Villarica and more

My parents got to La Unión on Wednesday, and of course, it was great to see them. They were so happy to meet my host family and the teacher I work with, and everyone got along great. To welcome them, the sky opened up and poured rain pretty much non-stop for at least 30 hours straight. Most of the town lost power. It was perfect timing for me, since my parents brought with them rain gear for me.

One Friday, we took advantage of me having the day off and headed off to Villarica. It was still rather rainy all day, but we still enjoyed the day; had delicious Italian style pizza for lunch, fit in a walk despite the drizzle to the lake, and stayed up late having great conversations in our cozy little cabaña.

Lake Villarica

The water is so clear you can see the bottom.

We saw grey skies most of the time.

The next day we slept in, and since it was still rainy we decided it was the perfect day to enjoy one of the many thermals in the area. The one we ended up at was great, it had a very relaxing atmosphere indoors, complete with new age-y music, and there was also a thermal outside where you could really appreciate the warmth of the water as you felt the cool mist against your face being sprayed from the sky. The water felt great, but I had to take breaks because it did make my head feel a little funny after a while. After our soak, we enjoyed another great lunch, this time in Pucon, (it felt kind of weird for me to be back there, since that's the place where I essentially started my traveling adventure), our muscles feeling thoroughly relaxed. We spent the evening enjoying some cervesa artesenal while watching music videos. It was a great way to spend yet another rainy day. Sunday it rained much less than the previous few days, so we took advantage of the brief spells of dryness and went to appreciate some of what nature had to offer. We went to see the Ojos del Carburgua waterfalls. The waterfalls were awesome and the scenery was gorgeous; the water was such a nice aqua color, it looked so inviting.

Ojos del Carburgua

My beautiful parents.

The one patch of blue sky we saw.

The waterfalls are bigger and more beautiful than they look in the pictures.

We went back to Pucon for lunch then started our way back to La Unión, stopping first in Panguipulli, yet another very pretty little town on a lake.

Panguipulli

The ride home was very beautiful, it was nice to lean my head against the window and daydream while looking at all the pretty trees and rivers and hills pass by. My only complaint about this weekend is that it flew by so quickly.