Day 12 - Conguillio National Park.

Have an early morning argument via Skype with Nationwide Building Society. They tell me that my debit card should work, and - what do you know! - after the phone call, it does.

Cristian and I head off to Conguillío National Park through intermittent rain; he drives on the way there because he knows the way and to give me a chance to check out the terrain. It’s a beautiful drive – first along the banks of Lake Villarica, then north along a pitted gravel road that runs through dense forest, through a couple of villages, and then up another dirt road into the park. It takes us just over two hours to get to the first CONAF ranger checkpoint; Cristian explains that I’m doing guidebook research and the old chap waves us through without us paying the entrance fee (Cristian slips him some money, though).

The first part of the drive is absolutely spectacular: it takes us through the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) – a great expanse of what I take to be great colds of churned-up black earth, but what is, in fact, an old magma field. To our right rises the active Llaima volcano, which has had minor eruptions in the last few years; the top is hidden in the clouds, but its enormous base is covered with freshly fallen snow. Cristian has traversed the volcano several times during his mountaineering expeditions and he tells me that it’s an amazing experience. I’ve been wanting to get to the park ever since I’ve come to Chile, but on both previous occasions it’s been closed due to volcanic activity.

We cross the enormous black expanse, which leads up to the volcano’s base, showing where the lava had flown during a major eruption in the 1930s. A single tiny beech tree grows in this field of desolation, reminding me that life always finds a way. On the volcano’s slopes there are islands of greenery – copses of trees that the magma had flown around. To our right rise great cliffs, the bottoms covered in dense lenga and coigue forest, while the tops are covered with the familiar shapes of the araucaria trees – tall, bare tree trunks with a crown of prickly branches.

As we progress inside the park, we’re surrounded by them, their great trunks covered with lichen, with ‘old man’s beard’ moss dangling from their branches. We’re in an enchanted forest. I’ve never seen so many araucaria in one place. It’s one of the oldest species of tree on earth – over 265 million years old and only found at an altitude as it needs the cold to produce its seeds. It was here millions of years before the dinosaurs, and way, way before the first amoebas to evolve into humans crawled out of the primordial ooze. “The quila (native bamboo) is even older,” Cristian informs me. We take a short walk through the wet forest, following one of the many marked trails, until we see the mother of all trees – an absolutely enormous araucaria, over 1200 years old. I’m so overcome that I embrace the tree – or part of it, since it would take a small crowd of Anna Ks to reach all the way around the trunk.

In the midst of the forest hides a number of Alpine-looking chalets; numerous Chileans come to stay here in the summer. We visit another CONAF hut to ask for information about seasonal accommodation, view several camp sites overlooking the biggest lake in the park. Cristian shows me a tiny pristine lagoon, so clear that you can see all the way to the bottom where the dead trunks of drowned trees are reaching for the surface. All the while, we are rained on and at the end of our visit, one thing is clear: my rain jacket may have been waterproof years ago, but it certainly isn’t anymore. Unless I find a new one pretty sharpish, I’m in for a wet and miserable time in Patagonia.

What a great day! We’ve accomplished our fact-finding goal and Cristian and I take turns driving on the way back. I take us across the lava field, wary of the ripio (loose gravel and rocks) along the edges of the dirt road. If you’re going too fast, it’s easy to lose control of the vehicle, and if it rains, you end up sliding off the road. Glad that Cristian’s with me because the road further into the park is absolutely dire: pitted, narrow, steep, with several enormous puddles that threaten to swallow a lesser vehicle. I reckon I would’ve made it by the skin of my teeth if I were by myself; I’d rather take my chances with a bad road than with the drunk drivers and cyclists who abound in these parts.

Chileans know how to party: when they start drinking on a Friday night after getting their paycheque, they see no reason to stop until the weekend is well and truly over. We pass a sozzled guy, passed out on the side of the road next to his bike, and an old borracho (drunk) barely able to stand, trying to hail a cab in one of the villages. Driving in Cambridgeshire really doesn't prepare you for anything; besides the above, I also have to contend with assorted livestock: cows, pigs, chickens, horses. "Why did  the chicken cross the road?" I ask, narrowly missing a hen. "Because it wanted to become cazuela (stew)," Cristian responds.

Just out of the village of Mellipeuco, we come across a sobering scene: there’s a queue of cars waiting by a bridge, where a fire engine is parked. The road is blocked off, and will stay blocked off until a judge comes down from the town of Temuco to sign an official order to say that the bodies can be moved to a morgue. In the middle of the road is an old rattlebanger car, completely ‘mash up’ as Jamaicans would say. There are a couple of body bags lying nearby and the firemen are trying to fish something out of the river – another body. A driver so drunk that he must've had pure alcohol running through his veins had managed to run the car into a crash barrier at high speed on a road that I couldn't crash on even if I tried - completely straight, smooth and without any obstacles. No one was wearing seat belts.

We have to detour via another atrocious dirt road and make it back with two minutes to spare, accompanied by a soundtrack of Pink Floyd and David Grey. We have been on the road for ten hours and haven’t eaten since the morning. Our reward? Giant pizzas at Pizza Cala and beer on an empty stomach while we wait. Cristian has to practically carry me home along with the pizzas. As I write this, I have had red wine on top of that, which I shall most likely regret tomorrow when my alarm goes off at 5am. I’m getting out of town on the 6am bus, heading south.