This Adventure Called Life: Puente Ingles to Ruta 115 and Talca

Some men from Puente Ingles preparing for the
San Sebastian Fiesta/Asado

We were able to catch a bus back out to Puente Ingles to continue north along the Greater Patagonia Trail route. It is helpful that many people in the campos don't have roads to their houses, much less cars, so the buses go deep into the backcountry towns/communities of Chile. As we walked along debating which route to take out of Puente Ingles- horse path or road- we came upon some locals and they (as forcefully as a Chilean can) urged us to take the road, because the horse path was more dangerous. They told us a story of how a man had died recently, and said we should be careful. We took their advice, as we have learned over time and a lot of practice to listen to the locals.

Paola on the bridge in front of her Puesto

Following trail along the valley up to Laguna Dial

We didn't get far before night fall, though we were able to get the road walk out of the way during the cool morning hours the next day. Nearly right when we turned off the road to a horse trail, the temperatures seemed to be heating up for another hot day in Chile. It has been warm all summer, and the temperatures for the forseeable future were in the 30s Celsius, or the 90s Fahrenheit. So, hot. As we pressed on into the afternoon, we came upon a lovely shade tree and stopped to have lunch. The tree was in front of a puesto, and as we settled in to eat, some Caribeneros and a young woman came out and the policemen asked us a string of questions before being satisfied enough to get on their horses and ride away to continue patrolling. The woman came up and talked with us after they had left, being excited to speak with some women, as it's mostly men who pass through. So as we ate, we also talked. Well, Fidgit did most of the talking, because I'm still working on my Spanish language skills and also prefer to listen. We both enjoyed our chat with Paola, but had to get going to get some more kilometers in before camp time, so we packed up and moved on, thanking her profusely for the use of her tree's shade.

Fidgit enjoying the sunset/moonrise at camp

As we ascended towards Laguna Dial and were making our way around the beast (lake) the next day, I was wistfully remembering the shade of that tree. It was intensely hot, and the lack of shade and sun's reflection off the pristine waters of the lake were not helping. If I were to guess, I would say it reached at least 98*F that day. We would try and cool ourselves by dipping our hats and bananas in water before placing them back on. By mid-morning, my shirt was soaked with sweat, not a cloud in the sky. We were grateful when the sun set and we were left in the cooling evening air. A breeze even came up and cooled us off more.

Laguna Dial

Fidgit walking along the shores of Laguna Dial

The next day, we made it the last few kilometers around Laguna Dial and started down the valley towards Carrizales, a tiny community at the other end. As the day again grew warmer, we began seeing a cluster of trees in the distance. They were tall, and proffering shade like only the first trees we had seen in 2 days could. As we walked up to them, we realized that there was a Caribeneros station nestled into the center of the trees with about 6 police officers sitting at a table outside. We didn't care, though we did politely ask if we could eat our lunch there. They kindly said yes, and we talked about where we had come from, where we were going, who else had passed through recently, and how it is to be a policeman at a remote station. After eating, photos, and goodbyes, we made our way down the valley following an old road. This led us to a woman named Irma and her family, who also generously shared their shade with us. We were basically trying to shade hop as much as possible because of the oppressive heat, and luckily we were encountering kind people with shade to spare.

Grateful to still be in the shade of the mountain,
going up to a high point along Laguna Dial

As we broke camp the next morning, I was hoping for a cooler day with a light breeze and more shade. We ended up getting slightly more shade and were able to walk past a few abandoned estancias with fruit trees and shade trees, so I got to enjoy even more than I had hoped for. Fresh off the tree plums and cherries! There were also pear trees; unfortunately those weren't yet ripe. It is not often we get fresh fruit out here, and I was very grateful we were able to find some. We walked along a dirt road that turned to horsepath that turned to road again, and we made it into Carrizales by evening. We sat on the porch of the kiosko owner's house and talked with them for some time. We ended up camping in one of their fields, fenced in from their goat herd.

We ran into a large herd of goats being herded past us.

We packed up the next morning and headed on our way, road walking the entire day - a first in a long time. It was a lesser-used dirt road mostly, so it stayed quiet until we got closer to the main road and cars began passing us with more frequency. As we were looking for a camp spot, we saw two hikers coming toward us. It was Buck-30 and Skittles, 2 thru-hikers from the U.S. we had been in contact with about planning their hike along the Greater Patagonia Trail! We made camp together and stayed up late exchanging information and stories. I was glad we were able to finally meet these guys in person and have a conversation, and we parted ways amicably in the morning, us pushing toward town and them off to complete Section 2 of the GPT.

We found more shade for a few moments!

We made it to Ruta 115 by about lunch time - road walking is much faster than route finding and trail walking, though I prefer trail. We hitch-hiked into San Clemente from a bus stop in case a bus came past, decided the larger town of Talca would better suit our needs, and got on a local bus to take us down the road. We arrived, and it was a bit overwhelming, though we were able to quickly find a place to stay and some food. We then self-sequestered to get work done; thankfully the place we stayed was able to wash our clothes, as it had been about a month since their last proper washing. We left town smelling less bad and rode the bus back out to begin where we had left off along the side of Ruta 115 outside of HydroStation Cipreses.