February 16 - Casa Chueca to Temuco

Today is a bus day.  We'll be on it most of the day.  Here's a couple more shots of Casa Chueca before we leave.

"Gaucho" - one of their trekking vans.









The cacti at the entrance to their property.  Quite a contrast between the dry and irrigated portions of the property.  As I mentioned before I'd recommend this place to anybody interested in hiking in this area; and it looks like they have some great hiking areas, judging by the photos.


Like I said we'll be on the bus for 6 hours.  You can select different qualities of seats:
-Clasico - Standard seats - better than our buses or economy airplane seats.
-Semi-Cama - Recline to about 45 degrees
-Salon-Cama - Recline a bit further and I think are nicer in other respects(?)
-Premium - Almost fully recline.  Probably equivalent to first class airplane

Obviously, the price increases with the quality.  I got Semi-cama for today, which was the best on this bus.  I got them because that was all that was left when I booked the tickets (either that or I messed up).   

This isn't our bus because I forgot to take a picture of it, but it is a similar one.  We're on the lower level.

Here's Laura enjoying her bus ride.  She is almost lost in that big seat!  (It's not reclined yet.










Movies on the bus.  We saw Robo Cop 3 and The Smurfs, both in Spanish with Spanish subtitles.  I could follow the Smurfs plot, although I assumed the good guys won in RC 3.

The display to the left of the video is a speed display of the bus.  Buses are limited to 100 kph on the highway.  If the speed goes above that there is an annoying little alarm that goes off.  I don't know why and I wouldn't like to hear it on an overnight bus.

The scenery at first was mixed crop farming (mostly corn, but various other crops) and switched to greener areas and forests as we went further south.  Very intensive land use.

Always something interesting happening on the bus.  We stopped at a roadside restaurant and they brought on food for some of the passengers (I assume those that got on much earlier than we did).  At another stop a lady got on selling snacks.  She got off 10 km or so further down the road.  Vendors jump on when the bus is in a terminal.  This is typical of all the long ( 1 hour +) bus rides we've taken.

Of course, there is a bano on board.  Today's Spanish phrase is "Uso solo para orinar."  You figure it out.

A couple of scenery shots.  Another vineyard.

 We passed through towns named Los Angeles and Victoria today. Here's a tract subdivision in Los Angeles.  Row upon row of identical houses.  Don't come home drunk and expect to find yours.

And a street in Victoria.  The houses are similar, but at least the paint colours are different.  A nice street, though.

A view of the Pan American Highway we are travelling on.  Definitely a first class road.

Last photo before Temuco.  There is Radiata Pine and some sort of Eucalyptus out there.  Some of the R. Pine forests are very obviously planted with the trees marching row on row.







  We arrived in Temuco after 5 and taxied to our hotel.  (Julie - is 'taxied' a word?  My spell checker didn't seem to mind it).

This is some sort of local government building in town.  The sculpture is entirely made of logs.  Shows you what this economy is based on.

Last photo - a street market at one of the squares in town.

Temuco seems prosperous and cleaner than some others - we've only seen one street dog so far. 

Don't bother looking up Temuco on your map - we'll be gone to Pucon tomorrow (shorter bus ride).  We'll be there for four days so I'll get my hiking boots on again.

 Financial note - we've run into an unanticipated budget item on this trip - pay banos!  We had to shell out 3 times today.  The most expensive was 350 pesos.  Somebody may have to take up a collection for us :)