Wednesday 1st February 2017
The time had come to leave our pleasant cabin (holiday flat) in Pichilemu, courtesy of Sara's lovely Uncle Manuel.
A relatively early start today as we had to vacate the cabin in reasonable time so that it could be cleaned and prepared for the next customers.
We'd had a lovely time in Pichilemu, and the cabin (flat) was very nicely situated. It was very close to (just across the road from) a night club with loud music and searchlights that lit up the night sky .....
but, despite forebodings, there was no disturbance from that and we all slept very well (I expect the wine helped!).
A last group photo before Uncle Manuel kindly drove us to the bus stop:
Then off on a big green bus retracing our route to Santiago's massive bus station.
A brief visit to the Hostal Providencia where our big cases were in store, to 'edit' our luggage then to Eddy & Sara's pad over her father's grapevine lined house:
Their pad is 'interesting', being constructed of papier maché & wine bottles ......
And on to the car hire place to rent a Renault to get to our next destination, Cabañas Altué in Molina. A good drive after our already lengthy bus journey ....
It was nearing dusk as we stopped for refreshments at the Chilean equivalent of a motorway service station:
With nice walls ....
By an amazing coincidence, Sara spotted Mauricio (complicated family relationship) as we drank our coffees and arranged a get together with him, his partner and Sara's niece, Tamara (just 18 like Jess) at our cabin in the woods the following day. But we had a way to go yet.
Mauricio recommended somewhere better to eat than our present stop. The equivalent of a UK transport café. Very nice it was too, complete with a spectacular sunset.
Driving on into the night with a good meal filling us, after Molina we left the tarmaced roads and hit the stony, dusty roads which are much more common in the less populated regions of Chile, i.e. most of it.
Sara & Eddy did a great job of driving/navigating the challenging mountain roads and hairpin bends, this is the horizontal/vertical profile of this part of the drive .....
and nearing midnight we stopped in a cloud of dust at our destination only to be told that the cabin Eddy & Sara had booked wasn't available, because just like Uncle Manuel's cabins, someone else was overstaying.
However, instead of the five-bed cabin, we were given an eight-bed cabin, so no problem after all. A bottle of wine seemed like a good idea to celebrate our arrival and relax a little before settling down.
And a quick photo emailed to Jess to wish her a happy birthday, as it was now after midnight (after 3am in the UK).
The time had come to leave our pleasant cabin (holiday flat) in Pichilemu, courtesy of Sara's lovely Uncle Manuel.
A relatively early start today as we had to vacate the cabin in reasonable time so that it could be cleaned and prepared for the next customers.
We'd had a lovely time in Pichilemu, and the cabin (flat) was very nicely situated. It was very close to (just across the road from) a night club with loud music and searchlights that lit up the night sky .....
but, despite forebodings, there was no disturbance from that and we all slept very well (I expect the wine helped!).
A last group photo before Uncle Manuel kindly drove us to the bus stop:
Then off on a big green bus retracing our route to Santiago's massive bus station.
A brief visit to the Hostal Providencia where our big cases were in store, to 'edit' our luggage then to Eddy & Sara's pad over her father's grapevine lined house:
Their pad is 'interesting', being constructed of papier maché & wine bottles ......
And on to the car hire place to rent a Renault to get to our next destination, Cabañas Altué in Molina. A good drive after our already lengthy bus journey ....
It was nearing dusk as we stopped for refreshments at the Chilean equivalent of a motorway service station:
With nice walls ....
By an amazing coincidence, Sara spotted Mauricio (complicated family relationship) as we drank our coffees and arranged a get together with him, his partner and Sara's niece, Tamara (just 18 like Jess) at our cabin in the woods the following day. But we had a way to go yet.
Mauricio recommended somewhere better to eat than our present stop. The equivalent of a UK transport café. Very nice it was too, complete with a spectacular sunset.
Driving on into the night with a good meal filling us, after Molina we left the tarmaced roads and hit the stony, dusty roads which are much more common in the less populated regions of Chile, i.e. most of it.
Sara & Eddy did a great job of driving/navigating the challenging mountain roads and hairpin bends, this is the horizontal/vertical profile of this part of the drive .....
and nearing midnight we stopped in a cloud of dust at our destination only to be told that the cabin Eddy & Sara had booked wasn't available, because just like Uncle Manuel's cabins, someone else was overstaying.
However, instead of the five-bed cabin, we were given an eight-bed cabin, so no problem after all. A bottle of wine seemed like a good idea to celebrate our arrival and relax a little before settling down.
And a quick photo emailed to Jess to wish her a happy birthday, as it was now after midnight (after 3am in the UK).
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