Pucon is the definition of sleepy. This little town (they call it a city, but it's the smallest city I've ever seen) chills at the bottom of Villarrica volcano which is not only one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world but also currently the most active in Chile. You can see the snowy triangle puffing happily away from almost everywhere in the town and its presence seems more a thing of beauty than a threat. Bright white against the stark blue sky during the day and glowing pink during sunset, it's hard to imagine this towering town icon hurting a fly. The daily volcano warning sirens that get tested every morning at 11:30am are , however, a sharp reminder that this smoking triangle is to be taken seriously.
This very same volcano, that claimed scores of lives in it's eruption of 71 was in fact the only reason we had decided to venture to Pucon. It had been our dream for months now to hike up, peer in and ride down this living legend. Our dreams however were not to be fulfilled, well not this time anyway.
It would seem that our bad luck was to continue in the form of bad weather conditions. The night we arrived in Pucon was one of the windiest nights I have ever witnessed, and we're from Scotland so that's saying something. As we lay tucked up in our bed I was sure that the brittle tin roof of our hostel was going to be ripped off, thankfully it stay put. The high winds sadly continued for 2 whole days, and as we peered up at Villarrica each morning it broke our heart to see all the good snow (polvo) getting blown right off.
In an attempt to distract ourselves we decided to spend some time exploring what else Pucon had to offer us. Turns out that wasn't much. Because we were there during 'off season' anything slightly exciting wasn't an option so we decided to visit the Termas Los Pozones which are natural hot springs. That kept us amused for one day and I even saw a young man with two bellybuttons, probably the highlight of my trip to Pucon. Once you've done the hot springs there's not much else to do apart from walk around the lake or go hillwalking, you already know our thoughts on that one. Now I know what some of you are thinking; “well why didn't you just go to the pub and drink your time away?”. After much hunting we discovered that pubs either don't exist or are very well hidden in Pucon. Restaurants? Check. Street vendors? Check. Dodgy local eateries with painted food (usually a hot dog or burger) on the front? Check. Pubs? Not a sausage. Although quite upsetting at the time we have come to the decision that this unusual lack of pubs was probably a good thing (?) and no doubt saved us A LOT of cash.
On our third day of doing not much our hostel tour guide who, for some reason thought I was fluent in Spanish, caught me off guard and tried to convince me to join his group to hike the volcano the next day. Thankfully unlike him it would seem, we had checked the weather forecast and had seen that high winds were to continue, so politely declined his kind offer to take our money. Nice try though mate.
Four whole, windy, days went past and despair started to kick in. On the fifth day the winds finally stopped but left nothing behind on Villarrica but sheet ice, which we didn't really fancy conquering. We accepted defeat, mainly due to the fact that we were extremely bored and didn't want to even contemplate spending another three days in this town twiddling our thumbs, waiting for fresh snow and walking around that bloody lake. A hasty decision was made to escape to Santiago where the thought of civilisation and, more importantly, pubs excited us greatly.
You win this time Pucon but don't you worry, we'll be back in a few weeks. You shall be slayed.
Hasta mananas, keep on puffin!
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