In the shadow of a volcano

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Pucon is a beautifully situated town. It is on a lake in the shadow of an active snow-capped volcano. Sometimes we can see it smoking.

We stayed at a hostel. Luckily we got a room by ourselves. Most people had dorms. Our impression of the hostel was not that positive. The people running it appeared to be in it for the money and crammed in as many beds as possible. We also discovered that they were charging way too much for some tours.

We had 2 full days there. We decided to go white water rafting. As Rae had never done it before, we thought it was a good opportunity. We got picked up at 11am, we were very well kitted up with wet suit, life jacket, helmet, shorts, shoes, and in we went. There were 4 people in our boat, plus the guide. He was lovely. Very good english. He was from Peru. There were lots of rapids to go through and we got very wet. At one point we had to get off the boat as there was a waterfall and it was too dangerous to go down. We clambered around the rocks and jumped 8 meters into the water to get back in the boats. It was really quite exciting. On one rapid we just about lost it. We ended up trapped behind a rock and the raft got swamped. Somehow we managed to get it away from the rock and it drained of water. The rapids were supposed to be grade 3 or 4, but they were probably grade 2 or 3.

The next day, while others went up the volcano (Rae wasn't happy with that idea), we went to the National Park Huerquehue with a few others. The track we took was uphill for most of the way. As we climbed we got marvelous views of the volcano across a lake. At the top of the climb we were rewarded with the most beautiful green still clear lakes, nestled amongst Monkey Puzzle trees and bamboo. It was a hard slog and would help to prepare us for the Inca Trail.

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Photos

The local chippie
Opposite our hostel - very handy - excellent coffee