Pucon and The Lakes District

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Chile keeps on getting better and better. We are really glad that we have planned nearly a whole month here. It is a fantastic country especially if you like the outdoors.

The Lakes district is about 12 or so hours south of Santiago. We took another overnight bus to get here and again slept pretty well. The buses here are really good and we have not even tried the Premium seats yet as they are always sold out. Pucon was fantastic not only because of the nice scenery, but because we had 4 nights here--the longest we have been in one place since the Galapagos and then we were on a boat so there wasn´t a load of room. Every night we cooked huge meals, drank nice Chilian wine and really got to take it easy. We are still loving the fact that you can get nice food at the supermarket here just like back home--we have gone though so much cereal and milk!!

The main attraction in Pucon is the huge volcano that you can see on the outskirts of town. It is actually still active and the last time it erupted was in the early 80´s (according to LP). There are loads of travel agents selling trips to climb the volcano. We opted for the one that left first thing in the morning (5am) as opposed to 7am. The company is called Claudio Backpackers (or something like that, next to the JAC bus station) and we would def recommend it. It took us a little over 4 hours to get to the top and most of that was walking though the snow uphill. But, it was not really that tough and we got amazing views. Because we left two hours before every other agency we were the only group and didn´t actually see anyone until we started to go down. The top was fantastic and you could actually see the steam coming out of the hole in the volcano and the smell actually burned your throat!! At the top we had lunch (even though it was 10:30) before heading back down. Now, that was the most fun. Usually going down hill is a real nuisance for me as my knees always hurt and have to go very slowly and usually by the time I get to the bottom my knees are popping at every step. But, here, we just slid down the Volcano in the snow. There were literally slides carved into the snow and you sat on your bum and went down. It was great fun and reminded me of snow days back when we would go sledding/sledging in the neighbourhood. Really Really good fun! Overall it was an excellent day!

The rest of the time spent in Pucon was spent doing outdoor activities. We had beautiful weather the whole time we were here and took advantage. We went for an 18 km hike around loads of lakes and waterfalls where we climbed up abut 700 meters (cant remember exact elevations). Then the next day we went for a 40+ km bike ride where we saw waterfalls the next. We are def out of spinning shape as this was pretty hard work and we both had very sore bums the next day. Really need to get to a spin class as soon as we get home!

We have only added a few pics as a lot are on the other camera but we will try and add a few more later. We just got back from a 4 day boat trip through southern chile which was amazing. In a few hours we head to Patagonia to go walking for a few days. We will try and be in touch with everyone when we get back on 2 Dec.

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Photos

Us at top of volcano
behind us is where the steam from volcano comes out although you can´t see it in the pic