Blogs from Pucón, Araucanía, Chile, South America - page 4

Night has fallen on this fresh Monday and I just got back from watching the sunset on the beach with Bri, Bre (Briana and Breanna), Mike, Brook, Eileen, Benjamin, and some French chick. Ooops...forgot her name! Ben wanted to snag some wine and watch the sunset on the beach to celebrate his birthday. Love this country! Earlier this morning, me and the other ISA students got back from Pucón, which is 12 hours south of where I'm living. It was AMAZING!! We left from Viña del Mar on Thursday night at 9:00 p.m. and arrived in Pucón at 9:00 a.m. the next day. Pucón is a small pueblo surrounded by a lot of natural beauty. There are mountains, volcanoes, waterfalls, natural hot springs, rivers, lakes, national parks, ect. I've never seen anything like it! I know ... read more

So, disaster. Rushing for the bus I forgot to take my money belt with passport,warrant card and badge,both credit cards and all money from my small bag to put round me..Sitting on the bus I nodded off and when I woke up my bag had gone. At one of the small bus stops someone walked off with it. Camera, sungalsses, all my persoanl effects gone.Rang Molly who was a star and within 30 mins had numbers to cancel cards.Arrive in Valdivia with less than £30 in my pocket. Luckily I am s... read more

Paradise Lost: The Dreaded High Season Picture-perfect Pucon is an off-season paradise, sandwiched between a forested lake and the smoking Volcano Villarica, one of the four most active in South America. When I arrived in late spring, the volcano was blanketed in snow, and all was dreamy and mellow in the little town of 25,000. I met and made friends on sunset walks along the landscaped, lakeside promenade. Some of these friends owned restaurants and hotels; for ten months of the year, their businesses were slow and allowed them to enjoy life. Then, for two months in summer, all bedlam breaks loose, and my friends were buried in enough work to tide them through the rest of the year. In the days before Christmas, the town swelled to 200,000, as refugees from the furnace of the ... read more

The Lovely Off-Season My idea of heaven is the delicious off-season when gorgeous resort towns are blissfully empty and filled with residents enjoying their own towns. I'd arrived in popular Pucon in November and enjoyed a peaceful month and a half before the hordes of summer tourists inflated the population ten-fold. Fortunately, by then I'd discovered little pockets of beauty to hide away from the masses. I'd return the following fall in May and again enjoy the spaciousness of its small-town atmosphere. The charming little resort town of Pucon sits under the spiritual presence of smoking, snow-covered Volcan Villarica. It's built along the sublime, cobalt Lake Villarica with black, volcanic sand beaches and surrounded by jagged, forested mountains. Everyday, I took a long sunset walk along the landscaped lakefront promenade, the costanera, and stood ... read more

After staying 6 days in Pucon, a beautiful city at the foot of the Villarrica Volcano, we went back to Santiago yesterday at night (12 hours in the bus) for our last 3 days. During these 6 days, we did other sports, more or less extrem, like 60km mountain biking, a nice hike to a waterfall (Salto El Claro), canopy (zip-lines of about 100meters), and the most extrem: The ascension of the Villarrica Volcano, an activ Volcano which summit culminates at 2847m! We started at 1400m and ascended 1400 vertical meters in less than four hours! The crater of the volcano was very impressive: a huge 150m deep fuming hole! The way down was very very very fast and also very very very funny: we slid down on our bums! (because it was to steep and ... read more