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.

Rendezvous @ PUCON-1

I was getting too much exhausted by long tedious software implementation working hours at office in Chile. Day by day our office timings kept increasing and so as my frustration. I wanted a break badly. That’s how idea of visiting PUCON, awesome tourist place located in Southern Chile got highlighted in my ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind.

Even after making so much of advertisement and efforts of luring my colleagues to join my trip of Pucon; nobody agreed to come with me. Going all alone on a tour of 3 days in Spanish speaking country where you are totally stranger was not at all a comfortable idea. Above all hardly could I communicate a single sentence in Spanish. But my irresistible ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind was pushing hard to go ahead and accomplish the tour alone.

Next sequences of events are narrated as follows:

Scene: 1[Telephonic conversation with my parents—Wednesday night]

Me: “Mummy I managed to get one day leave from my work so I have finalized a trip to southern Chile this week end.

Mom: “Great. I was telling you that don’t work like donkey there. Find out at least sometime for yourself. Explore the countryside and roam around. I am happy that at last you have executed my words. Go beta have fun.”

Me: “Thank you ma.”

Mom: “How about your food? Have you enquired whether vegetarian food is available there? Who all are coming with you? How far that place is from Santiago?.........” [Long list of motherly questions kept on flowing from other side of phone… for next 5 minutes…]

Me: [Intruding my mother’s questions session] “Ma please stop all these questions… I have planned everything. I am going to stay at one of the youth hostels in Pucon. There kitchen facility is also there, if I will not get vegetarian food outside I will make vegetarian noodles and will have it. I have bought many of it.”

Mom: That’s good. But you have not answered my question. Who else is joining you on the trip?

Me: There is little catch here ma, actually I am going alone. Nobody has time or interest from my team to come with me. Above all our boss is not ready to give leave to all team members at the same time as work will get hampered. But I have planned everything. I will take bus ticket from nearby station. I will do youth hostel booking online for my stay there. So all arrangements are well in place and I will not have any trouble even though I will be alone. You just don’t worry.

Mom: [Speaking to my father] Look your daughter has gone fully mad. This Ghanchakkar wants to go all alone to a place which is around 800 km away from Santiago. How is she going to manage it? She has never gone to that place ever in life, not knowing local language as well. You better strictly stop her right away.

Papa: “What I have heard from your mother is true? If yes than all plans you need to cancel right away.

Me: ”Not fare at all. This is not fare at all. You both were teasing me that after coming here I have seen only my hotel room and office. Tell mom when once we went to market and saw one young foreign lady roaming around, how nicely she told me that she is proud of youngsters like this girl who has the courage to explore unknown land and ability to go beyond horizon on their own, I want my daughter to inculcate these abilities… now what happened…. why you and mom are stopping me.. ”

[Bingoooo…right words at right time… and it worked.]

Papa: When are you going and coming back from your trip? And when will you send us photos? Can’t you extend your stay beyond 3 days? As this place seems to be far away; make sure you visit all the important tourist attractions there, don’t miss any. But yes send me itinerary and your hotel address of Pucon as well. Don’t go for any trekking adventure else ligament injury of your knee will get worst.

Me: “That’s like my father papa….I will email you my itinerary…”

[That night I kept on dreaming about my trip. Now I had only 2 days in my hand before departure. ]

Scene: 2[At office—Thursday morning]

Mani: What are you doing Hetal?

Me: I am booking my hotel stay in Pucon. In lunch time will go to book bus tickets as well for Pucon.

Mani: Ohh… so you have finalized you trip is it? Are you going alone?

Me: Yes...I will start on Friday night from Santiago and I will reach Pucon on Saturday morning. I will check in to youth hostel same day. Then for 3 days will roam around Pucon leisurely. I will start return journey on Monday night will join all of you in office on Tuesday.

Mani: Great plan. I wish I could have joined you. But go ahead have fun and take care.

Me: Thanks Mani.

Scene:3[At hotel room—Friday evening around 7.30 pm]

[I was packing my bag and having last look at itinerary suddenly phone rang it was Mani on Phone.]

Mani: Hey Hetal what time is your bus?

Me: It is at 11.30 pm. I will prepare dinner and quickly rush to bus station. How is your health Mani? [Mani was suffering from severe headache since morning that day and had to go to doctor for the same.]

Mani: Oh... I am extremely alright. Doctor gave good therapy so I am absolutely ok now. Where you bought your bus tickets from? Till what time those ticket counters are open any idea?

Me: Well I booked it from Universidad De Chile Metro Station. But I have to board the bus from Terminal Alameda located at Metro station Universidad de Santiago. No idea on till what time the bus ticket booking counters will remain open. What happened but?

Mani: No nothing happened. I was thinking that if we can get ticket for me as well then I want to join you on tour.

Me: [Screaming at top of my voice out of sheer happiness] what??????????????? You are coming with me? I can’t believe it. Now whatever will happen we both will go by hooks or crooks. I am so happy. Frankly speaking even though I was showing off that I will go alone and I will manage but I was also so nervous from inside about this trip. You have exactly 30 minutes to pack your bag. We will go early to bus station to grab your ticket. I know being a week end it will be difficult to get last minute ticket but we will surely take chance. Hurry up girl….

Mani: I have already done packing. We can start within next 15 minutes. You don’t prepare dinner, I have already made for you come to my room and have it here itself.

Scene: 4 [At hotel room—Friday evening around 9.30 pm in the Metro]

Me: Mani I think our metro station has come, we will get down here and will enquire from where we can board the bus for Pucon. We can get tickets from boarding point as well.

[Station comes, Metro’s doors open, and I am about to get out from train.]

Mani: Hetal stop wait for me. One of the flaps of my bag is stuck in the seat here… it is not coming out.

Me: Come fast train is about to depart we need to get down at this station itself. If we will miss this than getting down at next station and coming back to this station will eat away 30 minutes, which surely we can’t afford. Wait I will come there and will help you.

[We both started pulling bag out of the metro’s seat but it was badly stuck. Our efforts went in vain. Our struggle with bag was a means of free entertainment for fellow passengers in train. Bipper of metro’s door closure started to ring…we had exactly 5 seconds to get out...]

Mani: Ahhh here are the scissors; leave the flap in metro only if it does not want to come with us to Pucon. I will cut it right now. Nobody can stop us to escape…

[She cut the flap and we rushed … literally jumped out of the metro at last moment of door closure.]

Scene: 5 [At overcrowded Alameda bus station, Santiago—Friday evening around 9.40 pm]

Me: Who says that India is only crowded place? Look at this bus station; it is just similar to Mumbai’s local train station during pick hours. There is no place to stand also here Mani. At every ticket window such a long queue how we would manage our tickets?

Mani come this side I can see tour bus Pucon counter there and queue is also bit smaller as compared to other counters. 

[Rushing towards the counter…. To the clerk] I have got one ticket to Pucon for 11.30 pm bus. I want one more ticket in the same bus can you please check availability?

[After 10 minutes of pause….]

Ticket booking Clerk1: @@@@#####%%%%%%%% [All in Spanish.]

Me: This guy does not know single word of English Mani. Decoding his Spanish answer would take longer time. It is useless to talk to him. Why government here can’t make Basic English knowledge mandatory for all citizens?

Mani: Right now we don’t have time to discuss this stupid proposition of yours for Chile government. Come we will go to next counter and try our luck there.

[She rushed to next counter snatching my bus ticket from my hand. The bus stand was so overcrowded; I couldn’t find Mani anywhere nearby. Now another pain started along with ticket we need to search each other as well in that crowd. After 10 minutes of running here and there I could locate her.. Sigh of relief on face of both of us]

Me: Where were you? Ok no time for that question now we have got only last one hour. Hurry up could you get any information on ticket?

Mani: I enquired at other counter all the buses to Pucon for today are fully booked. No chance of getting ticket. Are you carrying your passport with you now? Flight rate for Argentina looks cheaper shall we drop idea of Pucon and head towards Argentina? What do you say? They are telling no need of visa and all, we can get on arrival visa after reaching there.

[Now this was a real ‘Ghanchakkar’ mind of Mani showing its presence.]

Me: Ok I don’t mind going anywhere in the earth apart from our office and hotel for next 3 days if Pucon tickets are not available for you.

[Meanwhile we heard one English voice passing by. From this person we got information that apart from Alameda Terminal there is another bus stand called ‘Terminal Los Héroes’ as well for buses going towards Southern side of Chile. It is at only 15 minutes walking distance. We decided to try our luck to get ticket for Pucon there. We started to run towards Los Héroes Bus stand thinking that if we will get two tickets for Pucon from there then we will come back to Alameda Terminal and cancel my single ticket.]

Scene: 5 [At Los Héroes Bus station—Friday evening around 10.40 pm]

Mani: [To ticket counter clerk] Two Tickets for Pucon please.

[Clerk didn’t understand. Now it was our time to exhibit our so called working knowledge of Spanish without single grammatical correctness. I took out my ticket to Pucon and showed it at counter.]

Me: Otro ticket.. Dos… Dos..Dos… [Other ticket…2...2]

Ticket counter clerk2: Senorita… @@@@#####???????

[Looking at our strange looks towards each other, a fellow tourist standing next to us in the queue came to rescue us. He knew English and told us that booking clerk is telling us to go to directly platform no. 10. One of the tour operators’ are planning to put extra bus at 11.45pm for Pucon looking at rush. If we were lucky then we may get ticket in that bus.]

Mani: Otro ticket... dos… dos...dos… Pucon…

Bus conductor: Si Senorita….@@@@####??????

[He kept on speaking something but along with that he gave us two tickets as well. Our joy was out of the world. At last we conquered the Chilean crowd and got the ticket to Pucon around 11.15 pm. Bus was destined to depart at 11.45 pm.]

Me: Mani I can’t still believe that we have the tickets with us. We have still 30 minutes with us. How about rushing back to the Alameda Terminal and canceling my spare ticket?

Mani: Ok let’s run again. Come this side; we have to take left to reach to that station.

Me: No Mani we have to go straight. I think you forgot the way to that station.

Mani: Ok than run fast…not much time left.

[After running for 3-4 minutes]

Mani: I sense that we were running in wrong direction… actually both of us have lost the way to Alameda Terminal.

Me: [I am still running though…] No no Mani we are in correct direction only….

I kept on running towards unknown direction carrying in one hand a bag full of food items and in other the water bottle. Mani had no option but to chase me.

Suddenly the plastic bag in which I was carrying biscuits, chips and other food items got tarred. Whatever Mani had stuffed inside it at last moment all went down on the road. Now it was compulsory for us to collect all the things as without those food items our stay at Pucon was going to be miserable. So we withdrew idea of cancelling my spare ticket and happily returned to our Bus Platform.

Although I lost around 70000 Chile pesos by not cancelling that spare ticket, but sheer joy of our triumph on all the hurdles of getting Ticket to Pucon never allowed me to repent for it. May be destiny never wanted us to withdraw our plan. Two crazy girls started their journey towards Pucon finally with lots of excitement. More on our Pucon trip… in subsequent posts…