Pucón - Chile

Pucón is a beautiful town nestled beside Lake Villarrica and is dominated by the smoking Villarrica Volcano constantly looming on the not-so-far horizon (great for photos).

There are about 14,000 (local) people that live in Pucón, though this can double or triple depending on the time of year. The town itself is small enough to walk around in an hour or so which is quite worthwhile. You will find that the buildings all have a rustic wooden finish resembling some Alpine towns in Europe.

What makes Pucón so popular is that it is used as a base for all the excursions that are nearby. You can go volcano climbing, relaxing in thermal pools or just hang out on the black sand beach beside the lake. The Trancura River nearby has white water rafting as well as fly-fishing. In a way, Pucón is like a much smaller version of Queenstown in New Zealand (without the bungy jumping). Prices here are generally higher than other cities in Chile.

For many years, Pucón was an exclusive place to visit, frequented by high society and foreign fishers, artists and intellectuals. It still maintains a little of this ‘upper class’ stigma to it for Chileans though there are now many hostels and activities aimed at backpackers. There are also many activities now catering to all tastes from a luxurious night at the casino to a night out at the pub with your mates.

When to go to Pucón?

Pucón is a favourite for Chileans to visit both in summer and in winter.

The busiest time is summer with prices increasing from the first week of December to the middle of March and the winter ski season which varies from year to year.

It is much better to visit Pucón outside of these busy periods, especially summer since it becomes unbearably full of people. The main beach (which isn’t that big) is packed in the high season and you often find other people only a few feet from you. There is a lot more beach in Pucón (about 4 km of it) but everyone seems to want to huddle together in a patch of a couple of a hundred meters that is in front of the Gran Hotel Pucón. This ‘patch’ of beach is where the small wharf is and you can hire boats, windsurfers and jet skis.

If you are going to climb the volcano, you should be aware that trips can be cancelled at any time due to the ever-changing weather conditions no matter what time of year it it.

Tour Companies

There are various tour companies that offer day trip activities in the surrounding areas of Pucón. They are all priced around the same but you can get better deals for doing a number of trips with the same company. Some offer three day combo tours (or something similar) of rafting one day, volcano climbing the second and natural hot springs the next (to recover from the last two days).

One tour company that we recommend is Ronco Track. They do the normal Volcano Climb and whitewater rafting but one tour that will interest many people is their Ethnic Tourism to visit a Mapuche village (natives of Chile). You get to learn about their culture that has been handed down orally for many generations and also discover how they make many of their crafts. Ronco Track also have four wheel motorbike excursions, Horseback Riding, and Trekking around Pucón.

Climbing up Villarrica Volcano

One trip which I recommend is to climb to the top of Villarrica Volcano. Be warned that if you haven’t done any sport lately or any other type of fitness activity, you will definitely feel it on the way up.

When you do the climb in summer, you are taken part way up the volcano where the ski lifts start. Some people take the lift for the first part (about 200m) and others decide to trek from that point. If you are fit and used to hiking, you could start from the bottom. If you aren’t fit, take the ski lift. (The ski lift was an option on our guided trek (of about 8 people) so it might not always be available.)

When you get to where the snow starts (which there is to some degree all year), the guide shows you (or at least should do) how to use an ice-pick to stop should you start plummeting down the side of the volcano. You also need to put on crampons which are a metal plate with spikes on the bottom which are strapped to your boots. This is to stop you slipping on the ice and sliding off the volcano into oblivion. If you are not used to wading through snow, I’ll tell you now, it takes a lot more effort to advance than doing the same distance on rocks.

Once you are at the top of the volcano, the views are incredible (ours was a cloudless day). There is almost always smoke coming out of the volcano (we didn’t see any lava) so keep out of it since it is quite toxic. It was freezing on the summit, and this was in February which is the hottest month of the year in Chile. A wind constantly hits the side of the volcano and goes up and over the top, right where you are marveling at the land far below. Our hands went numb as soon as we took our gloves off to take a photo.

But getting up is only a part of the trek. You have to go back down too which turns out to be a lot of fun. We were given special protective pants that had a type of extra plastic protection in the butt part. Why? The best way down is sliding down on your butt. You can gather quite a lot of speed if you are up for it but if the guide tells you to slow down in certain parts you had better listen since there may be a hidden ledge that goes a long way down. Don’t expect to be able to walk to well the next day. No amount of training can prepare you for that part.

You usually have to book ahead and you sometimes don’t know until that morning whether the trek up the volcano goes ahead or not. They are very cautious with the weather and don’t take any risks. When we did the trek, some people in the group had been waiting two weeks for a clear day to do the climb.

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Last Updated: 01 January 2009