Pucon

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Hola amigos!

Picking up where we left off.....following about 15hrs of busing broken up briefly by an overnight stay in a city called Valdivia we reached Pucon. Pucon is a super popular summer vacation spot for people from all over Chile but especially the capital city, Santiago. We had been promised sun and warm temperatures (AKA the complete opposite of the past 4 weeks). Unfortunately upon arrival, although not to our surprise, it was raining again (if I sound a bit worn down from the rain......it's because we were!). Like I said, since this is a super popular time of the year for Pucon, we spent a good chunk of time on arrival walking around in the rain looking for a hostel. After finally finding a place, luckily enough that ended up being a great hostel (we stayed there our entire 6 days), we walked around the downtown area a bit to check things out. Probably the coolest thing about Pucon is the proximity of the Villarica volcano. The volcano towers over Pucon which is an incredible site. However, we had to be patient. The volcano was no where to be found our first day in Pucon because of the clouds (we'll get back to this later). Luckily for tourists, the proximity to the volcano forms natural hot springs just outside of Pucon so our first night in town we visited one of the springs (the only one you can visit at night). There was a total of 6 natural pools, all of varying temperatures that you could hang out in. Only one of them was what we'd consider "hot" (pretty much the maxed out temperature of a standard hot tub, the others being more like bath water) and so we spent most of our time in that one. It's a pretty popular activity to do so it was busy, but it was nice to sit back and relax with a bottle of wine. Because the pools were natural it made for a really cool experience.

Day 2: Rain and cold temperatures again. We spent the day touring around the town a bit more, doing some shopping, etc., the typical rainy day stuff you do when you're traveling I guess. There were rumours of great weather for the next day so we decided to get organized to visit the National Park about an hour outside of Pucon: Huerquehue National Park.

Day 3: We headed to the park this day as planned and completed the popular day hike called the "Los Lagos Trail." This was about a 5hr round trip hike which took us to a few really cool waterfalls on the way up. The trail climbed pretty steeply for the first 2hrs or so before we reached 5 pristine small lake/lagoons near the top of the section of the mountain we were on. This was a really nice hike. Not a lot of people on the trail for the first half of our day so we had lots of room to ourself and were able to enjoy a great lunch on the shore of one of the lakes. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate as it was supposed to (no rain, just overcast) so the views weren't quite what they could have been but it was still a great day.

Day 4: More rain to start the day. By this point we would have killed for some sun and warm weather. More of the same boring stuff for most of the day until miraculously, sometime in the late after noon, the clouds broke! It turns out there is a volcano in this town! First glimpse of the volcano was absolutely awesome. A first for both of us and I must say a pretty cool experience. Although I'm pretty sure the risk of that particular volcano erupting is pretty small, they still have signs for evacuation routes around town, a volcano risk assessment office equiped with risk lights (red, green, or yellow depending on the risk on that particular day), and a test siren which goes off every day at 12. Unfortunately we hadn't been informed of the "test" alarm, so the first time we heard it our hearts skipped a beat! Living beside a volcano would definetly be something that would take some getting used to however the views are worth it! We enjoyed the rest of the day walking around the harbour and surrounding areas as well as spending some time pool side at our hostel or in the hammocks.

Day 5: 45km bike ride with rental bikes (that were quite nice by the way) to Lago Caburga. Amazing bike ride. The first section was through tight trails and then up and down gravel roads that border the Rio Trancura. The section continued on gravel roads biking by many ranches along the way. A various points of the bike ride you can see anywhere from 1 to 3 volcanoes at once in the area surrounding Pucon- very cool! About half way through the ride we stopped off at a place called Ojos del Caburga. This was an absolutely stunning little canyon with 4 separate waterfalls all pouring into a beautiful lagoon. We enjoyed a lunch near the falls and then biked the rest of the way to Lago Caburga where we chilled on the beach for a bit before biking back to Pucon on paved roads to speed things along. Both of us had pretty sore asses after the ride since we are not exactly used to spending that much time on a bike but it was well worth it. Also, I forgot to mention, we had beautiful weather the entire day! Not a cloud in the sky, and the first weather in the 20s for some time. Needless to say, we went to bed satisfied.

Day 6: After our introduction to whitewater kayaking in Futa we were hooked. So, with lots more options to either raft or kayak in Pucon (Rio Trancura), we decided to take another kayak lesson, this time with a company called Kayak Chile (kayakchile.net, Ben was our instructor, highly recommended). The day was nearly identical to our Futa lesson except for a few small things. First off we had sun, warm weather, and much much warmer water. This was great! The first half of our day spent in the lake building on the skills we had learned in Futa was much more enjoyable due to the lack of brain freeze when you emerged from the water! As for the rolling this time around, Laura struggled but still rolled successfully probably 90% of the time. I made huge improvements in my roll, getting up once on my own however I pushed off the bottom of the lake with my paddle which means I cheated (unintentionally). Obviously you wouldn't have the luxury of touching bottom at any given point on a river while upside down. So.....Laura-2, Greg-0. After a great lunch back at the kayak office we headed out on the river for the afternoon. Much of the instruction was the same as in Futa, but it was great to try things again with more confidence on our side. One bit of excitment during the afternoon, we had our first roll/emergency exit in rapids. Although Laura had her roll pretty much down pat at this point, instinct took over and she pulled the skirt off her kayak to pop out. Not a big deal at all, it happens to everyone eventually. But....Laura-2, Greg-1 (Greg considers the fact that Laura 'swam'/pulled her skirt as an automatic point for him because he stayed in his kayak 😊 ). The last section of the river was spent essentially floating down with the current, a huge volcano staring us right in the face........absolutely incredible. We know are both hooked on kayaking now. I spent the days following our second lesson watching kayak videos on Youtube and researching what kayak I'm gunna buy when we get home haha! We'll see if the motivation is still there when we return but regardless, we had another great day on the water!

By the end of our 6th day in Pucon we decided it was one of the best places we have visited (weather permitting obviously). Really cool vibe, tons of stuff to do, awesome volcano to look at, etc., etc. After a great BBQ dinner at our hostel we hopped on an overnight bus to the capital city of Chile, Santiago to meet Allison (my sister for those of you who don't know), and my parents the following day before heading to Valparaiso on the coast of the Pacific Ocean for 2 weeks of condo living!

Ciao for now,
Greg and Laura

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