A reasonable start (7.30am) to wolf-down breakkie, obtain info on the route to, and treks in the Parque Nacional Conguillo from a very helpfull Swiss guy staying in the hostel (Lonely Planet do an excellent Trekking in Patagonia book). Then hot-footed it to the Shell garage to collect our Toyota Cabianetta for the day. After a few problems getting out of Villarrica (first time I've driven on the right for a while, and a lack of knowledge of the streets and one-way system) we were on our way along a very bumpy, pot-hole ridden, gravel road - I wish I'd gone on the Logica Motorsports club Rally day out. Claire was very good, navigating us around the Chilean countryside, pointing out the width and depth of the ditches on her side of the road - she didn't scream once. On the road out of Villarrica we were stopped when a group of llamas ran onto the road - they were quickly herded back into the field by a kid (can't have been older than 8) on a horse and his collie dog. I stopped the car next to the llamas for Claire to take a picture - they were looking at us as if we'd never seen llamas in the countryside before.

The journey to the national park was beautiful reminding us of the Lake District in the UK and of the mountains in Scotland, together with an old lava flow from an active volcano and a dead lake (i.e. dead trees standing out of the clear blue water). Unfortunately the journey took 4 hours for 130 Km - due to the state of the roads, so we only got to spend approx. 2 hours in the park itself. Long enough to enjoy lunch on the shore of Lake Conguillo and a walk up to a vantage point, all without seeing or hearing another human being. The journey home was faster as I had gained confidence and was now mixing it up with the locals (at least I thought I was) - we decided to put the extra seating to good use and gave lifts to an old toothless Chilean Granny (Cunco - Melipeuco on the way there), 2 German girls (walking along the park road to there lift), William (a 35 yr old Argentine living in Lican-Ray, makes honey and chatted with Claire in Spanish - I was too busy trying to keep us alive to make conversation) and another two locals - quite the little taxi service.

Once home, we handed back our dusty Cabienetta, bought some food and cooked another variant of tuna surprise, followed by a session of cards: "Rummy" with Arnold and MiMi in the kitchen. They'd been to the thermal hot baths and it sounded like just the kind of thing we should've down yesterday to recover after climbing that volcano.