little tricky further up, since there was still snow/ice on the trail. on the way down, i met one girl stuck in one spot for 5 minutes (granted, she was from vina del mar, which is kinda like the 90210 of chile).

from there, i drove to valdivia, which lonely planet describes as the ‘hippest urban living in southern chile’. it kinda felt like cape cod, which is ok, but certainly not hip.

after another walk around the park this morning, i took off to pucon. this area reminds me a lot of san francisco and/or the northern us. there are trees (and tree farms), rivers, good roads, snow capped mountains in the distance, etc. there was even a flock of wild parrots in the park this morning (which looked and sounded very similar to those from telegraph hill).

i decided to stop by the city of temuco to grab some cold medicine and to fix my exhaust. both were accomplished for just under $15. i then got back on the highway and had my first experience with chile’s cops. the whole situation is probably normal if you’ve been here a while, but to a foreigner sounds a bit ridiculous. first, police here are called carabineros. i’m not sure why. they wear green uniforms and have old green and white cars/vans. apparently they’re a pretty powerful group here, but are also not corrupt (an oddity for latin america). so, the carabinero pulled me over, but he didn’t do so from his car. instead, he stood in the middle of the highway and waved his arms — what a strange and dangerous method. once i was on the side, he asked for my license and paperwork…i wasn’t sure what was going on, but obeyed. he then told me that i have to drive with my headlights on while on the highway. i knew this rule, and had simply forgotten to turn them back on after leaving temuco. well, that’s not quite true. i had guessed this was a law because, on the highway, everyone drives with their lights on (at all hours of the day….and night) and there are signs reminding you to turn your lights on when you enter the highway. but then, the strangest thing of all happened: he let me go…without a fine…and without asking for a bribe. what a strange country! pucon is very similar to tahoe. it sits on a huge lake surrounded by fancy houses and nice restaurants, polished wood is abundant, and most people here are the ‘yuppies’ of santiago (or tourists). one big difference is that i was able to get a room for $10….even in the 80s, in a room at the biltmore casino in nevada, we never got that kind of a deal. it’s really nice here and tomorrow i’ll try hiking around another national park.

chile has many national parks, which is great…and starkly different from the other countries i’ve been to (excluding costa rica, perhaps). i decided to camp out in one….but with so many nearby i wasn’t sure which. i ended up going to parque nahuelbuta. the drive up was beautiful, although it did break my exhaust pipe. that was the second reminder of some of the downsides of driving (the first was that i spent almost $100 between gas and tolls today). i was the only guest at the park, which was pretty cool. it has some strange trees, including araucarias (many of which are barren and moss-covered). it has a beautiful view to the pacific and some volcanoes (such as the one near pucon, which i’ll visit tomorrow).

the only really annoying part of today is that i’m recovering from (well, in the middle of) a cold, so my sinuses are clogged up. this would normally just be a nuisance, but the pressure difference at the top of the mountain (a mile up) caused me a severe headache….which took a couple hours to dissipate. it’s cool, but uncomfortable, being a walking barometer.