I caught the 9am bus for Pucon. Its a six hr journey from Puerto Montt so I settled down to watching the countryside go by. Fionnuala Farrell is in Pucon at the moment, or she should e according to her email. She arrived yesterday for a week. I was going to send her an email from Puerto Montt but decided to hold off until I arrived in Pucon. I´m looking forward to meeting her as it had appeared as though we wouldn´t meet up.
The landscape through this part of Chile is again very pretty, lush green fields, snowcapped mountains with, every sooften the cone of a volcano emerging in the distance. We stopped, briefly, in Osorno and then in Valdivia. It had been overcast this morning in Puerto Montt. Indeed it had rained throughout the night. But as the day progressed the weather cleared and by the time we arrived in Pucon it was a beautiful warm day.
Pucon is a small town, easy to get around. Its a resort town, pretty and wealthy. Its very European looking and quite touristy. But it has a very relaxed atmosphere and its setting is beautiful with the cone of Volcan Villlarica dominating the landscape. The fact that the town lise by a lake is almost forgotten by the almost hypnotic affect of Villarica. Your eyes are constantly drawn to the sight of the towering 3,000mvolcanoe, its upper slopes covered by pristine snow. Most people come here to climb the volcano. THere are many other activivties to do here, there are many adventure related busineses here. But the volcanoe is the big one.
I checked into my hostal and got a bed in a 3-bed dorm but was told I´d have to move tomorrow as the room is booked. I was hungry. So before emailing Fionnuala I went to the supermarket to get some food. Wandering around the aisles looking for the bits and bobs for lunch who did I see only the bold Fionnuala. I went over and said hello. The look on her face was priceless. To say she was surprised was an understatement. We went across the street to a cafe to have a chat and a laugh at meeting up in South America. I hadn´t expected to bump into her so easily, thinking she would be doing onbe of the activities ot at the language school her group is attending for the week.
After catching up for a while we went over to one of the adventure companies and I signed up climb the volcanoe in the morning and I showed Fionnuala the hostel where I was staying. The restaurant had a decent restaurant so we ate there and over a few drinks we caught up on Fionnualas adventures over the last few months which really sounded quite something. By 11.30 Fionnuala went back to her house her group had rented for the week and left me to get ready for an early morning hike up Volcan Villarica.
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