Spring in Pucón: sendero cinco cascadas, Rucapillan volcano, termas & hydrospeed

Since October we have been living near Pucón, some 650km south of Santiago, which is one of the main tourist hubs in south-central Chile, known for its snow-capped volcanoes, temperate rain forests, beautiful lakes and hot-springs. Its picture-postcard-highlight is Rucapillan (which in the language of the Mapuche means "the house of the Spirit"), more commonly known as the Villarrica volcano.

Out on a bike ride with Señor Mario Carrasco (and Fiffi, who can never sit still for a photo), Villarrica volcano at the back

We've ventured to this part of Chile on previous occasions, but usually not for longer than a week or so at the time. This time, our plan is to stay for the entire southern summer, and explore our new neighbourhood as best as we can, time and work-load permitting. We rented a small cabin just on the edge of the National Park and 20km from town. Sorting out an internet connection was a bit of a challenge and involved installing a yagi antenna and signal amplifier, but we sort of got it to work, at least intermittently (which isn't great for skype calls with clients, obviously). But hey, one learns to adapt, during the morning it works better, so sometimes we just have to quit work early and go for a bike ride in the afternoon if nothing else helps q-:

Exploring the old logging road that winds its way up to the National Park from our cabin

October and November still had a bit of a late-winter / early-spring feel to them, which made visiting one of the many hot-springs an interesting past time. So far we went a couple of times to Termas Los Pozones and once to Termas de Panqui. Both are of the more rustic type which we prefer, the former is more easily accessible (and more busy in the high season), the latter up a 17km dirt road in the middle of the woods.

Chilling in Los Pozones

Spring has now definitely given way to summer and even the Villarrica volcano is rapidly loosing much of its snowy cover. This has opened up the opportunity for a few nice hikes (among them a very recommendable one right in our "backyard": sendero cinco cascadas).

Señor Mario Carrasco cooling off on a snow patch

We've even tried a new (at least to us) water activity which is called "hydrospeed" (AKA river boarding) and which basically is like rafting, only that instead of going down the river in a rubber dingy you're holding on to a piece of floaty foam and you use flippers to steer and propel yourself forward (where needed).

Patricia having some fun hydrospeeding

We are planning to stay around this area until the end of March, so if we find some time and inspiration we may report back in another blog post sometime soon.  Below a little slideshow with a few nice photos from the last few weeks (for high-res click here):