Pucón Saturday

Saturday, September 16

Seeing as how I’m still not quite in volcano-scaling shape, Alex and I decided to forgo the requisite Pucón death-confronting stunt in favor of a day of horseback riding and mountain biking. Turns out, Alex had never been on a horse before, so it was quite impressive to watch him progress from novice equestrian trying to straddle his first saddle (haha…that’s just cute), to galloping away into the late-morning Pucón distance, barely out of reach of our chatty guide who was trying to catch up with Alex’s runaway horse. Luckily, no one died, and we got to see an amazing panorama of the area from atop a dry bluff, the freakishly Windows computer screen background-tinted blue sky hanging like a flat two-dimensional sheet just beyond reach. Past the mirador, our private huaso (cowboy) guide led us on foot down a steep trail to see the 80 meter salto de claro, the Claro Waterfall, which seemed to fall from the sky, or at least from somewhere really high up in the suddenly rainforest-like canopy. And amid the intermittent gasps of naturaleza-inspired awe, our guide told us about his one-year stint in the Chilean army where he learned to gallop while doing a headstand in his saddle (oh yeah, he demonstrated), about how his mom used to work for Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro (the very same Huidobro whose tomb was inconveniently closed in Cartagena), and how he now has one of the poet’s jackets hanging in his closet, and about the changes he’s seen in his native Pucón over the last fifteen to twenty years. By the end of the three hours, we were both in a fair amount of pain and ready for our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Oh, we also found out that Alex is deathly allergic to horses.

After lunch, and some Claritin, we rented bikes and headed out to see Chile. We hadn’t calculated, however, the doloroso effect horseback riding can have on the exact parts that take such a bicycle seat-beating as you roll speedily over rocks and holes. But no matter; there was a whole country to see. We went from the rushing waters of the Río Trancura up into the hills overlooking small farm houses, clusters sheep and cows, split wood fences, pastures and tree-dotted slopes with views of the volcano, to winding back roads and tiny villages sparsely populated by friendly, direction-giving locals, all the way to Los ojos de Carburgua, a rushing confluence of waterfalls and icy spray, where we locked our bikes and picked our way around slippery-when-wet exposed roots and over rickety wooden look-out bridges. By then it was getting late, and we were pretty tired, so we headed back to the highway to return to Pucón, a trip which ended up being a grueling eighteen kilometer jaunt on the side of the at times bike lane-less carretera in the face of a formidable head wind. I suppose we should have realized how far we were riding as the volcano stopped being the looming white conical thing off in the distance, and began being that looming white conical thing shrinking behind us. But, despite the mortifyingly painful bicycle-seat-on-butt conditions, it was undeniably incredible to bike toward the sinking sun as it glowed orange in front of us, lighting up the looming white conical thing a rosy pink to off-set the freakish Windows blue of the surrounding sky.

Somewhere around 25 miles and one fantastically hot shower later, Alex and I headed for dinner at the local vegetarian restaurant where we gingerly slid into our rather un-cushiony seats. I had the most amazing vegetable-filled omelette every made by man, and then we were joined by Amanda and Graciela, who had survived the looming white conical thing—for better or for worse—for some good old-fashioned bar crawling. It turned out to be a rather pained and short-lived crawl; we were all a bit sore and sleepy.