Pucón

Last week we had a day off for Semana Santa (Easter week) so eight of us decided to take a day off from our internships and travel to Pucon for the weekend. Pucon is a town in the south of Chile, famous for Volcan Villarrica, a historically active volcano that you can hike up, and many other outdoor activities and sports. We took a 10 hour bus ride Wednesday night and arrived in Pucon Thursday morning a bit tired and sore but excited about how beautiful Pucon was. It's so green and surrounded by mountains and the volcano. Unfortunately we weren't able to see the volcano until about a hour before we left Pucon because it rained the whole time we were there. I guess that's why it's so green.

A picture of the main street in Pucon:

Delicious fruit from a market across the street from our hostel:

We stayed in a hostel called Hostel Backpackers which looked exactly like a cabin. It was cozy with a wood stove constantly burning and drying everyone's wet shoes and jackets. One of the things I love about staying in hostels is that we are able to cook our own meals. Although the kitchen was crowded and a bit grungy we made a few delicious meals. We ended up spending every evening sitting in the common room near the fire, drinking mate, eating dinner or snacks, playing cards, chatting with other visitors from all over the world, and drinking wine and pisco. It was a great place to stay, very chill with pretty cool proprietors and a white dog named Nieves (snow).
We went to Pucon with the intention of climbing Volcan Villarrica however the weather prevented us from making the ascent. So each day we found something else to do in the rain. Thursday was very stormy and when we were eating dinner in a restaurant the power in all of Pucon went out and stayed off til the next morning. We ate our delicious Mexican food by candle light until the restaurant began to flood after a hole in the wall began gushing water and we had to hurry to pay the check and leave. Needless to say, we were drenched by the time we got back to the hostel.

Friday we took a "hike" around Pucon and Lago Villarrica on the edge of town. Three of us even convinced the security guard to let us hike around the private peninsula to get better views of the lake and mountains. After this we attempted to go to the only museum in Pucon, the Mapuche Museum but it was closed for Semana Santa so we settled for wandering around the artisan markets and eating some delicious french fries.

Lago Villarrica:


Everyone in our group (minus me).


Lago Villarrica and our hike around Pucon. Volcanic ash makes the beach of this lake black.


On Saturday a few of us decided to take a bus to Parque Nacional Huerquehue and go hiking. There are only 3 buses a day so we only had a few hours in the park, but we had a great time! There was some snow on the mountains and we saw a lot of waterfalls. We also had to walk through a farm at one point and saw both a giant turkey and a giant pig, and a bunch of other farm animals.
Adorable puppies that we saw while hiking in Parque Nacional Huerquehue!

La Parque Nacional Huerquehue



On Sunday we did a tour of the region around Pucon and the first place we stopped was Los Ojos de Caburgua. It is a group of waterfalls and small ponds that are bright blue because of the volcanic ash. It was really pretty and looked perfect for swimming despite to no swimming signs posted everywhere.

The second place we stopped was Lago Caburgua. It is a beautiful serene lake with a white sand beach and surrounded by mountains and mini volcanoes. Supposedly its very crowded in the summer but it was one of my favorite places that we visited near Pucon.
We ended the tour by soaking in termas (hot springs) for the afternoon before heading back to Pucon to eat a quick dinner and drink a glass of Kuntsmann, a locally brewed beer, before getting back on a bus for the long ride to Santiago. I had a great weekend and even though we didn't climb the volcano, I now have an excuse to come back to Pucon someday (not that I need one!)