La Tapera to Lago Verde

Fall is creeping up on us!

We resupplied in Villa La Tapera quickly, as we didn't need much to make it to Lago Verde, and we then hung out in the Plaza de Armas, checking our email and catching up with cohorts back home. Chile seems to be taking an initiative to equip these tiny little border towns with public WiFi, and we're not complaining.

Lovely campsite for the night with a lovely view

Fidgit and I left town in the late afternoon, hoping to get a few more kilometers in for the day. We had been noticing the sunlight no longer stretched late into the evening, and we wanted to be able to find a nice spot to camp before the natural light went out on us. We crossed Rio Cisnes and stopped by to get some more directions from the estancia across the River. The husband and wife were both quite kind, though distracted as apparently their whole family was coming in for a week, and they were preparing. We stayed for a short bit, and they - of course - shared what they were preparing with us, as well as information about the way to Lago Verde. We parted ways and walked down the quiet two track into the rolling hills yet again.

Gotta love the signage here, when it exists

Coming down into Lago Verde's valley

We were following a little-used road to Lago Verde, which usually made for easy route finding, though there were a few kerfuffles where equally-as-used roads would veer off in a direction we were unsure of. When I say little-used, I mean by vehicles- we saw a few men on horseback followed by their pack of dogs that every gaucho seems to have. By this point in our travels, we had learned to always double check if unsure, or it could mean hours of back-tracking (yes, we learned this the hard way). The route is a beautiful walk through some pristine woodland with multiple water sources along the way, because you basically follow one stream up the valley then cross down into another valley, walk along a river and up another valley, then follow that down into Lago Verde. This last valley  near Lago Verde was quite smokey, and we discovered a forest fire was burning, mostly in Argentina just east of the town. No one seemed concerned; a couple people we talked to just said nonchalantly that we probably wouldn't be able to go over to Argentina (which we weren't planning to do). I found this interesting, because I was worried that the town would be evacuated,  and we wouldn't be able to resupply. Nope. Apparently it's just the U.S.  that reacts to uncontrolled forest fires that way. We walked right into town, and the only reason people were surprised was because of the way we had come in- on foot.

Fidgit taking some time to play her uke at camp

Lago Verde was an unexpected multi-day stop, but mostly because the town was so tiny we had trouble getting our town chores done in a timely manner. We are slowly adapting to this South American way of slowing down, though it is sometimes frustrating to not get direct answers. We did glean enough information to be able to follow a trail to Palena, which was very exciting news.

Forest Fire smoke as we near Lago Verde

Made it to town!