05 January, 2008

Pucon

After celebrating a quiet New Year`s with Gigi`s parents and tia Marcela, we headed south in the rental car. Slowly we noticed the change in vegetation as we left the dry and brown landscape for more lush green sights. And finally we are surrounded by the famous Araucaria tree!



It`s amazing how we didn`t notice how dry of a climate we were in for the past 3 months. Obviously we did when we were North in the desert, but it didn`t occur to us when we were in Santiago and the coast. But now that we are here, surrounded by hills and mountains covered with a green canopy, we realize we`ve been saturated with brown and orange and dust.

We just arrived to Pucon on Thursday and have loved every minute of it! Gigi`s mom made reservations at a hostal called Ècole! and it`s totally charming with its ripe cherries falling into the courtyard, ready to be eaten.



Pucon is an adventure town with a big tourist industry. Not a place to go if you want the nitty gritty Chile but definetely worth a stop for its beauty and awesome adventures. No matter where you are in town you can see the smoke billowing out from volcan Villarica. And all year you see the sun reflecting off its thick white coat of snow. In fact, as i`m writing this entry on a tour agency`s computer, there is a group of tourists getting ready to snowboard the slopes of the volcanoe. And it`s the heart of the summer here in the southern hemisphere.



Last night we got to see a video someone filmed of a nearby volcanoe that erupted just 1 day before we headed on our trip. That would´ve been an amazing thing to actually witness!

Our first night here we soaked in some thermal baths and watched the stars emerge into the sky. We still haven`t figured out why we can see Northern Hemisphere stars here in the Southern Hemisphere... but anyways, they´re gorgeous... especially in a hot steaming thermal bath deep in the mountains. Check out our photo album later for pics (I forgot to bring the cord to download the photos, whoops!).

Then the next day we signed up to go on a whitewater rafting trip. My parents signed up for the class III trip, and Micah and I went on the class IV trip. It was such a rush of adrenaline! We had to concentrate on the rapids most of the time but whenever we could we picked our heads up to see where we were. A few of the rapids were class V and we were nervous we wouldn`t make it but we were completely successfull. Phew! Gigi was the only one in our boat to accidentally end up in the water but that´s because the guide pushed her in! At another point we had to get out of the boat and hike for a bit. And then, to get back into the water we had to jump off a rock 15ft. above the rapids into the water. That was definetely the scariest part for me. But we made it out alive and with all our senses awakened. It was a great adventure to start this leg of our trip.

We`ll download pictures of Pucon next time we get on the internet so remember to check em out on our picasso photo album.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

doesn't surprise me one bit gig was the one falling in the water! -n