Pucon

I caught the bus from Vicuna to La Serena airport at 8am and the whole day was mostly spent in transit. I was flying to the Temuco airport with a 3-hour stopover in Santiago. Check-ins were quick and I did some work in the airport and in the plane. I arrived at the Temuco airport at 4:15pm, and waited an hour to get a transfer directly to Pucon. By the time I checked in to the hostel, it was already 7:30pm.

Most agencies offering tours close at 8pm, so I rushed to the one I had in mind to inquire about hiking up the Villarica volcano. I wasn't planning on hiking the volcano the very next day, but the weather forecast looked best that day and I signed up at the last minute, for the last spot. I went to the supermarket to get some food for the hike and make dinner.

Hiking up Villarica

The next morning, I was at the tour agency at 6:30am. I left my backpack there and used the one they provided me. It was already packed with the equipment that will be needed in our ascent. There were 10 of us hiking that morning, with 3 tour guides. I started chatting with Julius from Germany. He recently started his trip and had met 2 other Germans (Leon and Jasper) and they have been traveling together.

The shuttle ride to the base of the volcano took about 45 minutes and we started our hike at around 8:30am. The hike starts at 1400m in elevation and ends at the top of the volcano at 2850m. You have an option to take a chairlift up the first 400m; 4 members (and one guide) of our group elected for that and the remaining 6 started hiking.

The first part was mostly on dirt, but it felt more like sand. With every 2 steps, you feel like you sliding a step back. One member couldn't keep the pace. He was met by one of the guides and 5 of us continued with one guide. After reaching 1800m, we started walking on snow. While other groups were wearing their ice crampons, we decided not to. I found the hiking on snow to be easier and we were making good time. We were one of the last groups to start at the base, so we were constantly passing people. When we reached 2200m, we had a short break and met up with the 4 members that took the chairlift. One of our guys found the pace to be too quick for him and joined the other group. So at the end it was the 3 Germans, Eduardo our guide, and me.

As we kept on going up, the views of the surrounding got more and more impressive. It was also getting windier and colder. After another hour or so, we got to the false summit, about 15 minutes below the actual summit. We took a short break, wore the waterproof suits given to us and took out our gas masks. We were one of the first ones to reach the summit. While we did not see any lava, the volcano crater was still fun to see. And the sulfur smell did warrant us to wear the masks.

Now it was time to head back down. For that, we were given a thin piece of plastic to be used to luge down "snow slides" built one side of the mountain. This didn't make sense at first since the mountain looked very steep, but as I did run after run, I got the hang of it and it was super fun. I did hit a few large bumps that threw me off the "luge" to land on my side.

Going down did take about an hour. We waited another hour for the rest of the team to show up and drove back to Pucon where we had few beers at the rooftop of the tour agency. It was a good decision to do the hike the first day since the next 2 days the weather wasn't as good and that agency did not organize any tours.

Day in Pucon

The next day I did some work in the morning. I then walked around Pucon. It's small town, quite similar in feel to Mont Tremblant and Banff. I found a middle eastern restaurant and had some falafel and hummus.

There are few nice treks just outside of Pucon that need a bus connections. I went to the bus station to inquire about their schedule. I was initially excited to go to the Huerquehue park, but the bus schedule was not as flexible as the one going to El Cani. And the forecast was calling for rain the next day, so I didn't want to wait in the rain for 3 hours for a bus back.

I went back to the hostel to do some work.

Santuario El Cani

The next day, I took the 7am bus to El Cani and stopped at the Santuario el Cani. The sanctuary is a privately protected forest area that was bought to prevent its deforestation.

It was already raining when I left and didn't stop until I got back. The trek is supposed to have great views and encounters with wildlife, but I could only see fog, cows, sheep and chickens! Still the forest is quite nice for hiking and it was a good practice for the Torres del Paine hikes.

The next day, I am off to Puerto Varas by bus.