Fortunately the staff at the windows counted out the big piles of money so slowly that we just managed to get on a gondola before the now lengthy queue started to surge forward. The gondola was very slow so we had plenty of opportunity to admire the view from every direction. The weather was still totally clear and we had great views of Volcano Lenin (we cycling past in Chile, 6 weeks previously) and a network of lakes, islands and peninsulas. After a dramatic rocky walk we stopped at a high Refugio for coffee in a beautiful location on the edge of a still, blue lake and enjoyed a woodland descent past wild flowers making the most of the increased sunlight after woodland fires. Fire damage has been evident everywhere we have travelled, but the scale has been most striking on bus journeys, where mile after mile of dead grey trunks stand clear of low regenerating scrub. At first we thought there was some sort of disease affecting certain tree species, so widespread was the damage….but we have since read and heard about the woodland fires. From what we have seen, the obsession with fires at all times of the day in campsites, and at the side of roads and lakes during picnics, may have been the cause of many. We caught the bus back and had an early night to rest our legs which were complaining about the change in exercise!
