On the north side of the reserve is a museum capturing Chilean history, geology, and archaeology. We stopped in for a visit. The most interesting object to me was the carved mammoth tusk.

Another stop in the Huilo-Huilo biological reserve, a loop trail past a remarkable eco-hotel, through the forest, and to the La Leona falls.

A 2km breeze of a hike to see the blue-green cascades of Salto Huilo Huilo and Salto del Puma.

We drove a couple hours from Pucon to Huilo Huilo, a Patagonia rainforest and reserve. It’s a stunningly beautiful place, with numerous short hikes to see parts of the forest and many waterfalls. We arrived before the park opened, and we ended up getting lost. We somehow managed to end up on a service road […]

We had some time to kill before the Cuevas Volcanicas tour, and mom needed some alone time. The kids and I climbed the hill to a dilapidated hotel on the slope of Volcan Villarrica. Since only concrete and steel are left standing, I assume the hotel burned when lava flowed from the crater many years […]

On our last morning in Pucon, we went to the private park for a tour of a lava tube. It was interesting, though I’m not satisfied that the experience was work $16,000 CLP per person. We’ve been fortunate to have been to many caves (Wind Cave, Mammoth Cave, Lewis & Clark Caves, Lehman Caves. Not […]

A redeeming quality of our modest AirBnB home in Pucon is the private beach access across the street. We spent another beautiful morning on that beach today, arriving on the rocky banks in the cool mountain morning. We hung out in the shade and made our way into the water as the sun climbed higher. […]

Saturday morning we drove around the lake to Villarrica for a morning on the highly commercialized, black sand beach along the front of the town and in view of the snow-capped volcano. By the afternoon, the beach would be packed with sunbathers and umbrellas, and so we opted to arrive early, before many of the […]

We woke at 6am to drive 2.5 hours north of Pucon to Parque Conguillo, a notable national park in Chile. The park has an active volcano as the centerpiece, and it has green and blue lakes, black lava flows, while snowcapped peaks streaming waterfalls, and hiking trails passing through old forests with the unique Araucaria […]

We drove 45 minute to a national park on the eastern side of Pucon, arriving about the time it opened at 8:30am. We decided to hike the Los Lagos trail to see two waterfalls, Nido de Aguilas and Salto Trufulco. It was a pleasant hike. The trail took us along a clear lake, between some […]