Today we left Santiago around 10:30am. It took us a few hours to reach our lunch destination in Maule--just south of the city of Talca. We dined at Los Ganaderos and had a HUGE lunch of steaks and salads. The rest of the drive was a bit of a blur as I fell asleep quite a lot in the car. We found our hotel, deep in the Bio-Bio valley located between Santa Barbara and Ralco: Dona Pola was the name (I don't know who Dona Pola is). It was rather like a state park cabin/camp site with small but clean rooms, a pool, lots of river access, and quite a few animals around-- when we pulled in, there was a pair of llamas chomping on the grass. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them because when I came out with the camera, they were gone.
After settling our things in the room, we had a quick dinner in the hotel dining room. Lionel wanted to see the Volcano Collaqui at sunset, so we ate fast and jumped into the car to drive up. The road became dubious after a short time, though, so we turned around.
We stopped in the small town of Ralco to ask a police officer about road conditions. To my surprise, although we had committed no infraction and were just asking a question, he asked for the vehicle registration and driver information. He took the materials into the station for several minutes to check them! I found this very intrusive and uncomfortable. In any event, we did get our information which we will use tomorrow to drive up the volcano.
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