Pucon

Just a side note before we get on with this blog. Just received my package from home - finally - and my mum sent me chocolate! And a great letter. So I'm feeling very happy. So an already very happy event, being this weekend, will probably be painted as even happier :D

Thursday

So on Thursday we went to Pucon with the girls from Chol Chol. Arrived to a cloud-less, blue sky, a great view of the Volcan Villarrica and a beautiful little town of Pucon. It looked slightly Swiss with polished wooden buildings, signs, benches, flowerbeds... everything. Our hostel was literally one block up from the bus stop. As we noticed it Hannah said, "oh there it is" and we were really surprised when a guys standing nearby said, "well found girls." There were so many people around who were able to speak English because Pucon is quite touristy. When we went to a tour agency to book some tours the lady there was English. Really friendly. It was strange not standing out by being gringas. We didn't get a single sleazy wave or car horn beeped at us the whole weekend. It was great!
Our hostel was quite nice. We shared a room but we had a kitchen to cook in and a nice living room to relax in. And it was cheap which is a plus! We ditched our bags and went to stroll around town. Really pretty. The bus terminal looked like a Swiss-chalet! And the street dogs there were much better fed, much bigger and looked quite a lot like bears. So cute.
We sat on the beach to have a picnic dinner and it was really pretty. Lago Villarrica is huge and pretty. People were kayaking and out on paddle boats and swimming. Really nice.

Evacuation route sign

Amina, me and Danielle on la playa

Lago Villarrica

Volcan Villarrica

sunset

us on the bus on the way to Pucon

Friday

We went horse riding on Friday!!! :D I love horse riding! It was quite funny because only Hannah had any real experience with horse riding, and the rest of us were just shown how to hold the reins and that was it. And we weren't given helmets. We probably would have been met with a confused expression if we had asked. I loved it. Having had a little experience I knew a bit more what to do and didn't get thrown around as much as Danielle and Amina when we were trotting. We were with a Mapuche guide who chatted to me quite a lot about the Mapuche and showed me a leaf that they use to cure stomach and chest infections. My horse was called Chincol which is a Mapuche word for a bird in the mountains. When we started heading up a mountain I got a little freaked out. But you just had to trust your horse and you were fine. We stopped about half-way up this huge mountain and took photos before heading back down. Did some major trotting afterwards which was great fun.

There was a woman on the tour who was 70 years old but seemed around 60. She said she had 21 grandchildren and most of them had gone backpacking so why couldn't she! It was great! So she's backpacking around South America for three months. She's from Edinburgh but sounded really English and really reminded me of Granny. She was great.

In the afternoon we chilled on the beach and in the evening we hit the hot springs! About 40 minutes away from Pucon we relaxed for two hours in a 42°C natural, volcano heated hot spring. Really nice. We found the hottest part of the hot spring and took turns sitting in front of it. There were about 6 springs but we stayed in the hottest one.

Pucon from the hill

Chincol y yo

Us on the mountain

Saturday

Slept in for most of the morning because we didn't get back from the hot springs until half 12. We chilled on the beach and then me, Amina and Hannah went kayaking on the lake. So nice. Hard on your arm muscles but the water was nice and cool and the views of the lake and the volcano were really pretty. Yeh really not much to say about such a lazy day. We walked around a market and saw lots of lovely wooden things. We bought Ruth a serviette holder because the other one broke. She wants us to write our names on it. 

Volcan Villarrica from the lake

kayaking on the lake

Sunday

On Sunday morning me, Hannah and Danielle went on a different horse riding tour because we'd had such a good time the first time. Amina likes to be alone sometimes so she wandered around Pucon and I'm pretty sure she walked to the cemetery. My horse this time was called Morena and was really good. Really eager to go faster. Me and Hannah spent most of the time in front of everyone trotting and cantering! We stopped halfway up a hill and went on a little walk to find a 84 meter high hidden waterfall. Stunning. We got really wet from the spray. On the horse ride back me and Hannah were in front again and just had so much fun. I loved it! Horse for my birthday please!!

We took the bus back to Temuco on Sunday afternoon. Ruth and Sergio were so happy to see us when we got home, it was really cute! They were very happy that we'd had a good time and that we weren't sunburnt. It was a very sunny weekend so we had had to slap on the suncream. Ruth told us we were "tanto blancito" and said that we could buy bronzer if we wanted to be darker which we found hilarious! Had to explain that our skin colour wasn't really of any great importance to us.

the 84 meter waterfall - very hard to get it all on the screen

I'm glad this stayed at green for our visit

Much love to all. Hope you're all well! Especially you guys in the States! xxx