You Can't Take Your Eyes Off the Volcano - and a 450 year old colonial house - Chile

  

Above:  The classic horse stables at the 400 year old colonial Hotel where we're staying tonight.

We've been off the grid for a few days.  There is still wilderness in Chile where you can't get on the internet. 

We stayed at our friend Rony's house up in the Andes (shown below), and enjoyed the quiet and remote setting.  It's a really great place, but not very connected to the outside world.  That is a nice thing, but prevented much effort to do a blog post.  

So I will attempt to get caught up on the last couple days.  As mentioned before, we have friends  that are like family in Pucon, and spent the time relaxing with them and engaging in various activities; we were busy the whole time. 

In the picture below, we had to improvise to open a bottle of fine Chilean wine.  If you don't have a corkscrew, you have to be creative:  Run a large screw into the cork and use pliers to carefully extract it, preserving the wine and the proper atmosphere of sophistication. 

What have we been doing? 

Our activities of the last few days included: hiking in the mountains, enjoying a terrific barbecue (with wine) in the woods, visiting old well-known work sites, sharing wonderful meals, meeting people, lakes, waterfalls, games, house visits, construction projects, a lively evening downtown, doing laundry, catching up on travel plans, eating great food, and a bunch more.  It was great. 

Above: Of course in Pucon, the volcano Villarrica dominates most views. It towers over the town, and it's an unmistakeable presence.  Everywhere you look, you see the mountain.  It is magnificent. 

Above: The huge Lake Villarrica makes a wonderful setting for a sunny day and a sailboat.

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We spent the day yesterday with Edgardo and his family, trekking in the woods at a National Park not far from town.  They call hiking "trekking" - you know, it seems like the whole darn country is a National Park, or should be.  

There were trees there 2,000 years old.  It is kind of like a Southern Hemisphere Redwoods, only different.  Insanely good views greet you around every corner. 

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Tonight we are farther up north, having left the Pucon area and driving for hours to reach a place near the big city of Santiago Chile.    

We found our way to this historic colonial Hotel, with buildings that date back to 1560.  Pretty amazing.