Southern Chile: Pucon

Pucón

Foodies

We cooked most of the time. The supermarket there is BIG.

Cassi’s- Though it’s on the other side of town (with all the fancier restaurants and stores), the walk was definitely worth the delicious dessert crepe. Cassi’s is a restauranat/bakery/chocolate artesan/ice cream shop. They also have a variety of teas and coffees to choose from.

SLEEP

Hostal Victor- It was only 1 block from the JAC bus station which we took from Valdivia. Cabin-like interior, clean, warm, good beds, 2 kitchens, WiFi (but paid use of their computer), and best yet private rooms (with TVs) with own bathrooms were very affordable. Victor and his family are super nice and will tell you places to go and what buses to take. We arranged our horseback riding/Mapuche tour through him which happened to be a little cheaper than what Aguaventura and other agencies charged.

TO DO

ANYTHING and EVERYTHING OUTDOORSY and EXTREME SPORTS.

I was planning to do the Volcan Villarrica excursion, but after some thought, it seemed a bit expensive and time consuming to have to go to the volcano at 7am daily to see if the weather conditions were good enough to climb it. However, seeing the smoke come out of its snowy top was pretty COOL!

-Caburgua- Take the Caburgua bus (every 30 minutes) to see the following:

• Lago Caburgua and Playa Blanca- It’s a huge lake with peddle boats and tour boats to go around the lake. It was a bit overcast when I went so a short stroll on the beach was enough for me.
• Ojos del Carburgua- A short walk to several beautiful ponds and waterfalls.
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-Parque Nacional Huerqueque (Entrance $2.500 with Chilean ID or $4.000 for foreigners)- Take a bus from the Caburgua station. To maximize your time, 8:30am is the best option. A 4-5 hour hike allows you to see a couple waterfalls and lakes. It was SUPER muddy when I went since it had rained for several days before. However, it was a beautiful day when I went and I was happy to see Volcan Villarrica from afar.

-Los Posones Hot Springs- Take a bus from the Caburgua station or from other bus agencies. It’s a 1 hour bus ride out to 6 natural hot springs where the next one is hotter than the previous. It’s in a beautiful setting next to a set of rapids and tree covered mountains. Note: After you pay your entrance fee (4.000CLP) at the reception, you will have to walk down a dirt road. Take the 2x4 and not the 4x4 path to shave off some distance. Bring your own towel and lock.

-Tour of Mapuche Land/Horseback Riding

• All the horses were well groomed and appeared healthy. Mapuche usually own horses for use during celebrations and in our instance for tourism too.
• Our Mapuche guide told me from the beginning that my horse was “flojo” (lazy) so I would have to hit it with the reed. I didn’t really want to and it didn’t work when I did. In fact, he steered off the main path a couple times to eat and unfortunately some were thorn bushes. Thankfully we were given huge ponchos and gaiters to protect us from rain, but in my instance it was from thorns..ha ha.

My horse did speed up (when my guide told me that we had to go back and made sounds with his lips to my horse) and whoo whee, my stomach bounced up and down like crazy. I had to go into jockey mode by half-standing up and leaning forward. Kind of fun, but scary too.

• We ate some traditional Mapuche foods (as well as Chilean foods) inside a traditional straw hut. My favorite was the Mudai drink made with wheat, sugar, honey, and water. I also liked the fried bean paste rolled into balls.
• Tried on traditional clothes with traditional music instruments with my friend, Jeremy.
• My perspective of the Mapuche was altered with our visit. I had seen so much in the news and heard from Chileans on their perspective of the Mapuche that for some reason I thought it would be difficult to approach them. I had this perception that all Mapuche were resistant to change, but we were informed that many of them were very much adapted to Chilean life and I was surprised that many of them preferred to speak Chilean rather than their native language. In the community that we visited, there was a school for up to 5th graders. After 5th grade, the students would have to go outside of the Mapuche community to take classes. I learned about a celebration that they have every 4 years where the whole community comes together for 2 days and sacrifice horses, cows, sheep, etc. for a huge feast as a way to give thanks to each other and possibly spiritual too as many of them are Catholic. However, many Chileans that I have spoken to insist that there are still many Mapuche that avoid interactions with Chileans so perhaps the ones that we met were very tourist friendly.