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 tree, which is a type of evergreen whose branches and leaves grow in curved tentacles.
We arrived before the park opened. After checking in at 8:30am, we drove to the trailhead to hike about eight miles round trip on the Sierra Nevada trail. We climbed to a set of multiple waterfalls pouring from the rocks and ice above. It was a challenging hike since we had hiked six miles the day before in Parque Huerquehue. We were tired to start, having awoken early and completed a long car ride. The sun beat down on us when we reached the trail above the tree line, and there were large flies that constantly buzzed and sometimes bit.
We were glad to have lunch in the shade of the mountain and in the mist of a cold waterfall. The water was at such a high elevation, we drank directly from the flowing water coming out of the rocks. We only opted to do this after a park ranger passed and did the same, so we had greater confidence the water was without contamination.
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