Mad Cows and Englishmen

Mad Cows and Englishmen go out in the midday sun

An early start today to hit the road towards Los Angeles (Chile).

There is a lot of holiday traffic on the road and several convoys of combine harvesters (on the main motorway through Chile) and this still does not hold up the traffic. We stop at some waterfalls with some naff stalls and a few trashy stalls.

It was the height of the BSE beef crisis when I last visited Chile. Our camp at the Siete Tasas (Seven Teacups waterfalls) was raided by cattle who ate all our food and even the washing up powder. They ran off like mad cows with their mouths frothing. So it was with some irony that we stop at the “mad cow” restaurant for lunch. Anticipating BSE burgers we have the usual slab of chewy beef.

That afternoon’s trip to the orchard is made worse by the fact that we have no water. The heat here is amazing as it just keeps building to 6pm and later. We arrive tired at the hotel in Los Angeles, a small town on the Bio Bio river and somewhat less glamorous than it’s Californian namesake although it is far less protentious, less polluted and I like it.