Days 27 & 28 – 18th/19th December . Volcano’s in Chilean Lake District.

The awesome sight of the Villarica Volcano


Porto Montt – Panguipulli – Pucon 370 kms (45 kms Track)

Total Distance So Far: 7,500 kms (5,730 kms by Land, 1,770 kms by Sea)


The ship sounded a wake-up siren at 6am – just a couple of hours after we made it to bed! I rolled out of the bunk on the third siren and made it to the breakfast hall just in time to wish our new friends a good onward journey. Today was going to be hard!!

The bike then decided it was not going to start and we had a bit of fun pushing it around the Navimag loading yard. I could not believe it would not turnover – Honda’s were supposed to be so reliable. After about 30 minutes ‘it was noticed’ the kill switch had been pushed to off. I should have spotted that – a real schoolboy error. Anyway eventually we got on our way, and jumped straight onto the Pan-American Highway. It runs from Punto Montt in Chile to Prudhoe Bay in Northern Alaska. It’s not so much one road as a network of roads measuring about 47,958 kilometers (29,800 miles) in total length. Except for an 87 kilometers (54 mi) rainforest break, called the Darién Gap in Central America, the road is a continuous link. According to Guinness World Records, the Pan-American Highway is the world's longest "motorable road". However, because of the Darién Gap, it is not possible to cross between South America and Central America by traditional motor vehicle.

Any way this bit of the ‘Pan-American’ was good surfaced road and we stuck with it for a 100kms before turning right into the Chilean Lake District. Since leaving the boat there were a continuous string of volcanos to our right. Truly an amazing sight. Chile has hundreds of volcano’s with 36 classed as being ‘active’. Osorno and Villarica have continuous bursts of smoke popping out as they are two of the world’s five volcano’s with continuous lakes of lava bubbling in the cone. It was a great sight to see the clouds of smoke shoot out of the top of the cone.

The lakes, roads, small towns of the lake district, along with the backdrop of huge volcanos really makes this area a dream to drive through. The towns are very pretty with wooden houses, and rose lined streets. We traveled at a easy pace, and spent the first night at Pangapulli. The next day we took a few track roads around the base of Volcano Villarica and through Conaripe, a small town that was completely destroyed in 1961 on one of the volcano’s more recent eruptions. The last major eruption was in 1973, and is expected to erupt again ‘soon’.

We made our way to Pucon which is a very smart trendy town on the north side of the volcano. It has a little monument to the 15 people who died in the ’73 eruption – from the gas released. You have got to wonder about the sense of setting up shop next to an active smoking volcano with a history of eruptions? Don’t start any business with a 10-year or longer payback I’d say. Anyway, is a must stop and highly recommended. It’s full of boutique hotels, restaurants, cafes and designer shops. It’s the main place in the lake district and starting point for many adventure activities including, rafting, paragliding, microlite flying, trekking, horse rides, canoeing and mountain biking. There is also a ski resort on the slops of the volcano. Very cool to ski as smokes comes out of the cone!

We checked into a hotel and managed to get an awesome view of the volcano. The open-fire (Parilla) restaurants served the most delicious flame-grilled lamb. It was a great sight to see all of the grill chefs in action as the grills/fires were all open to the street. The smells alone are enough to draw you in and assure they will get your custom. It would have been very easy to stay for a few days.



Smoke coming out of the top of Volcano Villarica.



A couple of wooden houses from the Chilean Lake District


Pucon - a real chilled out place. Great restaurants, bars and cafes.