Liz Goes To Chile!: Weekend in Pucon

On Thursday night (August 13^th) a group of friends and I left Santiago at 11:15pm for a ten hour bus ride to Pucon (located in the southern part of Chile in the Lakes Region). We arrived around 10:00am the next morning and found a cute hostel located two blocks away from the bus station. After settling in, we took a bus up to Los Polzones, a set of thermal baths (termas) built next to a river. The first pool was around the temperature of a lukewarm bath which would have been nice had it not been raining and very freezing outside. The next terma was the exact opposite; we all felt like lobsters in boiling water and by the end of fifteen minutes, my legs were bright red. I went and sat in the frigid river for a little bit to cool off. After spending about four hours at the thermas, we returned to our hostel where we made tacos. Never have tacos tasted so good. We even found taco seasoning at the supermercado for taco meat!

The next day we woke up around 7:00am to go skiing/snowboarding on the Volcan Villarrica. The Volcan Villarrica is an active volcano with a lava lake within its crater. Before I left for Pucon, I was talking to my cousin Sean on facebook chat and he said I had to go skiing/snowboarding in the Andes. Even though I had never been snowboarding, I took Sean’s advice and joined the ski/snowboard group and now I can say that I snowboarded on the side of an active volcano! Basically, the entire time we were in Pucon it rained, so as we made our way up the Volcan Villarrica, it was snowing pretty heavily.

Stopping to put chains on the car was an excellent opportunity to play in the snow.

When we were purchasing our lift tickets, the cashier told us there was a significant possibility that the lifts would close due to the weather conditions. We took our chances and our gamble paid off; we were practically the only people on the runs and the snow was the freshest powder imaginable. However, for the first hour and a half on the Volcan, I was miserable. I could not stand up on the snowboard and every time I ventured forward, I always seemed to be heading close to the trail marker and into illegal territory. These were not exactly the best conditions to learn in: I could barely see the trail in front of me and strong winds turned the snow into ice bullets. So for the first hour and a half, I pretty much threw a pity party for myself. However, my snowboarding skills improved and by the second half of the day, I was carving and actually making it down the mountain on the snowboard and not on my butt. This week, I went snowboarding again and went down the intermediate and advanced runs. Progress! I would post a picture of the Volcan Villarrica but unfortunately due to the weather conditions, we never even saw the volcano that we skied/snowboarded on.

Our ski group at Ski Pucon

On Sunday morning, we went to the Transcura canopy which is the longest zipline in all of South America. This 1 kilometer zipline was a little different than the canopy in Cajon de Maipo. Instead of Firestone tires, each individual person was their own breaking system. We were given a pair of thick leather gloves and braked using our hands. I prefer the Firestone tires because you could feel the heat from the friction when you put your hands on the cable. This activity was also done in the rain and by the time we all completed the canopy, we were muddy and soaked. We returned to the hostel, changed and went to the Lago Villarrica.

So happy to be in Chile!