After a day of rest (which are always filled with doing little things) in Pucon, we went to the National Park Huerquehue.

From the town we took a road that was recommended to us by a lady from the touristoffice. And it was indeed a very nice route, through the hills. But then the last part to the National Park, and it wasn’t easy! It went up all the way, a total of about 500 m (1500 ft) in 10 kms (6 miles) with very steep sections. And we had already climbed a lot on the first part of the route. But finally we reached the National Park and found a nice spot on the campground.

We decided to go hiking the next day and picked a hike that was supposed to be nice and not too short and easy. It was a nice walk, a long way up. We had to climb for about 700 m (2100 ft) and go back down the same way. From above we had a nice view on the lake where the campground was and a little further we reached a few other lakes, well hidden in the forests. We got back at the campground after 7 hours of hiking.

We were able to ‘enjoy’ the long hike uphill for a while. Our muscles hurt for the next days. Fortunately it didn’t really bother us when cycling. To try to get the sore muscles to relax a bit, we decided to visit one of the thermal pools in the area on our way back to Pucon. There are many thermals in the area due to the many vulcano’s and thermal activity. It was great to just lie in a hot water pool and hopefully it would help relax the aching muscles.

We spent the whole afternoon in those pools and lying in the sun. There were 3 pools with each a different temperature. One was very hot and another was nice and warm. The temperature of the third was in between the both. But after that relaxing afternoon we had another 30 kms (18 miles) to cycle back to Pucon. Fortunately the road mostly went downhill. We went back to the campground in Pucon.

Because we had stayed in Pucon for a day the first time, we didn’t want/have to now. And we have to go further north sometime. So we left Pucon in the direction of Villarrica and from there on we went further north. Here also a section of very bad road. About 20 kms (12 miles) of loose gravel. No big potholes this time, but big stones and rocks on which we kept sliding away. It took us about 3,5 hours to cover that 20 kms (12 miles)…
But after that it was nice tarmac again and the road was almost completely flat! We found a very nice campground, with a pool and a spot with a view on the volcano Villarrica.

Groene heuvels/ green hills

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Groene heuvels/ green hills