A little bit of Chile

October 25, 2023

Hi FAU Bloggers,

As you might have guessed by now, I'm what's known in good Chilean as "pati-peri." However, aside from having been lucky enough to visit some amazing countries in my long life, I have also visited some amazing places in Chile. I travelled Chile from Arica to Aysen so I still have a third of the teritory left to discover. Today I'm going to write about a place in Chile I really enjoyed visiting and that I'd like to visit again: Malalcahuello.

I visited Malalcahuello in 2007 when one of my sisters was visiting from the UK. My sister arrive towards the end of February. A few days after she arrived, and along with my wife, we decided to embark on a spontaneous road trip south. We packed up a tent and all our camping gear and headed South. We spent a night in Chanco, a couple of nights in Cobquecura and a night in Curacautin before arriving in Malalcuhuello. By this time my wife was tired of driving and wanted a holiday so we decided to stay a few days. We were actually really lucky as we found a really amazing, newly-built cabin half way up the mountain to the Navidad crater on Lonquimay Volcano. We were the first tenants so they gave us a special price for 3 nights. We had an amazing time. On the first day we got up early and walked up to the crater and around a long ridge on the other side. It was a very bright and sunny day so we got back to the cabin by midday. There is some really beautiful countryside in the region. My sister loves horses so we spent our second day horse riding in the very northern tip of the Conguillio National Park. They was another memorable experience because you really go into the wild. The fact that the horse was doing all the work allowed me the chance to fully engage with the environment which was really stunning. The trip up the volcano had been hot and dusty, the horse riding excursion was obviously less strenuous, often riding through shady areas of forest. The most amazing think was the sound of nature, totally free of acoustic polution. We spent the last day at Malacahuello Thermal Spa which was another fun day. I'm not a big fan of spas but it was nice to relax and float after two fairly active days walking and riding.