Pucon, Chile - Adventure!

Pucon, Chile Slide Show

The picture to the left is of the Villarrica Volcano, the backdrop to the beautiful town of Pucon, Chile. Look at the smoke coming out the top of the volcano. It is still active! According to Lonely Planet Chile, "Carbon dating has determined that Villarrica had a massive eruption around 1810 BC. The first historically recorded eruption was in AD 1158 and since then, the volcano has had small to medium eruptions on well over 50 occasions. The largest modern eruptions were in 1640, 1948 and 1971." We didn't experience a volcanic eruption, but we did enjoy waking up to this view each morning.
In addition to the Volcano, Pucon is home to Lake Villarrica, multiple rivers, lakes and some incredible scenery. To think that only 4 days prior to going to Pucon, we had never heard of the town! That is one very good thing about not planning out every day of this trip. We can alter our schedules based on information that we learn from other travelers and locals.
The day before we came to Pucon, we experienced our first injury. If you are waiting for a dramatic story about how it happened, stop holding your breath. Jennifer jammed her pinky toe on a suitcase that was lying on the floor, resulting in a broken pinky toe. Since this prevented a hike up the volcano, we went horseback riding instead. This turned out to be a nice alternative to hiking. Our guide was outstanding and the countryside was stunning despite a cloudy drizzly day.
After horseback riding, we went to some natural hot springs to rest our sore horseback riding bottoms. I don't know if it helped our bottoms but it sure helped us sleep well that night. The roar of the mountain river rapids nearby as we soaked in hot springs was very relaxing. Everyone fell asleep on the van ride back to our hotel.
Speaking of rapids, Noah and I spent the next day white water rafting down the Trancura River. Since Chile is still in their Spring season, the mountain melt coming down the river meant for a very exciting ride. It is a good thing that we had wet suits on as we ended up in the river on three different occasions. The wildest rapid was named "fisher man's" as in they fish out man after they fly off the raft. Noah might not agree with me, but I thought it was an incredible rapid and yes, they fished us out.
The following day, the 3 of us rented bikes and set out on a bike ride to a waterfall that was supposedly 7 miles outside of town. Seven miles on a bike does not sound that hard does it? Well, it is if the last 4 miles are straight up the mountainside. This is an instance where a lack of information (we thought the route was flat) can hurt you. We alternated between riding and walking our bikes up the mountainside (remember that Jennifer has a broken toe).
We kept getting directions from locals on how to get to the falls. Towards the end of our journey, a very kind, old man with a great smile that was gathering Quail eggs offered to walk us up to the falls. Delirious from our climb, we mistakenly declined his invitation. We should have taken him up on his offer since we never actually found the waterfall. We eventually gave up and found a place to play catch instead. On the way down we passed the same man as he was walking into town with his Quail eggs. I didn't have the heart to tell him that we never saw the falls as we rode by so instead, I yelled "magnifico" to him. He smiled back and raised his hand in triumph. Yes, my "magnifico" line was a white lie, but one that I felt fine about as I looked back and saw his smiling face.
Pucon had the feel of a Western United States ski town with a few South American twists. If we didn't have a ship to catch for travel through Patagonia, we would have stayed much longer. Maybe we will come back - or maybe not, since there is so much else to see!
To see a slide show of Pucon, click on the following link ==> Pucon, Chile Slide Show