Then we moved on to Parque Nacional Siete Tazas. A natural reserve where the Claro de Molina river starts. The reserve is beautiful, it has native forests and the river valley is well worth a visit (pictures are often better than descriptions!)
5 of the 7 tazas
Velo de La Novia waterfall along the way
Additionally, we had some encounters with local fauna.
These are known here as Araña Pollito or Chilean Rose Tarantula. They are good tempered and harmless (well, if you bother them, they can deliver a non-lethal bite but they are fairly tolerant). Sadly, they are often caught in the wild, shipped around the world and used as "pets". We found there were quite a few of them everywhere as apparently their mating season is from mid November to start of January so we were just in time to see all the fun!!
Geek fact of the day... in Spanish, it is ambiguous to refer to them as Tarantulas as this term was used for another family of spiders (the Lycosidae) before the discovery of America. On the other hand, in English, the Araña Pollito are tarantulas as the Lycosidae are referred to as Wolf Spiders.
We camped in Valle de las Catas. A place that we strongly recommend as (unlike in most campsites in Chile) they have a strict silence rule at night which means one can actually sleep, listen to the river and the night sounds and wake up peacefully to the morning birds (as opposed to listen to music all night from inconsiderate and drunk neighbours).
A short walk from the campsite, one can find a Coihue milenario (or a 1000+ years old Coihue tree).
We then moved on to do a little loop through the forest and visit a couple of view points such as Salto de la Leona. On Sunday, we made it all the way down to the bottom of the waterfall and had a longer swim (to the waterfall and back). It was very cold but well worth it!
A slideshow with some more photos below (or high-res on this link)
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