el campo

My visit to the mountains was more than I ever could have hoped for. I started my journey at Refugio de , about an hour and a half southeast of Talca on the bus. I spent two days at this wonderful hostel run by a french couple who biked through the area and desided to stay. The first day, I took a hike to a beautiful waterfall and spent the day reading and lounging by the river in the sun. The weather was perfect and the sunlight filtering through the trees had a mystical aspect to it, especially since I was the only person for kilometers in every direction. The next day, I went on a wonderful, although slightly tedious, hike with the only other guest at the hostel, an environmental engineer from Santiago named Clavio who shared my love of the wilderness. We had a wonderful time and were both able to practice our language skills, me Spanish and he English.
The next day I decided to go to the thermales, natural hotsprings, about 30 km from my hostel. I tryed to catch the one bus of the day, but ended up being a little late. However, a nice couple gave me a ride for 20 km and I walked the rest from there. It was a beautiful walk, and I stopped to draw for a while on the way. Also, I picked up a friend along the way as I passed through one of the pueblos, a beautiful pup who followed me for 7 km to the springs, warding off everything in my path.
Finally, I arrived at the springs, exhausted and hungry. Luckily, the only other guests at the springs invited me to have lunch with them. So, after a well earned soak in the springs I headed to the cabinas

Vilches, Chile