Three things I love about Chilean policemen

I usually try to avoid the police when I am travelling.  However, not the Chilean police who are probably the coolest police officers I have ever met.  So how did I manage to get a lift- twice (one things I love about Chilean policemen), a tour of some hotsprings (second thing I love about Chilean policemen) and a trip to an empanada palace from the Chilean police (third thing I love about Chilean policemen)?

Well it all started in Bariloche…

After Bariloche I decided to go hiking up Volcan Puyehue.  This seemed a straightforward task.  The bus from Bariloche to Villa La Angostura was very easy.

From Villa La Angostura though things started to get rather complicated.

We got a lift out of Villa La Angostura from a truck driver.  All seemed fine.  Got to the border with Chile.  Then, we were not allowed to go over the border with the driver as he had fallen out with the border staff.  So the driver said he would meet us round the corner…by this time, of course, it was raining really heavily…walked “round the corner” which turned out to be about 5km and the driver was not there.  So ate some empanadas under a tree and started the hike back to the border crossing…was almost back there when we got a lift from “Jaime”.  He agreed to take us over the border in his truck.  What an interesting guy he was…he was an international vet with a speciality in horses..had worked in the middle east and become a muslim…and believed that it was good for the body to survive without food and water for 7 days…am currently thinking should try this as cannot stop eating empanadas and dulce de leche.  He dropped us off at a bus shelter just a bit over the border.  Waited there for a bit and then got a lift from a family to Entre Lagos.  This was where the Chilean policemen came in….

The next day we had to get from Entre Lagos to El Caulle to start the trek.

Checked out the bus…and there was a bus which would take us to El Caulle. Armed with a supply of bread, pasta, some parmesan and some stock cubes we waited at the bus station…I decided to go a walk to see the town of Entre Lagos.  There is not much to it and the shops are like something out of a different age.  People round here seem to be totally obsessed with Lotto as the only shop with more than an owner and a cat in it was the one selling Lotto tickets.  I came back down to the bus stop to see my travel mate waving his arms and shouting “Angie”.  Now usually people only use my name when I am in trouble so was a bit worried about this….and then I saw the police in a truck…oh help I thought what has happened here..I hurried down with a conflict in my mind.  Pretend that I did not know my travel mate and rush into the supermarket in a pretend bid to buy “urgent bread”, while chatting on the phone saying it is “Susan here” thus making it clear I was not “Angie” or approach the group with a friendly demeanour and say in my poor Spanish “what’s going on here officer”.  The first option was never really a runner so approached the group to be told by my travel companion that the police wished to give us a lift to the start of the trek.  Brilliant.

We hoisted our rucksacks in the back of the truck..moved the police issue belt and hat from the seats and started on our way…I thought this would just be a quick lift and that would be it.  How wrong could I be? The police took on us a lovely tour of the area, via Agua Calientes to show us the hot springs! Bonus!

And they dropped us off right at the start of the trek….

Three cold days later the trek was over…

I found myself again at El Caulle with no sign of a bus and no idea of when a bus might approach…at this point a rainbow appeared over the church across the road from the police station…might some heavenly assistance be coming my way I wondered?

Then, the police passed!

I joked to my travel companion that we would never get a lift from the police…ha ha ha I thought…but again how wrong could I be…

Turned out to be one of the same police officers who had dropped us off a few days before…he stopped, moved his police issue hat from the seat, and gave us a lift….

Now this would all be great and would count as 2 things I love about Chilean police officers…but there are actually 3!!!

Not only did he drive us into the town of Osorno in Chile but en route he took us for the most amazing Chilean empanadas at a little roadside shed…these were the empanadas to beat all empanadas..huge, containing mamouth chunks of meat, olives, eggs and spices…wow….

And those are the three things I love about Chilean policemen…..