On Thursday, April 6th, Emily (who is volunteering with me here at the hostel) and I had a day off, so we decided to take a trip. We went with Pati, whom I knew from Santiago and who had already headed south before me. I was even able to stay in her room in Santiago for a few days. Now she was working in Ancud, a town that is only an hour bus ride from Castro, so she came over to join us in the morning. We picked her up, got our tickets to Cucao, and had breakfast together at our hostel (Cata was so kind and offered to let Pati have breakfast with us). Then we headed to the bus terminal.
We took a cute little bus to the national park in Cucao, from where we planned to walk to Muelle de las Almas, which we understood would take 40 minutes.The weather wasn't great at first, but the scenery was still beautiful and it eventually stopped raining. And along the way, we even found something very familiar: A classic 'Mom and Pop shop' :D Being out in nature felt really good, as did the walk, and the three of us got along great and chatted away. After about 2 hours, we realized that something wasn't right with the 40-minute estimate... but the weather had gotten really nice by then and we had plenty of time.A farmer asked us where we were going and told us that Muelle de las Almas was very far away. He offered to pick us up later if he was going in that direction. We kept walking and at the same time, the same bus that had brought us to Cucao passed by. The bus driver stopped for us, but by then we were already walking and expecting help. The bus driver laughed and as he drove away, we realized that we had gotten off too early :D Eventually, the farmer arrived and an exciting, bumpy ride on the back of his pick-up truck began (I had always wanted to do something like this!) He dropped us off at a little cottage where we had to pay the entrance fee (for the place that was still over 2 km away...) and from there we continued walking. After about 4 hours in the middle of nowhere, we finally arrived at the place, which was still another 40 minutes away... :DWe were tired and getting hungry, but we pushed ourselves, especially after a passing woman told us that the last bus leaves at 5:30, which meant we had 1.5 hours to walk to the famous bridge (according to the woman it was still 20 minutes from where we were, but it took us longer even when we rushed), take a photo, and then make it back to the bus. At cloud level The sea in sight And finally, we were there!..and we wondered if this 'bridge to nowhere' that everyone's talking about deserves its fame... but it's kind of cool anyway.. After a short break and a speedy return march, we made it just in time for the last bus, and the woman had even promised to ask the bus driver to wait for us. When the bus driver saw us, he laughed and asked if we would finally ride with him this time.. :DIt would have been a bit too far to go to Castro, so we happily sank into the seats, exhausted after nearly 6 hours of walking.
