Pucon, Lake District, Chile
July 19, 2013 – We are so excited to be in the part of Chile that we have been waiting to see. We woke up this morning and Wayne had a few emails to tend to so I did some sink laundry and hung our clothes to dry all over our bathroom. We got downstairs to another traditional Chilean breakfast of the usual breads, jams, fruits etc. The fruit here is so tasty. Even in the dead of winter …it is just so yummy.
We got on the road by 9:30 and headed toward Centro de Pucon where we were hoping to get info and a better map of the area. Luckily our friend at the tourist office spoke some English and we were on our way with great info and a map in hand. Our first destination…Volcan Villarrica. It is high season in the area now and there are skiers everywhere. We wanted to drive up the volcano to see how far we could get. It was a fairly easy drive and we got all the way to the end of the road to the ski area. Unfortunately for the skiers the lifts were not running today for some reason so there were a lot of people sledding instead. We walked up to the ski lodge (building) and continued to walk up what would be considered the bunny slope. We had a great view or the top of the volcano and even saw occasional puffs of smoke coming out….yikes …this one’s active! The sun was shining so it wasn’t too terribly cold. We took so many pictures. I don’t know what it is about wanting to take pics of the volcanoes…they are so awesome to look at and then to imagine the potential power and devastation that could happen in the case of an eruption…it’s crazy.
Next we headed on to an area outside of Pucon where the tour guide told us of more waterfalls that were fairly easy to get to… There are also multiple hot springs in the area where all of the falls are but we plan to visit those on another day. We drove for about an hour to a gorgeous area where there were many meadows and rolling hills with the mountain peaks and volcanoes peeking up behind…so pretty. On these roads it was not unusual to see farm animals – pigs, cows, horses, chickens, sheep, goats, DOGS cruising around..on the side of the road, sometimes in the road, sometimes on a leash…yes, we saw a pig on a leash…funny.
We visited 2 waterfalls. The first was Salto de Leon and it was gorgeous. We hiked back along the river about 750 meters along the wet and sometimes icy riverbanks until we got to the falls. Just check out the pics from today below to see how amazing it was. Of course Wayne had to get really close…there was so much mist…he came back pretty wet but said it was so beautiful because in the mist there was the most vibrant rainbow right in front of his face. He felt that he could have reached out to touch it. He tried to capture it, but says the photo just didn’t cut it.
The second waterfall was called Salto de China. It too was very gorgeous, but not quite as impressive as the first. The path to this fall was much more slippery and icy. There were frost covered bridges going over the raging rivers….very slippery ….and not much in the way of safety rails etc. The owners just let you in and send you on your way….good luck…hope you don’t slip and fall in…geez.
After the falls we drove further east and through what we think was a Mupuche reservation and almost made it to the Argentine border…we didn’t have our passports so we decided we better not get too close. We drove back into Pucon and walked around the town and looked for a place to eat dinner…it was only 5 pm and we never had lunch…so we were starving. We didn’t really find anything that interested us that was open though. In Chile people eat dinner late, like after 7:30, so we went to this cool bakery/deli and got empanadas, salami, cheeses and olives and came back to the hotel and opened yet another bottle of wine 🙂
Loving our nightly ritual of looking at pics and blogging. It is raining tonight….More later.
Comments
Ron on July 22, 2013
Wayno, I am sure with that river you were second guessing the decision to leave the fly rod home…or did you snatch one off the wall of the Pescador? Great pics…thanks for posting!
The Stockbridge on July 24, 2013
Ron, congratulations for remembering to hit the POST button. Jackass. You are correct about the water. This part of the country looks like a cross between Mammoth, MT, CO. Just beautiful. I have to say that this Blog thing is pretty cool. Take some pictures of the dogs.