The next morning after an equally delicious breakfast we decided to walk up the trail to Mirador Bandurrias, a viewpoint overlooking the lake and distant mountains. It was a very windy and blustery day, reminding us very much of the English Lake District! The viewpoint was on Mapuche land - the Mapuche being the indigenous people who inhabited this area before the Spanish arrived, and now only exist in isolated little communities. We thought the fee of 30p that they charged for access to the viewpoint was pretty reasonable, but we didn’t hang around too long as it was pretty chilly in the wind and there were ominous looking clouds on the horizon. That afternoon we found an internet café that had skype so spoke to the folks back home, always a nice thing to do!!

The next day the ominous looking clouds had come over the town and the rain was falling quite heavily. It really was turning into

England!! Once the rain abated though we paid a visit to the local tourist office to check out going to nearby Lanin national park, a day trip away on the Chilean border. We found that the cheapest way to do it was on an organised tour, but were advised that if the weather was like this then it really wasn’t worth it, as the star of the show was Volcan Lanin, a twelve and a half thousand foot almost perfect cone volcano which towers above the surrounding mountains and sports several glaciers around it’s summit. With the weather as it was, the cloud was so low that there would be no view of Lanin at all. We decided to check out the weather forecast and decide later on. Meanwhile the rain had started again, so it was back to the hostel for some lunch and a couple of hours watching the Premiership on the TV!! Later on that evening we decided that we’d take the chance with the tour the next day. After all is was only about 7 quid for a full day, so it wouldn’t be a total disaster if the weather