The fine weather is back with us. We had a slow start to the day, our plans confounded by the insurance situation. We began the day with a leisurely breakfast. The blog was caught up on and we are both reading books: Kevin is reading Stephen King's Joyland, based in a seaside fair ground, and Joan is reading The Night Circus, a book about competing magicians which seems to be a theme. On the way over she watched one of her favourite films, The Prestige on the plane and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was the book she started 2015 with.

Here in Anticura, there are big, buzzing, tenacious black flies that bug you when you sit outside so we have taken to sitting at the dining room table that we have lifted from the back of the cabana to the front and its big double doors. Here the biggest and the nastiest of the insects don’t seem to come.

We had thrown some bread out front to attract the birds and yesterday had been visited by a vivid blue and yellow bird that Kevin managed to video. Today some movement caught Joan’s eye. She could see a small animal near the bin. She indicated to Kevin who just saw a bushy tail before it ran back into the trees.

We continued reading but placed our cameras ready on the table. An hour or so later we were rewarded by a second visit of a tiny vixen who looks as if she is still nursing pups. Initially we threw her bread to eat and then cheese, which she clearly preferred. The cheeky monkey got more brazen and lay down before our cabana waiting for more!

Within the area of the cabanas there are several walks but the path markings aren’t always good. We failed to find one path to a waterfall so decided to go to the ranger office nearby to see if there were maps. The ranger office was closed but we saw one sign which promised views of the Anticura waterfall and a Mirador El Puma. The waterfall was barely a minute’s walk away so we decided to walk to the Mirador. Unlike most of the walks which can be a twenty minute amble, this was a steep zigzag uphill through woods that seemed endless. Looking up one thought that it must come to an end only to find another false summit. The final section of the path virtually needed a machete to cut through the bamboo overhanging the path, as if most people gave up before they got this far. Finally we reached the Mirador platform which was 600 meters. From it there were fine views of the forested hillsides below and of the sides of Volcan Puyehue and its lava flows. On our way up, we were overtaken by a young couple who were both Vets, one from Buenos Aires. We took each others’ photos.

The volcano is part of Cordon Caulle- Puyehue or Puyehue - Cordon Caulle, depending on who you ask. A volcano which erupted in 2011 and shut nearby Bariloche Airport, where we famously met Eddie Jordan and his wife:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyehue-C ord%C3%B3n_Caulle

One the way down, the male vet pointed out a spider. It was a big, hairy thing and looked unnervingly like a tarantula. Kevin video’d it at a distance and let it hide away!!

It was a testimony to how far we climbed that even getting back down took an age.

Back at the cabana the vixen was hanging about by our door but scarpered as we approached. For dinner Joan made the planned Shepherdless Pie. As darkness fell, around 10 pm, Joan looked out of the bedroom window. Every night she had heard scratching from underneath our cabana which is set on pillars. She saw several bats fly out from under the cabana as if they had an eerie there. Kevin tried to find it but bats can live in the smallest of gaps in the roof. We know this from home where we have pipistrelle’s nesting in our roof which swoop by us when we sit in the garden on summer nights.