The Lakes Region is just south of the middle of Chile. There must be 10
National Parks, all stock full of lagoons, volcanos, forests, stuff to make your jaw drop. Everyone, and we mean every Chilean, tells us, "Wait till you get to the South of Chile, there the landscapes are spectacular." We were really pumped to be leaving the city life and entering a National Park filled paradise.To comfortably visit Chile, or at least The Lakes Region, you should really have one or all of these things:
-a budget of $40+ a day
-a week per destination
-a car
-a tent
We have... none of these things, making Chile a little more difficult and frustrating than the other countries we´ve been in. We haven´t really done anything special, eaten anything special or seen anything special here in Chile (I mean, I´m exaggerating a little... but only a little.) Still, we blow through our budget like 
nothing. We continue with our Chilean diet (waking up late, so our 1.5 meals gets us through the day) to no avail.This has left us a little resentful. In The Lakes Region there are magnificent places to see. Temuco is a city near a few of them. The real biggie being Parque Nacional
Conguillo which boasts impressive lakes, a volcano and amazing old, huge trees. Let´s go check it out we say!Not so fast... Our excitement is squashed as we find out there´s no public transportation to the park, and we have no car. Without it you have to walk 10km just to the entrance, making a day trip impossible. There are no hostals in the park and we have no tent. No this, no that... blah blah blah... How can you promote tourism of national parks and have no way to get there, nowhere to stay and no
way to get out.A car, a tent or more than $40 would be very handy right about now. How many times have we said this while visiting Chile?
Being that we have none of these things... we opt for the park´s cheaper, easier to access, less
famous, neighbor Reserva Malalcahuello. Visiting this park was relaxing and without a doubt an escape from the city. We saw a volcano, tons of little woodland lizards, huge araucaria trees, a cute mouse and best of all, took an undisturbed nap in the sun. We definately had peace of mind. It was a very enjoyable experience. But the fact that it´s superstar neighbor seemed so close but so far away, haunted us.We´re sure Chile is a beautiful place to visit, without a doubt it´s amazing! We´ll have to
come back when we´re rich and famous. For now, we´re scraping by on Arabic street performances.In our lastest performance, we invited our always present, Number 1 Fan to come and do a little number with us. Yup, you guessed it, our token drunk man. Since the crowd seemed more interested in his stumbling dance moves, I called him over to share the stage. It was a real crowd pleaser :) and all good fun until, when giving us his 20 peso tip, he drooled in Lori´s drum case (we use it for the coins.)
Show´s over folks! Off to Frutillar!
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