Finding Joy: Pucon- Day 2: Hot Springs

On our way to Conripe, a town south of Pucon, in search of the Termas Geometricas we stopped for lunch at a quaint diner. The town we stopped in was one I wouldn't have wanted to visit at night, but clearly made their living on tourism. Everyone had set up a shop for something.

It has been tricky to find things for Callie as she finds something wrong with nearly everything we think she should like. We managed to find omelets here, which she was obliged to eat. The water is generally safe to drink, but culturally most beverages are served in a bottle, even water. We are getting used to drinking room temperature beverages or slightly chilled. Sometimes we are lucky enough to get a glass with ice. The waitress in the background made us all smile at her enthusiasm to make our experience enjoyable. She is learning English and was eager to practice on us. It was enjoyable for everyone.

One of Jason's favorite Chilean dishes. Choclo de Pasta. It is a corn based dish...of course.

Once we got off the roads equivalent to our Interstates or Highways, nothing is paved. This was a well traveled road that we thought was supposed to bring us to the Termas Geometrica. We spent several hours on this road in search of the these natural hot springs/pools. We had been warned that coordinates were necessary to find them, but we thought our map reading skills would get us there, with a little help from the signs that pointed us towards Termas.

Just one of the many bridges we crossed. We had no choice but to trust the construction, even over valleys that dropped hundreds of meters below us. Everyone else was crossing them, so we did too.

We frequently passed cows (vacas), sheep, chickens, and dogs on the side of the road. It was hard to get good pictures because of the dust from the roads and overcast skies.

After a much longer trip than we expected, we finally stopped a local who informed us we were not where we thought we were. So we turned around and headed back to the thermals we had seen an hour before.

We were all ready to be out of the cars...not what we were hoping for, but still thermal pools in the mountains.

There were 4 pools on this property. They all looked like pools. The one in the background was not heated and was cold, but the other 3 were varying levels of warm depending on how many pipes were bringing in naturally heated water and a mineral pool.

This was the warmest of the pools. If you put your foot over the vent pipe, it was too hot to keep your foot there very long.

This was definitely a local Chilean vacation spot, and not necessarily an international tourist destination, but if there is one thing we have learned about Chileans is that everyone is friendly and welcoming. We got a few stares, but many smiles and the girls even made a friend, Antonia, who was also 7.

We spent a couple of hours at that hot pool, but were determined to find the ones we had actually set out to find. It was about 6:30pm, we had chips and granola bars and 3 hours of daylight...Game on. We drove back another 30 minutes on gravel, arrived in Conripe and found the sign we had missed on our way in. Another 45 minutes on gravel, some beautiful scenery as the clouds of the day had finally cleared, and we were on our way confidently to the Termas Geometrica, which promised to be much more than a glorified swimming pool.