This morning we headed south along the coastal road to Lota, a mining town whose colliery closed in 1997. As ever the hardest part was getting out of town. We found signs for Lota but then they disappeared. Nevertheless we got there. The town looked very poor. There was a beach with some rides and a few restaurants but we had come to visit the mine. It was down near the coast, but as it is mainly a drift there were no colliery headstocks that could be seen. We we...

The cloud had descended so we saw no point in going back up the volcano to the Termas. It was quite cold too. We ate a breakfast of some Chilean veggie product that we couldn't take with us. The veggie sausages were particularly inedible - pink, floppy...eurghhh! (Made Mrs McCartney's sausage seem vaguely palatable.) We looked for accommodation in Constitucion and found the weirdly named Neuromanagement apartments and booked. We checked out and thanked Nancy, the...

Not an exciting day. As we had been in the sun a lot yesterday we decided to have an easy day. We went for a couple of walks in Las Trancas, but there is only a strip along the road, and the only infrastructure seemed to be a Chapel were mass is said once a month and the Carabineros. The rest was mainly log cabins, all new. There were a couple of restaurants but most seemed shut - after all this place is ski-resort and this is out of season. A woman originally f...

It is noticeably colder up here in the mountains, and because the valley is so steep it takes time for the sun's rays to reach our cabin. We had worked out that there are two separate spas in the area – a cheaper one, Valle Hermoso, and a more exclusive one at the top of the road where there is a ski resort. We decided to visit them both and extended our stay here to three nights, after all the third night would be New Year’s Eve and it might be mor...

Having woken up to the sound of waves on the beach, we packed up and left the Cabanas Don Bosco. Today was about driving mainly, further down the Ruta 5 to Chillan. The snow capped Volcan Chillan was in sight once we reached the central valley from the coastal cordillera. It was hot and dusty. We stopped at Chillan town to do shopping and even managed to find some veggie burgers. Almost immediately we saw signs heading up to Termas de Chillan but they disappeare...