lago budi

Just 2 hours from Temuco is South America's only saltwater lake. Natascha, Celie, and I went for the weekend to Lago Budi as we had heard great things about it. About 8 years ago the coastal Mapuche community near Puerto Saavedra began offering ethnotourism activities for tourists to experience and learn about aspects of Mapuche culture. Around the lake there are various families who have cabins and rukas where people can stay. We ended up getting to go to Isla Llepo, which is a small island in the middle of the lake and inhabited by just a handful of families who do subsistence farming. We walked around the whole island in less than an hour, spent a lot of time sitting in the grass, and enjoyed being away from the bustle of Temuco. I was excited to see hundreds of mystical black neck swans and other birds that are hard to find elsewhere. The place where we stayed was owned by a woman named Rosalia and her husband. She and her daughter Camila accompanied us on the dinghy to the island and stayed the weekend cooking us delicious food and making sure we had a good fire to keep us warm in the ruka.