(Mis)Adventures in Pucón

Life's more interesting when it doesn't go as planned...

This weekend I went to Pucón, a small town in southern Chile about 10 hrs from Santiago. I left with Amanda and her friends from school, Maria and Chris, although there was a group going from AU too. I didn't sleep as much on the bus ride as I hoped, in part because they showed Raiders, in part because someone had a cat, and in part because buses just suck. We had to switch buses in Temuco, which is where the trouble started. Someone stole Chris' backpack (containing his passport) out of the overhead compartment and he had to stay and talk to the police. They told me to go ahead to Pucón since there wasn't much I could do. I felt bad, but went anyway.

I met up with the AU crew (Lauren, Shaye, Sara and Kristen) at their hostel, where they fortunately had an extra bed for me. It was a really nice hostel, eco-friendly and with a delish vegetarian restaurant. We went for a horseback ride in the mountains.

Shaye and I were the only ones who had ridden before, and neither of us for years, but that's no problem, let's go trotting and galloping around anyway. Poor Lauren was terrified but one of the guides jumped on her horse and took her all over the place. When we got to the top of the hill we left the horses and climbed down a really steep slope to get to a secret waterfall.

Kristen, Me, Sara, Lauren, Shaye

It was exhausting but well worth the effort. Our guide did it in spurs and he didn't even break a sweat. We were all panting. After a short break by the pool we climbed back up even higher to a terrifying overlook that was literally right at the cliff's edge. It was cool though.

The trail to the waterfall overlook: "Danger at 10 meters."

Upon our return to Pucón we booked a trip up the volcano (the main attraction) for the next day. The weather was a little sketchy but there was still a good chance it'd be ok, so they told us to come back the next day at 7am if it wasn't raining. Well, when we woke up at 6 (blech), it wasn't raining, but it was super cloudy and windy. We thought we'd give it a try anyway, as did the other people on our tour. At the tour office an irate Frenchman came out and told us no. Someone commented that is wasn't raining. He turned and pointed at the cloudy spot where we had seen the volcano the day before and said (you have to imagine this in a really strong French accent), "Did you see the volcano yesterday? Do you see the volcano today?" He then went inside. We went back to bed.

The volcano on Friday, when it was nice. Just taunting us.

When we woke up (again) it was cold, windy, and very close to raining. We went back to the office to figure out what we could do when we ran into Amanda&co. The police in Temuco found Chris' passport so they could come ahead to Pucón. I felt worse for leaving, but they said it was ok, no one knew. The AU girls wanted to go to the natural hot springs but Amanda was going white water rafting so I went with them.

It started raining on the way to the river but we were going to get wet anyway. Fortunately they gave us wetsuits, shoes, and jackets to wear or we would have frozen to death. Our guide was insane. He took us down rapids backwards, he purposely ran us into rocks, and whenever we hit a calm section he would start whistling this eerie song. On one little rapid he told us to stand up on the sides of the raft. Amanda and I didn't cause we were scared. When we got through it he suddenly jumped back into the boat trying to make people fall.

We did some class IV rapids, which was intense but a lot of fun. Then we pulled over to the side of the river and the guide told us to get out. The next rapid was a class VI (aka way too hard for tourists) so we had to walk around it. We had to climb a slippery hill in all our gear (and let me tell you, water shoes have zero traction). The path ended on a rocky outcrop over the river. The guides were below us in the boats saying, "Jump down! Jump down!" We had to jump off a rock at least 10 feet high into the class IV rapids river, then swim over to the rafts. I was nervous enough about this, and I know how to swim. Amanda does not. There was no other way down though, so she faced her fears and did it. Go Amanda!

I went back to their hostel to dry off, eat and nap. We made spaghetti and garlic bread and ate it by candlelight for earth hour. Once I was nice and toasty I had to go back out into the rain to get to my hostel. Apparently Pucón has a very poor drainage system and I had to do a lot of puddle jumping. Until I got to the main street, however, and saw that it had turned into a river. There was no way for me to cross without getting soaked halfway up my shins. I ended up getting a taxi driver to drive me across the street (kindly enough for free).

The next morning it was STILL RAINING so we bid Pucón ciao. Let me tell you, 10 hours on a bus goes by a whole lot faster when you are asleep. I probably slept for at least a third of this ride and it still seemed like forever. They showed House and The Dark Knight, which helped, but I was going stir crazy by the end. It was such a relief to stand up in the hot Santiago metro.

Now I am back to school. I have gotten into the habit of taking a half hour power nap every afternoon. This unfortunately tends to happen during my class on globalization. I try so hard to stay awake, but I can't do it. I always fall asleep at 3:30 and wake up at 4. The class is 90 minutes though so i don't miss that much. We've just been talking about freaking MERCOSUR for the past two weeks anyway, so whatever.

One final thought and I will end this novel of a post (it's a good one though, right? lots of adventure). On the hike we got to see the national flower of Chile, the copihue (co-pee-way). It only grows in certain climates in southern Chile and only blooms a couple months a year, so I'm glad I got to see it. It was kind of far from the path, so Sara's picture isn't that great, but you can look it up yourself if you are actually interested (I know Jenelle is!).

Disclaimer: Due to a combination of weather conditions and battery death I only managed to take one picture the entire weekend. The credit for these goes to Sara, Shaye and Lauren. Thanks guys!