My trip to Pucón was very memorable for a few reasons all of which should be explained. Some of these memories are great, others terrifying and some damn right embarrassing. This part will cover the latter two.
The way I would describe Pucón is as the adventure capital of Chile. The city itself is not much to look at, although it is a lot nicer and stands out a bit more than many of the other towns I have visited, probably due to its booming tourist industry.
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The way I would describe Pucón is as the adventure capital of Chile. The city itself is not much to look at, although it is a lot nicer and stands out a bit more than many of the other towns I have visited, probably due to its booming tourist industry.
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The Most Memorable View From the Town - The Volcán Villarica (Villarica Volcano)
The town is located about 10 hours south of Santiago by bus. Seriously, whereas in the past, travelling to London for 4 hours seemed daunting, when I get back to the UK, it will be such a breeze.
So the town acts as a base for many great surrounding natural features such as the Villarica Volcano, natural thermal pools, one of the only glaciers outside of Patagonia and the gigantic Caburgua lake. It is also great for a bike ride, maybe not so much in my case which I will get to later, with it being surrounded by a black sand and a white sand beach, as well as some interesting historical features.
So the town acts as a base for many great surrounding natural features such as the Villarica Volcano, natural thermal pools, one of the only glaciers outside of Patagonia and the gigantic Caburgua lake. It is also great for a bike ride, maybe not so much in my case which I will get to later, with it being surrounded by a black sand and a white sand beach, as well as some interesting historical features.
View of the Caburgua Lake
I visited the town after my final exams in December with a Guatemalan, a Brazilian, Pedro, who has messaged me on Facebook to ask that I include him in my blog posts, and another guy who has grown up in many different countries so asking him where he is from proves to be a very difficult question. Coincidentally at the same time another girl I knew was travelling down to Pucón, and as our plans coincided, we decided to travel together.
We arrived on the 10th December after an overnight bus ride to save money on a hostel. It was a nice day when we arrived and fortunately our hostel was right around the corner from the bus terminal, so we walked over there. When we got there, it was very awkward. We stood outside ringing the bell for what seemed like an eternity, assuming that the gate was locked. Apparently we were very fortunate because just within the gate was a sheep, and because I am Welsh, I can speak sheep just as well as Dory can speak whale. So the official story goes that I had a great conversation with the sheep, and it was very helpful in fact. He suggested that we open the gate and just head inside the hostel to look for clues as to where the owner was. Needless to say, we took his advice.
When we got inside, it was about 8am, and we were stood in the lounge like idiots not knowing what to do. Everybody, if anybody, was asleep and the only sign of life was a cute cat that followed us around like a bad smell the entire time. About 30 minutes had passed, and our patience was waring thin when finally a German lady came with her 5 year-old girl to check us in. The mystery of the mysterious hostel was solved and we were able to move on with our trip.
So the first day turned out to be very eventful, although only for me. So an embarrassing secret you may not know about me is that as a kid I could never ride a bike. Whereas I was hesitant to admit it before, now I just find it funny. So when on the first day everyone wanted to go on a bike ride through the town, I was very sceptical so I flat out admitted that I could not ride one and would prefer to do the bus tour.
However, Pedro, the Brazilian hero who I mentioned earlier that has been messaging me so that I mention his name more in my blog posts, offered to teach me. I took him up on the offer and 2 minutes later I was on the street with him on a rental bike experiencing the most embarrassing 5 minutes of the year. I picked up on it very quickly, although I was still getting used to the gears and brakes and before I knew it, I was thrown into the deep end and riding the bike on one of the main, busy roads of the town. I was lagging behind a bit wobbly and nervous but I soon got the hang of it, or so I thought.
After the main road, we ended up cycling on a bridge over a beautiful river commonly used for rafting. We stopped and took some photos, and 5 minutes later would be the end of the bike ride for me. The path soon turned gravelly and the majority of it was uphill. The sun was mocking us and made the ride all the more difficult, so when the path suddenly stopped being uphill and became a very surprising and long hill down, we were all taken a bit of guard.
Bare in mind I was very tired, and also pretty nervous. I was going fast and of course I worried so tried to slow down. Although I know which brake does what, I panicked and accidentally held down on the wrong one. Suddenly, the front wheel of the bike locked up, and I lost control and found myself bounding over the side of the hill with the bike following after me. The next part sort of happened very quick, but I remember being terrified. I was conscious, and things could have been a lot worse so I count myself lucky. Barbed wire is never something you expect to get excited about, but it was a bit of a life saver.
I was trapped and unable to move because I had a huge bit of barbed wire sliced through my knee and my chest. Fortunately, it did not dig very deep so no blood was seeping out, but the fact I could not move was horrible. It sliced through my shorts, my t-shirt, my right nipple and my skin. Fortunately me for me, there was a tree next to me to support myself on to stop myself sliding further down the hill which was actually pretty steep.
So two cars which were passing by stopped and helped pull me out of the barbed wire and carry me back up the hill. It was a bit hard to walk, let alone cycle, so the day for me ended there. I told my friends to carry on, and a couple who had also stopped drove me back into the town and took me to the hospital.
We arrived on the 10th December after an overnight bus ride to save money on a hostel. It was a nice day when we arrived and fortunately our hostel was right around the corner from the bus terminal, so we walked over there. When we got there, it was very awkward. We stood outside ringing the bell for what seemed like an eternity, assuming that the gate was locked. Apparently we were very fortunate because just within the gate was a sheep, and because I am Welsh, I can speak sheep just as well as Dory can speak whale. So the official story goes that I had a great conversation with the sheep, and it was very helpful in fact. He suggested that we open the gate and just head inside the hostel to look for clues as to where the owner was. Needless to say, we took his advice.
When we got inside, it was about 8am, and we were stood in the lounge like idiots not knowing what to do. Everybody, if anybody, was asleep and the only sign of life was a cute cat that followed us around like a bad smell the entire time. About 30 minutes had passed, and our patience was waring thin when finally a German lady came with her 5 year-old girl to check us in. The mystery of the mysterious hostel was solved and we were able to move on with our trip.
So the first day turned out to be very eventful, although only for me. So an embarrassing secret you may not know about me is that as a kid I could never ride a bike. Whereas I was hesitant to admit it before, now I just find it funny. So when on the first day everyone wanted to go on a bike ride through the town, I was very sceptical so I flat out admitted that I could not ride one and would prefer to do the bus tour.
However, Pedro, the Brazilian hero who I mentioned earlier that has been messaging me so that I mention his name more in my blog posts, offered to teach me. I took him up on the offer and 2 minutes later I was on the street with him on a rental bike experiencing the most embarrassing 5 minutes of the year. I picked up on it very quickly, although I was still getting used to the gears and brakes and before I knew it, I was thrown into the deep end and riding the bike on one of the main, busy roads of the town. I was lagging behind a bit wobbly and nervous but I soon got the hang of it, or so I thought.
After the main road, we ended up cycling on a bridge over a beautiful river commonly used for rafting. We stopped and took some photos, and 5 minutes later would be the end of the bike ride for me. The path soon turned gravelly and the majority of it was uphill. The sun was mocking us and made the ride all the more difficult, so when the path suddenly stopped being uphill and became a very surprising and long hill down, we were all taken a bit of guard.
Bare in mind I was very tired, and also pretty nervous. I was going fast and of course I worried so tried to slow down. Although I know which brake does what, I panicked and accidentally held down on the wrong one. Suddenly, the front wheel of the bike locked up, and I lost control and found myself bounding over the side of the hill with the bike following after me. The next part sort of happened very quick, but I remember being terrified. I was conscious, and things could have been a lot worse so I count myself lucky. Barbed wire is never something you expect to get excited about, but it was a bit of a life saver.
I was trapped and unable to move because I had a huge bit of barbed wire sliced through my knee and my chest. Fortunately, it did not dig very deep so no blood was seeping out, but the fact I could not move was horrible. It sliced through my shorts, my t-shirt, my right nipple and my skin. Fortunately me for me, there was a tree next to me to support myself on to stop myself sliding further down the hill which was actually pretty steep.
So two cars which were passing by stopped and helped pull me out of the barbed wire and carry me back up the hill. It was a bit hard to walk, let alone cycle, so the day for me ended there. I told my friends to carry on, and a couple who had also stopped drove me back into the town and took me to the hospital.
Injured and Still Smiling with the Pucón Group and Pedro (the Guy to my Left)
Now, almost everything in Chile is privatized, including the healthcare. This is because of the neoliberal economic model imposed by General Augusto Pinochet, a former dictator who led the Chile from 1973 to 1990, after a US-backed successful military coup. The logic behind the model was thought of by Milton Friedman, an economist from the University of Chicago. It stated that in times of economical disaster, if you give the economy to private corporations by privatizing all public services, the economy will eventually fix itself.
Having forgotten to ask my friends for the keys to our room in the hostel, I had no access to my insurance documents, nor my money. It would have cost me roughly £30 to see a doctor, and I would have had to pay more for any medicine, any equipment he used, etc. Instead, we asked a doctor who was passing by just to recommend me how to treat the injuries, and instead of paying a fortune, the couple to whom I am extremely grateful offered to pay for my medicine which included anti-inflammatory pills, medicinal alcohol and cotton.
The couple gave me a lift back to the hostel, gave me their phone number and also added me on Facebook. They were kind enough to even message me on Facebook and ask me how my recovery was going. It turned out that they owned some cabins down on the Caburgua lake and they even offered me a discount if I was to ever return. Unfortunately, I will not be going back just yet, but I hope to see them again if I visit in the future.
I spent the day in the bathroom rubbing alcohol on the slices all over my body which, given how many there were, took me about 30 minutes, and I had to do this 3 times per day.
I did not want the day to be wasted, and so in the evening, we all decided to visit the hot springs, some of which were ironically quite cold. The sky was amazing, maybe not as great as in Pichilemu given how there were some lights at the hot springs, but memorable all the same.
Fortunately, apart from my leg, I was not really in pain, although I did get some looks given how I now have two long scars stretching down both sides of my chest. One of these has almost completely faded, but the other (the nipple one) does not look like it is going anywhere soon.
At least I know how to ride a bike now, and I would totally do it again. If I come across a giant hill though, I might just hop off the bike and walk it in the future.
Having forgotten to ask my friends for the keys to our room in the hostel, I had no access to my insurance documents, nor my money. It would have cost me roughly £30 to see a doctor, and I would have had to pay more for any medicine, any equipment he used, etc. Instead, we asked a doctor who was passing by just to recommend me how to treat the injuries, and instead of paying a fortune, the couple to whom I am extremely grateful offered to pay for my medicine which included anti-inflammatory pills, medicinal alcohol and cotton.
The couple gave me a lift back to the hostel, gave me their phone number and also added me on Facebook. They were kind enough to even message me on Facebook and ask me how my recovery was going. It turned out that they owned some cabins down on the Caburgua lake and they even offered me a discount if I was to ever return. Unfortunately, I will not be going back just yet, but I hope to see them again if I visit in the future.
I spent the day in the bathroom rubbing alcohol on the slices all over my body which, given how many there were, took me about 30 minutes, and I had to do this 3 times per day.
I did not want the day to be wasted, and so in the evening, we all decided to visit the hot springs, some of which were ironically quite cold. The sky was amazing, maybe not as great as in Pichilemu given how there were some lights at the hot springs, but memorable all the same.
Fortunately, apart from my leg, I was not really in pain, although I did get some looks given how I now have two long scars stretching down both sides of my chest. One of these has almost completely faded, but the other (the nipple one) does not look like it is going anywhere soon.
At least I know how to ride a bike now, and I would totally do it again. If I come across a giant hill though, I might just hop off the bike and walk it in the future.