Harvesting Scene at La Dehesa
At Pinto passengers change from the train into carriages and are driven to the three-miles-distant post station of La Dehesa, where one can either continue optionally by a seven-hour carriage drive to Las Termas (The Baths) or by a continuation of the light railway to the hamlet of Resinto and thence by carriage four hours to Las Termas. The round trip by carriage costs $11.05; by train it is $1.36 extra. I went by train which took nearly four hours on account of the presence on board of two inspectors who had the locomotive stop every few minutes to give instructions to construction gangs; from Resinto I went to Las Termas by coach. The railroad followed the north bank of the Chillán River until the station of Esperanza was reached where a fine view of the smoking volcano ahead of us was to be had; it then crossed the river and wound along a precipice up the west bank of the Renegado Creek, which lay below us in a forest of oak. I rode on a flat car which by means of hay wire was coupled to the box which served as the train coach. Resinto, formerly named Posada, on account of the former saloon and rest house (which in Spanish is posada), is the present terminus of the light railway although it is being continued so that in this year (1918) it is expected that it will be opened to traffic as far as the corral of Las Trancas. The carriage road is very rough, stony, and steep, and in some places extremely dangerous where it winds around promontories. For the first few miles after leaving Resinto it follows the creek bed; at a ranch house where guides are to be obtained for mountain excursions, a trail leads off to the south, which if one follows it for a day and a half will bring the traveler into Argentina over the Buraico Pass. It is only advisable to cross the divide on mule back on account of the steepness. From the boundary a few days' ride will bring one to the wretched God-forsaken Patagonian settlement of Chos Malal, in the Argentine Territory of Neuquen.
Mountain in the Renegado Canyon, Chile
This mountain has its double in the Martinswand, near Zirl, in Tirol
The first stage of the drive is monotonous although the scenery is good. There are a few scattered ranch houses in openings in the oak woods; the country could scarcely be called a forest, nor is it an open country. Mountains come down abruptly to the canyon and one of them is a double of the Martinswand near Zirl in Tirol. The whole trip is dusty in summer, which is the only season in which it is possible to visit Las Termas. After leaving Las Trancas, the station where the five horses are changed, and from which is seen a silvery waterfall several hundred feet high, the road enters the primeval forest of oak, elm, and laurel, decidedly beautiful, and then winds up the cool but dusty glen of the Renegado, which is fed by numerous trout streams. The roaring of many cascades and waterfalls is heard, the double one of The Lions, an hour's ride before Las Termas is reached, being the most beautiful.
Corral of Las Trancas