Liza and Pete Roadtrip!

Location:  Pichilemu and Pucón, Chile.

Rundown:  Spent a week driving around Chile with my sister Liza!

Spent a few days in Pichilemu.  Unfortunately the waves were FLAT!  So we swam out to the islands off Punta de Lobos and played in the tide pools!

From Pichi, we drove south to Parque Nacional Conguillo, a volcanic area with great hiking trails and vast expanses of land flattened by lava flow from a 2008 eruption.  Kept waiting for the earth to shake and unleash a flood of liquid hot magma... er... lava.

Spent a day hiking around the green hills with their seemingly out of place Arucaria trees, odd pines that stand tall out of the canopy.

A family of condors soared over the trees.  Once out of the treeline, their nest could be seen on a distant cliff; the juveniles following the adults into void.

Spent the night outside the park off of a two track under the gaze of the flat-topped volcano.  The next day we rolled south again...

Arriving in Pucón on Christmas Eve, Liza and I got ourselves hooked up with a rafting excursion for the following day.  We had ourselves a pretty good Christmas on the Trancura in class IV rapids

Not really sure what's going on with Liza... looks like she's turned into some sort of spitting dinosaur, like the kind that ate Newman after he wrecked Jurassic Park.  She didn't damage the boat though...

The next day we rewarmed ourselves in the hot springs just outside of town.  The place was deserted besides us and a couple of other people.  Had the place to ourselves!

Did some other good hikes to waterfalls and lava tubes in both sun and rain.  Patagonia is a fickle.  Once can never tell what's coming your way, nor sway it once its upon you.  Nice caterpillars though.

And that was it!  We drove back up to Santiago via booming Los Angeles to pick up Mom and Denny!  This is the best picture we got of it.