Step 1: The nice French lady at the bike hire shop told us the best way to get from Vicuña to La Serena airport was by ‘collectivo’. These are taxis and look like ordinary taxis except they are all amber instead of amber and black. They have a flat rate to the airport at £4 per person, the idea being that 4 people share so he will pocket £16 for the 1 hour journey. We were told the longest she had ever waited was 20 minutes and she’d live in Vicuña for years. We got to the bus station (where the collectivos operate from) and already there was a queue of people and no taxis. After 10 minutes we met the collectivo supreme (a woman with a clipboard) who informed us we would be on our way in half an hour. She was spot on and soon we were on our way, paying £16 because we didn’t have time to wait for anyone else hoping to share. Still not bad for an hour in a taxi. Having broken records for waiting time for a collectivo, we had the opportunity to listen to 60 minutes of Chillan taxi music. I remember, I’m Still Standing (EJ), Gloria (Laura Brannigan) and Coward of the Country (Kenny Rogers). An odd mix but not unusual with north Chilean taxi drivers.
Step 2: The LATAM flight from La Serena to Santiago was uneventful unless you count the bag of Chilean Wotsits we were given mid flight. We like uneventful when it comes to flights and we like LATAM.
Step 3: Santiago to Temuco. Another uneventful LATAM flight and another bag of Chilean Wotsits. Plenty to see out the window, with visibility of the Andes the whole flight and quite a few show covered volcanoes.
Step 4: The taxi ride from Temuco airport to the city. Something to note here is all the taxi drivers are in the airport not outside in their taxi. This cost us 15 minutes. The airport is a long way from the city so there was an opportunity for more taxi music. BeeGees, Elton John, Dr Hook! I wonder if Chilean taxi drivers have their own playlist on Spotify. By now it is getting dark and the view from the taxi window was getting bleak. Loads of boarded up shops and streets empty of people. Then we pulled up at Hotel Newen.
Step 5: Hotel Newen was deliberately chosen as cheap and being cheap we shouldn’t have been surprised if it wasn’t a bright star on the Temuco strip. We didn’t actually want to be in Temuco but it is the nearest airport to Pucan and it was too late to do the final leg of the journey. The receptionist guy asked us if the wanted breakfast at $5 a pop and looking outside we thought it might be the safest option. He added it to the bill. I asked him if breakfast was any good and he said ‘no’. I said maybe we don’t want breakfast then and he said it was too late! In the morning breakfast was indeed bad. They gave us yogurt which appeared to be Minnion flavoured. The centrepiece was a chocolate cake that tasted like it had been left out all week. The room was small but the bathroom was especially small. Faced with a space challenge, the designer managed to install the biggest sink outside of the Elysee Palace. You could go to the loo, have a shower and brush your teeth without moving. Later we ventured out in a Uber and finished up in an Irish pub by accident. Before our bus left we had time to visit what had been described as the biggest (or was it the liveliest) food markets in Chile. We opened the hotel front door to a sunny morning and a bustling high street. Everything looked different during the day. And the food market was indeed impressive.
Step 6: The route to Pucon was a supposed to be a 90 minute drive. The bus set off on time and arrived in Pucon an hour late. I’m not sure how that’s possible. A 20 min walk to the Airbnb involved a final 5 minutes of dragging our bags up a steep hill but it was worth it. We are now in the best accommodation so far and with the best view.
