An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
(The Alexandra of Chile)
Woke up, packed, ate, rode away. We set off on the road to Las Cascadas, Chile with a quick detour into Laguna Verde (the green lagoon), which was a little, tranquil emerald-green inlet set into the thick rain forest. Then back onto the dirt/rock road for the next several hours.
A fairly tough ride (terrain, hills, and the slick volcanic dirt along the roads which demands real focus), but with wonderful views of the lake and opposite shoreline on our left and the towering, snow-capped Osorno volcano with its light green, thickly-forested base on our right. We were pedaling through a tropical-looking rain forest, but with lots of small and large sized chunks of lava rocks all around.
The weather today was, again, perfectly warm and not too humid. Despite the ride being over 4 hours, we were never alone as we each had our own incessant flock of tabonos to keep us company. All in all, a terrific and gutsy job of difficult biking by Wendy! We finally arrived for lunch at a little hosteria, where we had to have our picnic inside due to the flies. We collectively decided to skip the hike to the waterfall (tabonos season) and drive to the next hotel. We took the scenic route and arrived around 4:00.
After the usual frustrating game of musical rooms, we ended up in a nice lake-view room as opposed to the dungeon we’d originally been given. Berne and Milton then went on a walking tour of this ridiculously large - but beautifully situated - place, seeing the termes (hot springs), the mud baths, and the gym — which consisted of about 10 machines which turned out to be re-hab type machines where one lays on them and the machine basically does the exercise for you. It did have a spectacular curving view of the lake and mountains, though. While Wendy read and enjoyed the patio and view, Berne led an Asanga yoga session in the gym for Milton. Wow! I sweated more in that hour than a day of biking. We then went for a dip in the terme, which was just a darn hot jacuzzi, but with putatively therapeutic qualities. There were many people using the terme, but we were entertained by the effusive and funny attendant, who was sort of a Chilean cabana boy.
We all met in the bar for a drink (our first Chilean beer - Cristal - which was light and flavorful) then went to the main - and cavernous - dining room for dinner. Felice told how she had tried to go for the hot springs and ended up enjoying (eventually) a mud bath. Dinner was from the buffet and consisted of pizza (nice and familiar), some brisket-like beef, pork chops, two vegetarian dishes which were quite good, and even some cold vegetables! For dessert (this being a spa) we devoured fresh raspberries, strawberries and some of the best cantelope we’d had in a long while. Wendy went to make some calls and read on, and Milton went with Aaron (our Chilean driver) and Berne to the salon de juegos — the game room.
We met up with our friend the cabanna guy, and played three hotly contested games of ping-pong (those two locals were damn good) then one of hardly contested pool, but with some kooky rules. Finished up by 11:30 and retired for the evening.