Chile: Santiago-Pucón

5th January 2019, the gathering of the Dragoman crews for briefing on the trip by trip leaders, Kylie and Lewis. There are 20 of us in total with some going to Buenos Aires and some all the way to Rio. After three months of travelling on my own, I did wonder how I will cope with having quite a number of people around me most of the time. A quick note to self, schedule in some quiet time to reflect and recharge to manage energy level throughout the day and trip.

Before we left Santiago, I managed to squeeze in a walk to San Cristobal with the intention of taking the funicular but the line was too long. The impatient me just walked away from the line and headed towards the walking route up to the top. It took 45 minutes to go up and half hour down the route. On route and at the top was pretty standard scenery as with the many viewpoints that I’ve been over the last few months, however it’s nice to be able to see Santiago from up high. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent packing up and getting ready to board the truck.

The truck was pretty nifty with its rustic look and arrangement, I like it especially with the hashtag #itsatrucknotabus at the front notice board. I do hope we get to have a seat at the top of the truck for some of the journey to get some fresh perspective along the road that we’ll be travelling on. There were beautiful postcard pinned all along the side of the truck on South America destinations, a mini library, a fridge, tons of blankets for cold days and everything we need to survive bush camping and long driving days. The truck is just as I imagined it, with character and spunk suitable for a bunch of misfit backpackers on the road.

The first destination was Pucón around 800km away with a stop for some wine tasting at Viño Balduzzi. Viño Balduzzi is a lovely small vineyard that produces white and red wine with facilities for wine tasting. They do have 500 acres in total all over the region so it’s a fairly large company and surprisingly to me, Asia is where their main clients are then America. Among the wines that we tasted, I like their late harvest red, it’s sweet and light.

This first drive was long and on the highway without much to do except for loo stops. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived in Pucón and it felt like I’ve been transported back to Europe. The architecture, shops and the mountains of Italian restaurants around town just reinforced that I’m back in a European ski resort during summer. Language was the only thing that reminded me that I’m in South America.

Most of us were booked on the hike up Volcan Villarica, however the weather was not in our favour for both days we were there. Annoyingly, it was perfect the day we were leaving for Bariloche. So, we had to plan our own activities and it was hard because of the rain since most activities are weather dependent.

First day, I decided to just take the bus to Parque Huerquehue for a walk around the Los Lagos loop. A few people decided to come along (Dee, Emma, Rachel and Sarah) and it was a relatively good day except for being soaked through and covered with mud. We saw the lakes, waterfalls and managed to have tea at a lovely little refugio while waiting for the next bus back to town.

After the adventure at the park, it’s time for a rest day to check on my knees plus shop for a new pair hiking boots. I was hoping that the Merrell boots will last me till Rio and looking at it, wrecked and manky, it was time to get a new one or risk hurting myself. So, it was a walk down to the beach then into town for shopping and a spot of lunch, a perfect day off.

I expected Pucón to be more spectacular but with the main activity being cancelled coupled with bad weather, it’s as good as I could make it to be. Guess I just need to come back to explore. For now, time to pack up and head over to Bariloche, Argentina.