Over a long a weekend, a friend and I traveled to Pucon, a popular tourist destination. It was a great trip, and I really recommend it to anyone who goes to Chile. Link to Trip Advisor
We mainly used the lonely planet guide book, to structure the trip, with the following itinerary:
Day 0:
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Leave Santiago and take overnight bus to Pucon. We got dropped off at 4am in a terminal in a different city, we hung around and asked each bus si ‘va a Pucon’! It was stressful but everything worked out OK.
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Fall asleep on the bus…
Day 1:
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We arrived in Pucon early in the morning and walked around on a path near the lake.
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Checked into ecole, a hostel. I was happy with the accomodations
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Reserved a next day trip up Volcano Villaricca
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Checked out bikes and rode all the way to Lago Caburga
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Very tired, rode back, ate dinner at the supermarket and collapsed
Day 2:
- Woke up early and embarked on our tour up Villarica. Still one of the best experiences of my life. After a car ride to the base of the mountain, and a short explanation of gear (ice pick included!) we started the ascent. The volcano is very steep, so we went up doing switchbacks. It took about 6 hours to reach the top, afterwhich one of our companions revealed that he had carried a 6-pack of beer!
At the summit
- The most incredible part was the descent. We took out plastic trays that we had carried up, and slid down the mountain. It was very fast.
The descent
- By the time we finished the descent, it was getting dark. We had some bread for dinner, walked around town, and called it a day.
Day 3:
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Again, we woke up early and took a local bus to huerquehue parque nacional (Beautiful Google Images), a beautiful national park on the outskirts of town.
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After spending the day there, we headed back to Pucon (Careful, only a couple of buses a day. The driver on the way there in the morning will have info about the departure time).
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Quickly grabbed dinner, and jumped on the bus back to Santiago!