Thursday, May 13, 2010

Rendezvous @ Pucon -2

The city of Pucon is the home of the 2,847-meter-high Villarrica volcano , one of the ten most active volcanos in the world, which has permanent fumaroles that may be observed from the urban shell. From the moment we stepped down from the bus the following image of Villarrica volcano kept following us where ever we went.



Straight away from the bus stand we rushed to our youth hostel ‘Hospedaje M@yra’. Youth hostels are really convenient place for all back packers in Pucon where the stay and food arrangement is offered at very nominal rate. They offer stay, cooking facility and free internet. We could meet so many backpackers from different part of the world here. Thanks to lonely planet from which I could get address of this youth hostel.


Even though I had done online booking of accommodation for only me, on request the hostel owner provided accommodation for Mani as well. This gave us positive thrust to just run for de tour of Pucon as it saved lot of time of searching good hotel accommodation.

Within no time we got ready and straightway headed towards the travel agency offices on Main Street of pucon. Luckily we could find one English speaking receptionist there. He helped us out to plan our itinerary for our stay at pucon and made necessary bookings for all guided tours.
Day :1

1. Caburgua Eyes, Magnificent Water Pools

Just 17 kms from Pucon there is magnificent scenery of roaring waterfalls coming through underground paths from Lake Caburgua. They gather in the middle of the lush forest through several small waterfalls and form little sparkling pools and transparent streams. Breathe taking place....






2. Lago Azul

The serene blue water of this lake made us speechless. We just stood there for 15 minutes in silence. Feel of eternal peace near this a divinely blue lake recharged us completely ....












3. Villarrica Lake

This beautiful lake is famous for its calm waters and water sports. This is the only place where we found crowd in Pucon. It is known as family hangout place. It is said that every summer an approximately 70,000 tourists arrive to its shores.









4. Hot spring Resorts

Most Volcanic Thermal Springs are nowadays part of hotel premises or resorts in Pucon. However you can find it convenient to stay in the not-so-cheap hotels, and have it as a base for more activities. There is no doubt the locations are excellent! Some of the names are Huife, Menetue, Palquin, Panqui, and San Luis. Others are in wonderful natural locations such as Termas Geometricas at the foot of a gorge.

Almost all resorts here have various thermal pools with different temperatures. An authentic place to relax and get rid of stress. We couldn’t afford to stay in such costly resorts but at least we could visit it for few hours…


Day-2
1. Villarrica Volcano hiking

The Villarrica Volcano is one of the biggest attractions for visitors to the tourist city of Pucon. Its original name is Rucapillan, which in the Mapuche language means "House of the devil". Its cloud of smoke, subtle though steady, makes the many tourists that visit the area to watch its explosions of magma from the proximities of the crater feel astonished. One of the most active volcanoes in Chile; the Villarrica has had 82 historical eruptions so far. The most tragic was in December 1971 and the last one was registered in 1984.

Volcano hiking a different, challenging and unique activity; that’s what climbing the volcano Villarrica meant to me. Pucon has this one peculiar view: a big and beautiful volcano that seems to be just a few blocks away.

Most of the agencies at the main street can take you to this trip. Rain and bad weather could ruin the whole activity. The money is not refunded because of weather circumstances if the climbing has already begun. I would suggest who ever goes for Volcano hiking in Pucon should have check on weather forecast.

The climb begins in the morning and it takes 4 to 5 hours to reach the summit, depending on the weather and mostly on your physical conditions. I and Mani started our hiking early in morning around 4 am with fellow 12 team members coming from various countries. We were given entire set of equipments which were needed for hiking from the travel agency itself. 3 guides were accompanying us to take us to the summit. Amongst them only one knew English.

As I explained in my previous post my father already warned me no to try any trekking adventure due to my injury. But marvellous beauty of Villarrica volcano tempted me so much that I couldn’t control myself. I preferred to try my level best to triumph this Volcano and reach the summit.

The sunrise view amidst volcanic range was one of the most unforgettable moments of my life. Those days another volcano of Chile named Lliama had recently irrupted. Lliama volcano can be seen from villarrica volcano as well. After reaching to considerable height we could see spectacular view of Lliama volcano. That moment i cannot describe in words here. The following photo clicked without zoom shows Lliama volcano in upper most part.


My ligament injury in left knee started to irrupt again before I reach the summit! Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a very good shape either so that I sustain my stamina to climb higher. After 6 hours going up, I finally had to start my way down.

After we reached base camp all i had to do was to wait for my friend Mani to come back. Suddenly the guide who came with me down to the base camp asked me to listen to the message on his wireless instrument. The reason behind that was the person was speaking in English :) and no need to mention that the guide hardly could understand English. Message was addressed to me and they told that my friend Mani is coming back!!!! That’s it... nothing more.

I was so much worried as I was completely unaware why she is coming back. Thoughts of she might have got sick or fallen made me so anxious. My anxiety made me behave strange a bit. Every 2 minutes I used to go to my guide and ask in my poor Spanish only three words ’Me Amiga… Informacion…’ [My Friend. Information...]

He was getting so much annoyed but he fully cooperated and helped me to get information... I could only hear Spanish voices sent over wireless... 'Dos chicas... Hindu chicas... %%%$$$$&'. There was no sign of her return even after 1 hour ...guide also got tensed that why she is taking so much time to come back....

I literally started now shouting on him why you guys are not able to locate her and tell me when she will return. Even though he couldn’t understand my English cries... but he interpreted my expressions... He took out his high zoom camera and started searching Mani through it. Luckily after 5 minutes he could locate her... and asked me to see her through his camera... a big sigh of relief that she is fine.

On her return she gave me this reason that she lost motivation to climb up once I came down half way so immediately after 15 minutes she also decided to come back to base camp. That ghanchakkar girl was posing for photos in all directions there and it was the reason of her late return.

A funny and freezing experience for me! Well, my left knee remained swollen for 2 days after that, but it was the most unforgettable part of my trip of Pucon.

Day-3

1. Villarrica national Park and Volcanic caves

First agenda of the day was an excursion to the interior of a volcanic cave forged by the lava during one of the eruptions, which lies on the foothills of the volcano Villarrica in Villarrica national Park .


On arrival the authorities supplied us with safety elements like helmets and torches. We entered the house of the volcanoes, where we were given a lecture on volcano logy. Lava flows, eruptions and a chronology of all recorded activity of the Villarrica are presented in this place.

Although our guide who claimed herself as English speaking guide, her English speaking ability was equivalent to our Spanish speaking/understanding ability. So the end result was we gained very minimal information from her lecture :). But looking inside the core heart of mother earth and to have closer look at few of the minerals, solidified lava inside the caves gave us very unique experience to cherish for the lifetime.
The very fact of thinking that we were inside an underground lava river very close to the volcano was a fascinating experience hard to forget. Our guide asked us to keep quiet and turn off our torches. The impenetrable darkness invaded me completely. I could see or hear nothing at all. Utter darkness gave me feeling like I am almost in a black hole.

2. Horse back riding to Salto claro waterfall

We came back from volcanic caves tour around 1.30 pm. Our return bus was at 8 pm in night, so we had still 6 hours with us to explore pucon more. As per our itinerary we finished all excursions around pucon. We were supposed to take rest after lunch till we pack our bags and go to bus stand for our return journey.

We had it all but still one thing was remaining which was horse back riding and waterfall. We both never wanted to go from Pucon without exploring these two activities. Within no time we decided to dump our rest session. Real pain started now to search for guided tour operator for that.

Almost all tourist agency offices were having fewer staff members as their fellow colleagues were off for lunch. Who ever we could find on reception desk was turning out to explain only in Spanish. Our funny Spanish conversation as it goes...

Me: Hola Senora..Otro tour.. Pucon...informacion porfavor...

Receptionist: Hola Senorita...%%%@@@######..

Mani: Hetal you go back I will handle her Spanish... [And she goes on... ] Senora... Agua.....hmmmm...

[Actually we knew word Agua in Spanish--which means water.. but no idea of Spanish word for 'Waterfall'. Receptionist gave two glass of water to both of us!!!!!! Thanks to Mani's Spanish attempt to explain that lady waterfall.]

Mani: Hetal let me try again to make her understand. Today our luck is not in our favour like first day that day how easily we found the English speaking receptionist. But never mind we will not lose courage... here I go... 'Gracious Senora, Water fall... Agua..Agua...Agua....[and she does acting for rest of the 'fall' word waving her hands down to explain her water coming down.... Receptionist had to interpret that we mean waterfall....:)]

Receptionist: $$$$$$$%%%^^^^^^!!!!!!!*****

No doubt why we are not in acting career.... we couldn’t enact simple Waterfall word and make receptionist understand the same.
After struggling for 10 minutes we decided to wait in reception area till English speaking receptionist comes back and helps us with finding our best deal for visiting waterfall and horse back riding. I picked up tourist magazine lying on a nearby table to just pass the time. And ahhh we found beautiful picture of waterfall on it. We were very much delighted as now at least we could show this lady a picture of waterfall and ask for information.

She finally understood what we wanted and straight away showed us her quotation for Waterfall tour on her computer. Immediately she arranged one driver and cab for us to reach the place from where we could hire horses to reach the ultimate destination.

On the way our driver told us that he is taking us to one of the beautiful and serene place of Pucon Salto Claro waterfall. Only way to reach there was through trekking or horse back riding. He helped us to hire 2 horses for us and a horse guide as well. But unfortunately as we didn’t book in advance we couldn’t find English speaking horse guide there...

Initially we were frightened to go for horse back riding with a guide with whom we will not be able to communicate in case of emergency. But our driver assured us that it will not be troublesome at all. So we decided to try our luck and headed on towards Salto Claro waterfall. After riding on horse about an hour our guide asked us to get down and start trekking into forest.

It was the steep Claro River ravine which ended in a spectacular water fall. A far-away beam of light caught our attention. A wonderful waterfall hidden amidst the native forest of Pucon. This fantastic waterfall hypnotized us with its sound. I am not able to find any word to describe the beauty of flora and fauna of the particular place... may be the photo will make for it...

As we moved farther from the city on our return journey in bus, I turned round to see the Villarrica for the last time. Such a satisfying experience… I could finally visit one of the most beautiful Mother Nature’s creations in the world. Truly Pucon is amalgamation of heavenly beauty of nature, quality tourist accommodations, efficient tourism agencies, hundreds of tourist activities and excursions.