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Published: July 15th 2007
Arrived in Pucon, the Chilean Lake District, 2 days ago. We crossed over the Andes and experienced some awsome scenery on the mountain passes. Must have been at least 6 foot of snow at the highest points. Glad we were in our coach and not the numerous lorries we saw that were either stuck or being towed up by the biggest tow trucks you´ve ever seen!
Pucon is a quaint little town that could easily be placed in the Canadian Rockies. Lots of wooden lodges, nice restaurants etc. Difference is that i don´t think Canada would allow the large group (around 20) of dogs that just jog around the town in one group. They don´t bother with people in the slightest, think they´re too busy picking up mates for a night out or chasing cars down the roads. We´ve even seen one of them wearing a t-shirt!
Enough about the dog pound, Pucon is actually more famous for it´s Volcano that errupted in 1960. It´s a little haunting to see signs around town explaining the details of what to do incase of an erruption! Don´t think we´ll get chance to climb it as the weather has been too snowy but hopefully we´ll get to see it tomorrow if the weather clears a little. Currently we´ve seen lots of photos but even though the volcano is just at the side of town the constant fog has kept it covered. Fingers crossed that we´ll get the photos then.
Yesterday we planned to get a bus up to one of the national parks (about 37km away from Pucon). We had booked into a remote Refuge miles from nowhere. The plan was to stay there for a few nights, warm log fire, home cooked food, hiking in the park etc. We arrived at the bus station all excited and the guy behind the counter told us that we would have to walk 6km to reach the park entrance. Us being us decided that this would be ok and we could walk that with our backpacks in a few hours. A little challenge and all that. Once on the bus waiting for it to leave, a local took one look at our bags and enquired as to where we were going. After telling him our plan to get to the park, the international sign language indicated that something was up to his chin. We gathered that the line he made was the snow and that if we stayed on the bus and stuck to our plans, it would have ended up being like a scene out of ´Misery´. Quickly hopping off the bus we looked around the town for other accommodation. 2km´s later our backs were killing and we reallised that it was a very good decision to leave the bus when we did!
Today we´ve been fly fishing which Shaun was very excited about. It is closed season for fishing at the moment so illegal to go. We did feel the slightest bit guilty as our big 4x4 and boat trailor turned off the road into the aptly signposted ¨eco-park´ and drove a couple of miles down a dirt-track to a suitably discreet start to our illegal trip. We rafted down a beautiful stretch of river just outside the town and managed to catch 2 wild rainbow trout and 1 brown trout. I caught my first ever fish and learnt how to cast. Photos will be published in the next few days.
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Joni
non-member comment
Fishing
Just because you have caught one fish Rach, do not think that you will be coming on any future fishing holidays with the boys! The fishing river sounds great and judging by the remote location, i would imagine that it wasnt too smokey either!