Thinking Allowed: Volcanoes in Chile

We spent a week in the 'adventure capital' of Chile, which was conveniently just a few hours bus ride from San Martin de los Andes. Moving around as a clunky family of seven, we often get asked if we have a car. The askers are always taken aback when we confirm that we have no car so here is a bit of what our life was like for a week in Chile. As well, adventure capitals are often hard on budgets so here is our take on how to make the most of a place for a large family with a budget.

We took the local bus from San Martin, Argentina to Pucon, Chile. The bus ride was the perfect way to reinforce geography lessons as we traveled through desert landscape, hilly monkey puzzle forests, and into greener moister mountains (it literally started raining shortly before we reached the border). From the bus station it was a fifteen minute walk to our accommodation so we walked with our luggage.

The first day in town was cold and rainy so we kept our adventuring local - a cafe, climbing gym (ubered there then walked 5km back), and a walk and play at the beach. Our second day we took the local bus to/from a national Park. There were only five children on the full bus and they all belonged to us. Jakob and I were probably also the second and third oldest on the bus making me realize that older travelers probably do more tours or rent a car. We hiked for fifteeen kilometers around lush alpine lakes and half of us swam in the cool lake water. Our third day was heavier on school work with an afternoon and evening spent in a playground and swimming at the beach. Our fourth day was school work then the girls and I caught an uber to a trailhead, hiked out to a waterfall and back, walked from the trailhead to the climbing gym, climbed, and then walked home. For the fifth day I rented a five seater car and drive two hours to the popular Therma Geometrica. This was the most expensive outing of our stay but we were all eager to get to see the architectural marvel and spend a day lazing in the twenty pools fed by the heat of the beautiful Villarica volcano. Also, this ended up turning into a really great hour long lesson about architecture in nature that evening. Our final day was mostly a repeat of day three. We had hoped to rent a few kayaks but the rules against children alone in kayaks were against us so we settled on swimming. The following day we took the public bus to the airport.

When you research Pucon and activities on offer you will probably read all about hiking to the top of the volcano, white water rafting, horseback riding, helicopter rides, tours to a private reserve, canyoning, and so on along those lines. We didn't do any of those most popular activities, but our week felt adventurous anyways. We may not have gone up the volcano, but we wandered along its flanks, ate its many blackberries, warmed ourselves in its waters, and enjoyed its constant presence in our field of vision. We also learned a lot about volcanoes. We didn't raft or horseback or bungee but we did walk (a lot!) and swim and climb. We took full advantage of the bounty of fruits and vegetables on offer and made sure to try mote con huesilla (national barley peach drink) and the popular local veggie set meal. Even without all the usual advertised adventures Pucon was a great place to be as a family and we would all be eager to go back to the area.