Villarrica Day 197 03/04/2015

After being up, breakfasted and checked out, we took the taxi back to the main bus station in Santiago. Having already bought the tickets when we got the bus to Valparaiso, we waited the 20 minutes to jump on the 0845 bus to Villarrica. We had elected for 'semi cama' seats which were very comfortable, had leg rests and we could recline them. These we on the bottom deck of the bus so we were a little concerned the view wouldn't be as good but as they were only normal seats on the top deck, we had opted for comfort noting the journey would last 11 hours. Apart from being delayed a little due to having to slow and get past an accident, we sped along on mainly dual carriageways, stopping just to let passengers off at the major cities and also to go through the many toll booths. Passing through middle Chile gave us sights of mainly arable landscapes as this is the main bread basket of the country and also the wine valley of Colchagua. The cloud had dropped since we left Santiago and the views weren't that interesting so we were glad we went for the comfort option. The bus had 2 drivers (plus one conductor) who changed every couple of hours and the LED display informed us of their name and also to report them if they went over 100kms per hour - we had a constant display of what speed we were doing. As the standard of driving was very good, the roads in good condition and the bus comfortable, the hours flew past as we read, dozed and watched a couple of blockbusters - Avatar and The Island (no sound but Spanish sub titles so as we had seen both before could guess what was happening!). We arrived in Villarrica virtually on time (would have been if there wasn't the accident) and after the driver stopping twice and having to ask for directions in the town (!) arrived at the bus terminal just as it was getting dark. Following google maps on Simon's phone we walked the 3 blocks in 5 minutes to our hostel, Don Juan. Checking in was easy (noting the lady spoke no English and Simon's Spanish is still limited), we dumped our bags in our room, which had the appearance of a room in a ski chalet, and walked the 2 blocks into the centre of town. There was a candlelight procession taking place with local people following the priests celebrating Good Friday. The restaurant we had chosen to go to was extremely quiet, which was surprising noting it was "Top Choice" in Lonely Planet, so we decided to go to another nearby which was a bit more bustling. We ate a traditional Chilean meal (steak and chips for Simon and chicken and mash for Diane), washed down with a couple of German beers (there are a lot of people descended from German immigrants here hence the beer, some food descriptions and lots of cakes). We had a quick walk back to the hostel in the rain and fell asleep relatively quickly.