Pucon and Parque Nacional Huerquehue

Pucón and Volcán Villarrica

Every summer Chileans flock to Lago Villarrica, a vacation destination that has it all: beaches, adventure sports, hiking, and volcanoes. One town on the edge of Lago Villarrica actually quadruples in population over the summer: Pucón.

Landing in Valdivia

We flew to Valdivia and took the bus from there to Pucón. Our AirBnB hosts were quick to tell us what we had already discovered- nobody goes to Pucón through Valdivia. Instead, the established route is from the other regional hub, Temuco. Buses leave all the time from Temuco to Pucón, whereas we had to wait around for 3 hours in Valdivia for a bus. Note that both Temuco and Valdivia are about 2 hours to Pucón by car.  Our extra time in Valdivia was not wasted, however.  We had a good time looking around at the sea lions and getting a beer in German-influenced Valdivia, the center of Chile's craft beer industry.

Downtown Valdivia is delineated by the Calle-Calle and Valdivia rivers, which make for a scenic coastline!

We started our first day in Pucón bright and early by catching a bus to the Ojos de Caburgua, two pools of very blue water. And they were very blue... but really they're just a couple of little ponds. 

The Ojos de Caburga were bluer in real life than they appear in the photo, but they were a bit underhwelming.

We started chatting with a Chilean couple (also underwhelmed by the Ojos de Caburga and instead entertaining themselves by photographing local birds).  Our next planned stop was Lago Caburgua and it's famous Playa Blanca and Playa Negra.  The Chileans decided to come with and we enjoyed a nice conversation with them for the next few hours!  They run their own small, construction business out of the Chilean town of Chillán.

Our new friends

Lago Caburgua, Playa Blanca, and Playa Negra were also very pretty, but... after hearing people describe the Chilean south with stars in their eyes, we were a little disappointed.

There's a pleasant 30-minute hike between Playa Negra and Playa Blanca

Playa Negra looks like Playa Blanca at Lago Caburga

After grabbing an empanda, we parted ways with our friends and decided to hit up Huerquehue National Park next, which is about a 20-minute drive away. We went straight there, only to be informed that the last bus left in two hours, long enough to maybe hike to a waterfall (it was not long enough to reach the waterfall). The park ranger casually told us if we missed the last bus, we could catch a ride back to Pucón with someone else leaving Huerquehue.  He was extremely confident considering if he was wrong he'd be the one who had to deal with us.  When we made it back to Pucón we checked out the scenic Lago Villarrica coastline around sunset.  It honestly looked pretty similar to Lago Caburga, so we're not sure you need to see both, though one is definitely worth a stop!

Lago Villarrica Beach in Pucón- Many of the mountains in this region were formed by glaciers.  We're not exactly sure why, but their rocky edges and green faces look tropical to us.

Most beaches in the area had these atlernative-looking water bikes (aka paddle boats) for rent.  We wanted to give them a shot, but ended up doing so much hiking we were too tired to work in more leg-intensive activities.

All in all, our first day felt a little like a dud. But now that we had the lay of the land, we came back to Huerquehue the next day and set off as soon as it opened. And it's a good thing we got such an early start because the only open trail took us 7 hours of continuous hiking (and we didn't even do the whole thing!). It passed two waterfalls, a few lookouts with impressive views of the nearby lake and volcano, and ended at a circuit of a few lakes.  It's the hardest hike Karen's done in years, so kudos to her!

Sites from a farm/hostal near the entrance to Huerquehue National Park.

These geese(?) were HUGE and protective of their babies

Sights from the Trail-  We passed 4 lakes, 2 waterfalls, and of course, saw lots of views of Volcán Villarrica.

These funky looking trees are called Araucarias and are hundreds to thousands of years old.  They grow *really* slowly and when they mature they produce a large pine nut called a piñon used in indigenous dishes.  The region of Chile surrounding Pucón is named after the Araucaria and it carries a lot of cultural and historical significance.  

An Araucaria branch

We'll leave you with our favorite view from the hike.  It's about an hour before we reached another lookout over other lakes.  If we were to do the trail again, we'd call it a day here.  Call us lake snobs, but after a while they start to look the same.