Pucon

After another overnight bus, I made it to Pucon, a small town in the Chilean Lakes District. It's no joke that Chile is a long country. From west to east, you can cover the country in no time. But it's a whole other story when heading north or south. From San Pedro de Atacama, I took a minibus to Calama to catch my flight to Santiago.

Flying south.

I had some time to kill in Santiago before my overnight bus to Pucon. So I wandered around a bit. First, I headed over the bridge full of locks of love. 

Locks of love.

I then found somewhere to eat lunch in Bellavista Patio.

Bellavista Patio.

After spending some time catching up, I meandered to one of the parks and took a much-needed nap. 

Naptime.

After getting a few items for dinner on the bus, I hung out in Plaza des Armas again.

Sun going down.

And on my way to the bus station I saw some sort of protest. Since it was in Spanish, I have no idea what they were protesting, but it seemed harmless.

Low-key protest.

I finally headed to the bus station and made the overnight trek to Pucon. We arrived at a decent time and I could already tell I would really like it there. Lakes, greenery, and mountains (ok, volcanoes). I found my place of residence and was able to check in early. Since it was so beautiful, I wanted to go for a run and check the town out. I ran along Villarrica Lake for a bit on the rocky beach, went along the Pucon Peninsula, and circled back into town, where I came across a race! I've been trying to find races in various locations, but don't always get around to checking. Especially as they are not frequent at all. Well I should have checked for Pucon. I probably could have signed up last minute for the 5k or 21k (half marathon), but my Spanish isn't great, and I had limited cash due to my ATM fiasco. So I settled for cheering. I will find a race in South America before I leave.

A race.

I spent the day walking around Pucon, and everywhere I went, I had views of the volcano. I found lunch and ordered a hamburger with no bun. With a cervesa of course.

Hamburguesa with no bun.

I headed towards Villarrica Lake after lunch and what a difference the day made. It got pretty warm, so everyone flocked to the beach. I've never seen so many people on such a small piece of land. And since it's not the ocean, people were right up onto the shore. There was no fear of tides coming in. The water was actually very nice as I walked along the pebbly beach.

Crowded beach.

The race I spectated spurred a long run the following day. Well longish. I decided to get out there and do at least 8 miles and while I was at it, I got to see some beautiful sights along the Rio Trancur. There were people rafting down the river, which looked like a lot of fun. There are a ton of extreme sports in Pucon, so I just needed to decided what I wanted to do. I ran along trails, crossed over rivers, and kept seeing Volcan Villarrica pop up in various spots.

Rio Tancur.

After my run, I headed to the lake to cool off with hundreds of other people. I spent a few hours making my around people as I took advantage of the cool water. Very refreshing. I only wish it was less crowded and there weren't set swimming areas.

Another good beach day.

Before the day could end, I headed to one of the tour companies that were doing hikes up Volcan Villarrica. When else can I climb a volcano and peek inside. I got that booked and set my alarm for early the next morning. We drove to the base of the mountain and joined a bunch of other hikers. 

Volcano shadow.

At this point, we had an option to hike up the first portion of the volcano or take the chairlift. I had done a little research and a few people recommended the chairlift after hiking up it. However, I really wanted to hike the entire mountain. And of course I had limited money on me, so also wanted to save that for when I needed it. So our guides split up and I followed one up the mountain after a quick pee break.

The start of the trek.

I had read that it was possible the guide would move rather quickly up the mountain, and I was prepared for that. I didn't want to necessarily run up the mountain, but was ok with moving kind of quickly. I think he was surprised that I could keep up. I was the only one in my group that decided to do the hike. And I was female. You know, because females are obviously slow. There were a bunch of others hiking up as well, and we slowly passed them as we made our way up. I was telling myself this was good practice for when I do Machu Picchu.

View from part of the way up.

After a couple of rest stops on the way up, we caught up to my group. The pace definitely slowed down at this point, but that was ok since I wanted to take more photos and not rush. Since we were hiking up a certain path, and then eventually a snow path, we were pretty much filing up the mountain single file.

Winding up the snow.

Our last rest break before getting to the rim, I realized that I totally forgot my sandwiches. I was getting pretty hungry, but fortunately had enough snacks to tide me over until we finished the hike. But was still annoyed that I had 2 sandwiches waiting at the bottom in Pucon. 

It was finally time to check out the inside of the volcano. We climbed a bunch of lava rocks and put on our gas masks as we approached the rim.

View from the volcano.

And peered inside.

Fire.

It was all smoky, so it hard to see at first, but as the smoke shifted, we could see the magma down below. It was pretty cool. We hung out for a while taking it all in and all of a sudden we saw fire. It is an active volcano. As long as it wasn't going to erupt, the more fire the better. I guess people don't always see fire, so we got pretty lucky.

The top.

It was official. I hiked up one of Chile's most active volcanoes at 2860 meters (9380 feet). After breathing in enough smoke, it was time to descent. We headed back to where our stuff was waiting and put on a bunch of gear to sled down. Yes slide down.

Sledding gear.

I was excited, but also a little nervous as we were pretty high up and it looked like you could go flying off the mountain. I didn't know how this was actually going to work. But it was pretty straightforward as they had a path that zig zagged down the mountain. It was a ton of fun. Since it's summer and the snow is melting, we didn't get to go down as far as I would have liked, but we got to do a substantial part of the mountain. There were a few run-ins with the people in front of and behind me. But no one was harmed. When you carry an ice pick down while sledding down a mountain, you can't help but think about it.

Sledding down.

After our sledding, we hiked down the rest of the mountain and made our way back to town. I headed to the beach again and relaxed. I got to hike up a mountain with a glacier, see fire in the volcano, go sledding down a part of the way and top it off with a swim in the lake. Pretty cool to do all in one day. 

The following day was my last day in Pucon before hopping on another over night bus back to Santiago. I caught up on a bunch of things and took a walk to the lake to grab one last beer. After dinner, I grabbed my things, and headed to the bus station. Next stop Valparaiso, via Santiago. 

I heart Pucon.