New Years Day: another little adventure

Today everything is closed in Chile.  Evidently, this is a bigger deal than x-mas, which normally I would support this idea, but I needed to figure out a way around it to go out and do something. 

The original plan was to take a bus to Puerto Montt and take another bus to Correntoso to access a trek in Parque Nacional Alerce Andino.  When we got to Puerto Montt at by 8:30 a.m., we found out the holiday schedule is for one bus to Correntoso at 12:30.  We were advised about an alternate access point from the town of Lenca that has regular hourly service all day.  However, this access involved a 7 km hike up a road just to get to the park entrance.  No problem I thought; I´ll hitch hike.  Well after 5 km uphill in the direct sunlight, we managed to hitch a ride.  I should mention that the walk was actually pleasant as it was pretty country and a good dirt road.

The hike took us through Alerce forest which are very similar to Sequoias. 

I had no problem convincing an Italian family that they should drive us back down the hill.  We retraced our steps with the 2 buses which go over the Carreta Austral through some pretty scenery.  The last hurdle of the day was finding a restaurant in Puerto Varas that was actually open.  Although we managed to get decent service, the food was horribly mediocre, but at least I was able to get food.