It’s amazing how one day you can be in a big city, the next in a colourful favela, then sunbathing on the beach and then all of a sudden you’re in Germany…almost. We kept moving south and spent the last five days in the lakes district of Chile, based in the city of Pucón. This area of Chile was colonised by the Germans in 1850 and is a completely different world from the Chile we spent the first part of our trip in. Everything gets insanely green, there are snow covered hills and volcanoes everywhere, locals selling home made jam and honey and what seems like a million lakes cover the area. [Disclaimer there are not as many lakes as in Poland]. Geographically this is also the centre of the Mapuche culture and the area is called the Araucaría due to the famous local tree of the same name which can be found everywhere. Its called the Araucaría tree or the monkey puzzle tree which weirdly enough I’m sure I have in my street in London. In some areas in Chile, Germans were given land that originally belonged to the Mapuche Indians in order to “improve the gene pool” in hopes that the Germans would impose their punctuality, discipline and love of hard work into the culture. Some things never change 🙂 Nowadays the Mapuche only compromise about 9% of the Chilean population and as with most of the indigenous groups in Latin America they continue to struggle for land ownership and indigenous rights.
Pucón is particularly beautiful because it is located next to a lake under the impressive Volcano Villarrica which is 2847m high, covered in snow and on a sunny day makes a spectacular backdrop.
So we spent a relaxing few days enjoying the nature. Pucón is famous for its river rafting and kayaking so we decided to be alternative and throw ourselves down the river on a foam board. Seriously though, the technical term is Hidrospeed but you basically get in the river with a little foam board the third of the size of a surf board and hang on for dear life as the rapids eat you alive. It was freezing cold but fun.
We also spent new years in Pucón with our two new Brazilian friends and our wonderful Brian and Bob that we met on the second day in Perú. We had fireworks on the beach with a bottle of our favourite Argentinian wine (a present from Mendoza from Juan) and then the next day we went to the hot springs to recover from the bottle of our favourite Argentinian wine (and a couple more…)
We had a really nice time and felt right at home in Pucón, but we’re super excited about our next destination. We just missed the wine, the meat and the constant male attention too much, get ready Argentina we’re coming back!
