From Santiago to Pucón.

From Santiago we headed South, wanting to spend our first evening in the wine region in Chile. So we set our course to Santa Cruz, a beautiful sleepy town. We expected to see a lot of vineyards along the road but next to wine country this part is fruit country. Apples, peaches, apricots, pears, plumps, cherry's all these kinds of fruits are grown in this area and it is like driving through a great big orchards of lovely fruit trees. Santa Cruz is lovely, but small, an unassuming little town.

The next day the road took us to Pucón. On the way stopping at Saltos de Laja.

This is a beautiful waterfall in a recreational area for the Chileans. Next to the fact that it is a beautiful waterfall, it is fun place to visit as it gives a good insight on how Chilean people holiday. The place is full of souvenir shops and restaurants. Officially people are not allowed to swim in the river at the waterfall but still people take a dip in the refreshing water. In the whole area you can find hotels where you can relax and enjoy the scenery. We however, headed further South.

On our way to Pucón we got held up by a huge forest fire. As we do not get a lot of South American news in Europe, I wasn't aware that forest fires are a recurring problem in the summer in Chile and this was a huge one. It took hours to get through and finally after being stuck in traffic for ages we arrived in Pucón. The outdoors capital of Chile. In Chile WhatsApp is the way to organize things, most companies have a Whatsapp account and through that you can reach them. So being in the car we arranged our hiking trip of the Villarica. A vulcano. Pucón is situated on the foot of this mountain. The city is beautiful with a lovely lake with pleasant beaches. There are restaurants, shops, nice little alleys where you can walk through. Everywhere you look, they have planted flowers, so the overall impression is that of a green, lush and flowery city. There are several kinds of visitors, the shop till you drop shoppers, the beach lovers and the outdoor lovers and Pucón offers it all. It is thé holiday destination of the Chileans.

Next day we headed early to the vulcano Villarica. Herman is the hiker, I am not the sporty kind. I love to be outside and love to walk but do not like to climb. According to the guide it was not a walk in the park but still easy to do. With that in mind I decided to go up. It was incredibly hot, as the soil of the Villarica is black, it's lava. it gets unbearably hot. It was like walking in a hot oven as there was no wind. We took two bottles of water each, but that was not enough. Herman reached the summit, I stopped 30 meters from the top. The views were unbelievable. You could see till Argentina and the whole air was filled with smog. The smog was from the forest fires in Argentina. The guide told us that all the borders were closed as the roads into Argentina were all trapped by the fire.

Going down the Villarica is real fun as you sleigh it down. So using our body we went yelling and laughing. It could have been an adrenaline rush, unfortunately the snow also was suffering from the heat so it was more waterskiing then sleighing and at some points the slush was too much so there wasn't much sleighing to do. Still an adventure and a highly recommendable one.