The Road to Caburgua

"Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by"  Robert Frost

Odometer reading:   2589 kms since we picked up our rental car a week and a half ago.  I guess you could say we are definitely getting a sense for just how  L  O  N  G  of a country Chile is!!  11 toll booths, 16 AA batteries (for the kids' leap pads), 73 bathroom breaks (give or take :) and a few days later, we arrived smack dab in the middle of the Lake District.   The latest stretch wasn't entirely void of fun for the kids - we made sure to stop at playgrounds and even found a great water park to spend a few hours one day.

"these stops are for the kids' sake" ... sure Jeff

same, same but different

The quaint city of Pucon (in the heart of the Lake District) is a mecca for outdoor adventure and throngs of people flock here for their summer vacations.   The place has a rustic Whistler vibe and the outskirts of town felt a lot like driving along the north side of Shuswap Lake - this is Chilean cottage country.  Pucon is the largest town in the area and it sits at the end of lake Villarica.  It is surrounded by national parks, mountains, waterfalls, rivers, lakes .... but the highlight is definitely the smoking volcano which is visible from almost everywhere.

We knew this would be one of the longer stops on our itinerary so we spent some time before the trip looking at accommodation options and settled on a cool, country cabin outside of town ... on the road to Caburgua.  As it turned out, all the activities we chose to do were on this stretch of road and it suited us just fine to be out of the touristy town.  It sure was nice to have some space to spread out and cook some of our own meals!  We're growing tired of the hot dogs and empenadas that are on every menu and at every gas station.  We are really enjoying the abundance of fruit but for a country this fertile, we're having a hard time finding vegetables!??  The kids had fun adventuring around the cabin and playing in the 'observatory' loft which was screened in and had a rope ladder up to it on the 3rd floor.   Stella found blackberry bushes and we picked heaps of them for snacks and added them to our yogurt and granola in the morning. 

This is Sebastian - the builder/owner of the cabin

So much to do, so little time really ....

 

perfectly peaceful!

 

 

 

 

 

the view after hiking 2 hours ... mostly uphill

 

standing in the ski hill parking lot

who can resist a game of mini golf?!

The volcanic activity has led to the existence of numerous hot springs in the area.  In fact, if you stayed here for a couple of weeks and went to a different one each day, you still wouldn't visit them all.  The more modern/developed ones are unbelievably expensive.  Would you believe it would have cost our family $120 to go to the nicest ones in the area?!  I'm sure you can hear Jeff joking, "We don't want to purchase the hot springs, we just want to soak for a couple of hours!!"  Thankfully, many other hot springs were more rustic and a lot less expensive.  

Thermas Pozones

one of 6 pools

each pool had a slightly different temperature

Hard to believe summer holidays are coming to end here in Chile.  Children are getting ready to go back to school at the beginning of March and the mornings have that 'cool, dew-y, Fall is in the air' feel to them.  The Normandeaus are confused ... we have gone from winter - summer - fall in a relatively short time frame and will be home in the spring in just over a month.