Day 54 - 28 Jan.2012 - Villarrica

Today was the last crossing back into Chile. The crossing was in one of the national parks close to the volcano Laníc – this one was not the culprit for the ashes. After some 100 km we reached the first border to exit Argentina. A bit of queuing and we were in no-mans-land. The Chilean crossing, some hundred meters further down, was probably the best we had so far. Really friendly personnel and not busy at all. We had a little chat to the border officials about the food that is not allowed into the country, handed over our tomatoes and some eggs and after having had our entire luggage x-rayed we were on our way into Chile again. The Chilean side of the national perk was quite spectacular but we had the impression that after all this stunning landscape along the Carretera Austral we had a slight overflow of beautiful images and probably did not appreciate it as much as we should have. We left the touristic town of Pucón aside and went for Villarrica where we stayed on a camping close to the lake. It was only afternoon but as we had noting really for lunch we decided to embark on the dinner preparations as soon as the tent was up. Happy and not hungry anymore we went for a walk along the lakefront towards the town centre. This town was less touristic and it was immediately visible. The buildings were more like a typical Chilean town and all the trekking, climbing etc. shops were not present there – and after all, the prices were more normal as well. We went back to our tent and crawled into our sleeping bags quite early. We fell asleep to the loud noise from the nearby Country Fair, which did change from local country music (you really have to be born here to like it) to more modern tunes later on in that evening. However, at that point no power on earth could drag us out of our sleeping bags anymore.