To my dismay, they did not want to let me in! A woman alone, no that won't do, it's too dangerous, you'll get lost, you'll get hurt...I looked at them dubiously. The information they were giving me in terms of times and kilometres were in contradiction to what was in the Lonely Planet, and I knew which one I trusted more. This was not the first time that well-meaning, macho men tried to scare me off of doing something and telling me how impossible it was. I didn't want to entirely disregard their warnings, but neither did I want to do nothing. I asked how many people were on the trail. They know this information, as people are required to sign in.
The answer was no one. Some people come in for the day to do a trail, but most go by car, as the highlights of the park are mainly vehicle-accessible. But there is no one walking. I studied the map. There were indeed roads all over the place.
This changed things for me. I've walked alone in parks before, but they've always been parks with lots of other people, many of them alone. You end up hooking up, walking together for a day or two or just a few hours, and at any rate, you meet others at campgrounds. Walking alone in the mountain is not advisable, for the same reason as not wearing your seat belt isn't. Chances are, you'll be fine. But you never know when something may happen. It may be something stupid like twisting your ankle, but having other people around provides safety in the mountain, and if there was really no one, I did not feel that a 6 day solo trek was all that great of an idea.
Before I could fully decide what to do, a Swiss couple signing in for a 5 hour trek came in and, once they realised my predicament, invited me to join them, so I dashed back to the house to let them know I'd be staying an extra night, grabbed my day bag and I was off, with many warnings from the Conaf gentlemen to stay with the couple and not venture off alone.
Which I did and we had great fun! The Swiss are very used to the mountain, I don't think there is a flat parcel of land in their entire country, and these two were very efficient walkers. Slow, steady pace, with a few measured breaks, and many comments on the birds, flowers and trees we saw. I didn't understand most of what they say to one another, the Swiss version of German being a difficult to understand dialect for foreigners, but they made an effort to speak more neutral German with me, so we were able to have interesting conversations.
The trail is so marked, you'd have to be blind and asleep to get lost. I thought if the entire park is like this, how can it be that they are so concerned?
The first part of the trail climbs up into Araucaria forests, the amazing monkey-trees that tower above you. They are absolutely beautiful, and as you get higher up and start seeing the volcanoes, I got goose-bumps from how majestic it was. We stopped to photograph flowers and the landscape and to drink some water. It was really hot in the sun, but cool in the shade of the trees.
The trail forked off after 3 hours, and I could see where it continued deeper into the park. There was a huge sign with a map and arrows to indicate everything, and I made a mental note of it all.
We headed back toward the Suizandina, a lodge 3 kilometres away from Malalcahuello where they were staying. It took us nearly 2 hours to get there, walking by a river that we heard more than we saw, and this being now private land (the place is not actually a park, it is made up of two reservas, and so there are a lot of privately owned places too) we had to deal with fences. Two could be opened, but three others had to be climbed and one had fancy wooden steps put alongside it. This is the one that led to the lodge.
When we arrived, we shared a celebratory beer (ah! Swiss and Germans! Gotta love those traditions) while I looked around. The lodge itself was beautiful and modern, with a large communal eating area and even a reading corner stocked full of books in different languages (but mainly in German), there were many lamas, and... campgrounds! Which you had to pay but which came with bathroom and shower use. I decided I would come back here. It felt good.
I said good-bye to Gabriela and Urs, walked the 45 minutes back to town and Senora Monica's house, whose grandson accepted taking me into the park by car the next day, and a plan started emerging in my mind. At the Conaf office, they said that I could go to the park but would have to stay where there were people. Fair enough, I could handle that, and went to sleep coming up with a feasible plan.
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