Cucao to Ensenada

It rained all night and through the morning. Our campsite was close to the shore of Lago Cucao. It was peaceful and very scenic, despite the poor visibility caused by the rain. We fell asleep to the sound of frogs (I think), and heard birds, horses, sheep, cows, chickens and roosters at various times through the night. In the distance we could hear the ocean waves crashing. There was the constant sound of raindrops falling on the tent. All were noises that I didn't mind at all. I was really glad we camped.

No hot showers this morning. Erik testosteroned his way through an icey cold shower. I was not motivated enough to do the same.

Hiking seemed like a futile effort today because of the volume of rain, so we decided to head back north to the mainland, with the goal of getting to one of the parks in the mountains for tonight. We made a few stops along the way, including to Castro and the market in Ancud. The drive itself is nice, but it was nicer yesterday when it wasn't raining. It's a bit like Kauai. There are a few key fishing towns, like Ancud and Castro, but not much in between. There are obvious signs of agriculture (including the occasional horse drawn buggy), but its not as abundant as one would expect given the apparent suitability of the land to growing stuff.

The fishing towns themselves are pretty neat. Very different architechture than on the mainland. Along the shore there are houses on stilts. On dry land, the houses use corregated tin and shingles as the primary building materials. Another noticable feature of the architecture is the number of old churches. I'm used to seeing churches made of stone, or something similarly ageless. These were thrown together with the same materials as the houses, but were ointeresting to look at nonetheless.

Before we knew it, we were on the ferry again and it was already 4:30pm. When we hit the mainland, we continued north to Ensenada. The rain, which had poured all day, cleared up shortly before we reached Ensenada, so we found a place to camp for the night. We are the only campers at this campground, so we had our pick of spots. We got a primo spot by the lakeshore with what will be a view od the Orsono volcano (if the clouds ever clear). The young guy that runs the campground has been really helpful and Erik managed to make a fire out of wet wood. It's a great quiet evening. Since I haven't had much success in predicting the next days weather or activities, I'm going to hold off on thinking about tomorrow and just enjoy sitting by the fire and drinking a bottle of wine and listening to the waves hit the shore tonight. I'm not even going to proofread this.