Fiestas Patrias

The bus journey on the way to Pucón turned out to be a little longer than expected. My friend Roberto actually lives in a town call Loncoche, which is about an hour to the West of Pucón, this is where I was going to meet up with my friend. In a last minute change of plans we decided to meet in the city of Pucón itself, because there were some parties happening there for the students which would be fun. This involved a bit a faff, changing buses and waiting for a third bus in Temuco to take me to Pucón. I arrived at about 10:30pm and met my friend at a cabin that he was staying in for the night that belonged to another friend of his. There were four of us in total and after spending a while chatting we left to go to the 'fonda' (Chilean party in a field.) at about 1am. The 'fonda' was in a big field and there were stalls all around either selling food or alcohol. The place was packed with young people and I was surprised to meet so many Americans, or gringos as they say here, who told me there were all ski instructors who were spending the last week of the season partying. There was a traditional Chilean 'game' at the fonda which was a tall wooden pole, probably about 10m, that was really smooth and the aim was to climb all the way to the top. Unfortunately, I didn't quite manage to nail the technique but a friend managed to make it all the way to the top, much to the amazement of all the gringos. We left there about 5am to walk back to the cabin and get some sleep for the next day.

The fonda in Pucón

Impressive effort!

Saturday we woke up fairly late and made our way to Roberto's friend's house which was in the Villarrica national park. There is an amazing volcano in that national park which we got a great view of on the way, I'm hoping to go and climb that volcano as some point, potentially next winter. I was surprised to find that Fifi's (Roberto's friend) dad was actually born in Berkhamstead! I travelled half way across the world and ended up spending the day with a Watford fan, what a coincidence!!! We spent the day walking in the woods, playing music and just generally chilling. I also had my first experience of drinking 'mate', a kind of Argentinian coffee/tea like drink which you drink from a gourd with a metal straw. It was really great, might be a South American tradition that I take back to the UK with me.

The most amazing house that I had the privilege to spend my Saturday in

The snowcapped Villarrica volcano in the background

Walkies in the woods

More chilled kind of day

'Mate', what a great drink.

At night I was told to go outside to have a look at the volcano. The last time the Villarrica volcano erupted was in March 2015, so it's a very active volcano. This means that at night, the top of the volcano glows red from all the fire and lava inside. This was the first time I'd seen anything like it before and it was an amazing sight, bear in mind that the volcano was covered from head to toe in snow but glowing red hot at the top! After a peaceful night's sleep in the countryside Roberto and I hitchhiked our way back to the centre of Pucón, I'm all for the mini-adventures too...

At least the walk/hitchhike back was pretty

The volcano was always in sight

Adventures in Pucón

Sunday was the most traditional day I would say. I spent the day eating and drinking way too much with Roberto's family. We had a BBQ (or 'asado' as the call it out here) and when I thought that I couldn't possibly eat anymore we started to make 'anticuchos', kebab style BBQ'd mean, and we ate once again. This is what I'd been told about fiestas patrias, you're going to eat more that you ever though you could until the early hours of the morning, about 2am in our case, and then fall into a deep, deep sleep. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep anywhere near enough since we had a bus to catch at 9am! I had an amazing weekend and learnt a lot about Chilean culture. Thanks so much to Roberto, his friends and his family for sharing their special weekend with me!!!

This 'asado' was just the beginning of the mountain of food that was to come