Púcon

Sunday 27 March - 1 April

We got on our bus at 9:30pm, bound for Temuco, but decided that a trip to Pucon (the Chilean equivalent to Queenstown, NZ) would be more fun after talking to a few people in the hostel. We travelled through the night & arrived in Pucon around 10am Monday and the first thing we noticed was the imposing Villarrica volcano.

Villarrica, smoking as usual.

We went to the local tourist office where the man was extremely helpful, providing us with maps, cafes and bus times! To digest this information and to sort accommodation, we stopped at one of the suggested cafes, getting some much needed strong espressos.

You get this view from most streets!

We decided to stay at Hosteria ¡école!, which is associated with a local (and the first) private conservation park in Chile & offered a fully vegetarian restraunt. We checked straight in and set about sorting a trip out to the national park, but following a few issues, walked around town before heading off to a local thermal baths (termas)

We´re sure this scene features on a postcard...

The bus to the termas took around 45 minutes, then we had to walk down to where the termas was situated next to a river. We chose the most ¨natural¨ of the termas to visit and were getting ready when Lawrie dropped the camera, which caused it to stop working. After re-dropping several times, the camera started working again so we could take these photos. Following the termas, we headed back and had a great veggo dinner, Kitty very impressed after a week of papas fritas.

One of the termas pools.

A nice natural setting with a flowing river as music.

There were seven pools in total, up to 45ºC!

The river next to the pools.

Thongs would have been handy!

Tuesday we woke early and got straight onto a bus out to Cañi park, this is a private conservation area, with a 16km return loop that climbs some 1050m from start to the lookout on top. We were greeted by a puppy at the visitors centre, who decided to follow us (strays everywhere).

We started the walk in a valley which was absolutely freezing, it took 1 hour and 45 minutes to actually reach the park, which we celebrated with breakfast. Sitting down too long meant it was extremely hard to get going again, so we struggled until the sun finally warmed our bodies some time later. We spent the first hour yelling at the puppy, but finally decided that we could keep better control of him if we could see him, he followed us all the way up!

One of the lakes in the reserve.

Villarrica Volcano.

Quetrupillán Volcano.



Lanin Volcano.



Kitty on the top.

Monkey puzzle tree.

This is the fella who wanted to walk ALL day.



Looking down to the lakes.

Lawrie with Villarrica volcano in the background.

We relaxed and ate here for a while.

The lakes were beautiful on the return walk.

Rope bridge for the rainy times.

The clouds settled around Villarrica.

We walked brisky down such that we didn´t miss the bus, with our follower in tow. Just before the visitors centre we sent him away, which made us feel bad, but we didn´t want to get him in trouble. When we got back to the centre he settled into a nice bone & got his friend to come see us. The lady next door called and they both raced back home, meaning that he wasn´t a stray. We felt much better after this and headed back for another vegetarian meal and big sleep.

Wednesday was rainy so we decided to do some planning of our trip and to sort out our photos. This took some time but everything is good after we burnt a DVD of photos and reformatted memory cards. We took the opportunity to chill and get ready for our next day walking in the national park.

Thursday we jumped the first bus out to the national park and had accommodation booked within the park, so we planned to drop the bags off and keep walking. The walks in the park seemed a little long for a single day so we thought this was the best idea. It turned out not to be as we got confused between the directions in our footprint guide and on the net (no map available). 2km FROM the park entrance was 2km BEFORE the park...which we realised after walking 3.5km FROM (guidebook, another hostel) the park entrance. This wasn´t fun and the rain started, meaning we were very grumpy in a short time!

Luckily it was sorted out when we were picked up and taken to our cabaña! A view of the lake and wood fire on a rainy day meant we didn´t head back out to the national park (even with the 5hr walking time touted by the rangers). We had an early dinner (fresh rainbow trout for Lawrie) and sat out on the jetty with the house dog Ossito (Little Bear) drinking wine and Lawrie fishing for breakfast, watching the sun set across the valley.

Photos coming
Friday was freezing, literally, had breakfast then headed back into town to sort out a bus to Santiago. With the bus sorted we decided to try and get the most out of Pucon with a ziplining experience, unfortunately this turned out to be a mission as the 12:30 session didn´t happen, nor the 3:30! We luckily got to go with another company. The ziplines were massive, reaching speeds around 75km/h and lasting 45 seconds! Basically they criss cross between mountains, over the valleys below!

Photos coming
We arrived back in town, grabbed a beer and snack, before rushing off to our bus.