Pucon, Chile! A Major Milestone On This Trip ... and In My Life

 

 

It's nice to be back in a place you know, with friends, family, and familiar faces and places.

We are three weeks into our trip now, and have reached a place near and dear to our hearts: Pucon, Chile.  The first time we came here was 30 years ago, and we've been back many, many times.

It's in a fantastic region full of volcanoes, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and lots of green.  The climate is different than the far south of the continent where we started.  Today was very sunny and almost hot.  

We crossed over yesterday from Argentina into Chile, stayed in Osorno, and made our way cross country to Pucon this afternoon.  The dominating feature of this place is the towering Villarrica Volcano (shown above), which is still active.  

But everywhere you go there are wonderful things to see.  We passed numerous beautiful lakes and rivers, and this part of Chile is very fertile.  There were productive farms everywhere.  A lot of this produce finds its way into the States. 

  

Most of this water makes its way out of the Andes Mountains.  It flows down into the valleys of Chile and provides one view after another. 

 

 

We arrived in the town of Villarrica and had a "reunion" with our great friend Edgardo and his wonderful family.  Edgardo is like a brother to me, we have spent a lot of time together over the years, and even got arrested together in Bosnia!  Just a real high quality individual, I'm proud to know him. 

 

  

Then we arrived at the amazing Hotel Antumalal in Pucon, where we felt much joy in meeting up again with our dear friend Rony, who many readers of this blog may know as Veronica, from her time in Jefferson.  She is simply an amazing lady with an amazing life story, and it's our privilege to spend much of the next four days with her. 

 

 

 

Over the years we have come to Pucon often, initially with the connection to Rony and her family.  Our kids grew up together in Oregon.  And then we got started here (with Rony's involvement, and Edgardo too) building churches and providing other assistance to the area.  

My life has definitely been affected in a positive way by the people and things that have happened here. 

 

 

And the historic Hotel Antumalal she owns is pretty phenomenal, with views of the huge Lake Villarrica - yes, there is a town with that name, and a volcano, and a lake. We caught the sunset, it was a beauty.  

 

And the flowers.  Keep in mind that it's summer down here in the Southern Hemisphere and the flowers are in bloom.  Can't resist taking pictures.

 

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And a recap of the long day yesterday:

We left Bariloche, Argentina and made our way up to the border with Chile.  We were ready to make the crossover in the mountains and continue our journey on the other side.  But not so fast ...

We hit a traffic jam, or so we thought.  Then it slowed down ... and then it stopped ...  and we waited.  

And we waited ... and we waited ... all ... day. 

The border was jammed up and they couldn't handle the flow of people.  

 

Why was it so crowded?  One, it's high season, the height of summer and the tourists are going back and forth to the wonderful destinations in this region.  And secondly, since Argentina is so expensive, they come over to Chile in droves to purchase products much cheaper.  Several of them actually told us that! 

So it jams up the border.  It took forever to get across.  And it doesn't help that you "leave" Argentina and then drive 40 kilometers over the mountain pass and then "enter" Chile.  Unusual system if you ask me. 

At least we had one ounce of mercy.  When we got to our modest hotel in Osorno, they offered us a complimentary Pisco Sour.  It's a nice cocktail made with Pisco, a brandy, unique to this part of the world.  It made for a nice moment.