South South Lake Tahoe

Greetings from Pucon, a charming little town located on the shore of Lake Villarrica in the heart of the "Lake District" of Chile. When Chilenos of sufficient means wish to go to the mountains on vacation, this place, or somewhere near here, may be what they have in mind. The layout of the town, with its wooden street signs, planted flowers, etc., looks like Solvang with a chilean accent instead of a danish one. The wooden houses with steep
-sloping roofs is mindful of Aspen and the surrounding mountains look like south lake tahoe. It seems to be an international resort for the well-to-do.

There are lots of upscale shops and a wonderful variety of restaurants offering international cuisine, even a vegetarian restaurant (!). In addition, there's a great number of discos and bars offering "Happy Hour," 2 pisco sours for the price of one.

There haven't been a lot of Americans in the places I've been so far on this trip. One exception might be Pto. Natales where there were a number of Europeans doing their backpacking thing. I think the reason why there's so few Americans in other parts of Chile is because they're all here in Pucon! The streets are not real crowded....it's the shoulder season. My totally objective super-accurate census of languages on the street runs as follows: about one third Americans, one third Europeans, and one third Latin Americans. My guess is that about 75% of the Latin Americans are chilenos. I'm not good enough to detect accents (usually), but I did meet a couple of Uruguayans and there's the usual passel of Argentinos.

On the horizon above the town is the impressive Villarrica volcano. It looks like the twin of Osorno volcano just a little to the south.

I get the impression that here in Pucon is where the action is in summer (boating on the lake) and winter (skiing). The town looks like it's accustomed to absorbing about 10 times as many tourists as there are here now. There's not much to see in the town itself, but it makes a great base camp for day trips off kayaking, hiking, etc.; and then, of course, party central after dark.

Having said that, I'm off to bed!