¡Pucón!

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O my goodness. So the past three days have been extremely exhausting, but totally fun. We arrived here in Pucón on Sunday morning at about 830, having taken an 11 hour bus ride overnight from Santiago. We didn’t have anything to do, and the weather was rainy and miserable. We consulted the guidebook pages that we had ripped out and brought along, and decided to make our way to a vegetarian restaurant/hostel that served breakfast. We sat there for two and a half or three hours, talking with some of the other kids there, including a German chick who had been on our bus. Then we met a rugged Canadian man who walked us to a internet café/adventure place. He recommended we go to the hot springs. So we did, to Termas de los Pozones, or something like that. We caught a bus at the local bus station and spent the day up there. It was delightful, until somebody stole Lily’s camera. So we were down to two, except I think I left mine in Santiago on my desk, so really we are down to one. Either way, after we arrived back in Pucón around 7, we caught a taxi to the place we stayed (a nephew of Colleen’s host mother). Hung out with him and his girlfriend and their friends and their friends’ friends for a while, then slept. Woke up, made breakfast. Rain. We dashed into town in between rain showers to the same internet café as Sunday. Decided to go horseback riding, provided through the café. A van picked us up. We got on horses. Colleen’s horse matched her hair almost exactly. We rode for maybe 3 hours total, up through forest and cow pasture and road. We stopped halfway, dismounted, and slipped/climbed down a rocky, muddy path to a BEAUTIFUL cascada (waterfall). It was secluded and tall and really powerful. We took a lot of pictures, but I don’t have any of them yet. I’ll post some once I get a CD from Colleen. Rode back to the horse pasture, wearing matching green ponchos because it started raining. Picked up some food for dinner, cooked rice and curry. Went to bed, intending to leave midday Tuesday because more rain was expected. But when we woke up this morning, the sky was clear and blue and BAM! We could see Volcán Villarrica steaming in the distance. We decided to go skiing on it instead of leaving. So we walked to town, rented all the gear, including gloves and onesie snow suits straight out of the 80’s, and went to the volcanoe. To ski. On an active volcano. The view from the slopes was amazing, with the lake, Lago Villarrica, and so many other mountains visible. It was insanely beautiful. If you ever get the chance to come to Chile, and can only visit one city in this area, come to Pucón. Manos bajas (hands down). So now we’re just chilling, blinded from the snow and exhausted from the skiing. We’re leaving here tomorrow morning, ridiculously early, to go to Valdivia, a Germanic town closer to the coast. Famous for chocolate and German beer and boat tours on the river. I’ll let you know how it goes.

PS - I'm sorry I have no pictures to accompany this entry. Try searching up some on a search engine. I'm sure they'll be better than the ones we took.

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