Heading into Patagonia

We hit Santiago, the capital city of Chile, before heading to Pucón, the gateway to Patagonia.

We spent three nights in Santiago, wandering the city including a big hill that overlooks its many skyscrapers. We even found time to explore South America’s biggest shopping mall. There’s not a huge amount to do in Santiago, but it did have a certain charm.

After Santiago, we took an overnight bus to the lovely town of Pucon, set on a lake with an active volcano behind it. We spent the first day getting acquainted with the town and picking up the car we were planning to drive around for the next couple of days (quite possibly the worst car I’ve ever driven, but fun all the same). As the weather was terrible in the evening, we cooked a roast dinner, which was most welcome.

After taking over our hostel and having a huge singalong night, we had a late start and headed to the Huerquehue national park, where we took a hike around a lake and up to a waterfall.

The weather hadn’t been that great the first two days in Pucon, but was beautiful on the last day. We took the car and headed to the landmark Villarrica volcano, which is currently active.

After that, we headed round to the town of Villarrica, to get a view of the volcano over the lake.

For our final trip in the car, we headed to Lake Caburgua.

As the volcano is still active, we were told it has a beautiful glow at night, so we stayed up to get a good view of it from the hostel (it doesn’t get dark now until way after 10pm).

We’re now right on the edge of Patagonia, which was the place I am most excited about in South America. The land is green and the snow capped mountains are now appearing.