{"id":1400,"date":"2015-11-23T07:43:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T14:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2015-11-23T07:43:26","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T14:43:26","slug":"the-eruption-and-an-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=1400","title":{"rendered":"The Eruption and an Engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

We landed in Temuco, part of the Lakes Region of Patagonia, \u00a0and drove about 90 minutes to Pucon.\u00a0\u00a0 This town, like Queenstown in the south island of New Zealand, \u00a0is a major center of “adventure” tourism in Chile.\u00a0 It is best known for thermal baths, hiking, rafting, skiing\u00a0and the Villarrica Volcanco which recently erupted in March, 2015.\u00a0\u00a0 The eruption exceeded the height of the volcano and all surrounding towns including Pucon were evacuated during the eruption.\u00a0 In March, we did not have our Patagonia plans finalized but heard about a major volcanic eruption.\u00a0 \u00a0At the time, we\u00a0never could seem to find out exactly where the eruption occurred.\u00a0 We were quite surprised to discover upon our arrival\u00a0in Pucon\u00a0that we were staying\u00a0within miles of the Villarrica eruption of March 2015!<\/p>\n

Even though the Villarrica Volcano is still active, tourists continue to make the hazardous and very arduous climb to the top.\u00a0 There are many days where the hiking companies cancel the hike due to weather conditions.\u00a0 This volcano is one of Chile’s most active volcanoes.\u00a0 The upper part of the volcano is permanently covered with snow with some 40 square kilometers of glaciers.\u00a0 A gorgeous sight from our hotel.\u00a0 We are staying in a charming “tree-house” type hotel.\u00a0\u00a0 Last night we had one of the best dinners we have had in Chile in the gourmet restaurant connected to the hotel.<\/p>\n

Late last night, we received a\u00a0message from our son Alexander requesting that we call him as soon as we wake up in the morning.\u00a0 He had something very important to tell us.\u00a0 We also received a message from Christopher asking us if we had heard from Alexander.\u00a0 We had planned on doing a hike the next morning which was about 1 1\/2 hours outside of Pucon.\u00a0 We decided to delay the hike; so, we could call Alexander at 6:30 a.m. California time.\u00a0 We both had an inclination that we were about to receive some wonderful news.\u00a0 Lesley could not wait any longer and called Alexander at 6:00 a.m.\u00a0California time. \u00a0After the second ring both Alexander and Ali answered the phone\u00a0to inform us that they were engaged and will be married this fall (2016) in Kauai.\u00a0 We are so thrilled! \u00a0We will have two weddings within a few months of each other.\u00a0 With the remaining\u00a04 months of our trip\u00a0starting again in March,\u00a02016 and two weddings, it should be a busy year for us.<\/p>\n

Because we got such a late start today, we decided to forego the hike and drive to Lake Quilleihue which is about 70 kilometers south of Pucon.\u00a0 On the map, it looked like we would be driving on gravel roads for the last 10 to 15 kilometers of the trip.\u00a0 With a rental car, we were a concerned about the condition of the gravel road.\u00a0 The scenery was absolutely spectacular, comparable to Glacier National Park.\u00a0 It seemed like every corner that we rounded there was another enormous rock formation exploding from the ground.\u00a0 The new road after Puesco was, to our delight, completely paved and\u00a0went to\u00a0to the border of Argentina.\u00a0 We drove\u00a0around the mountain with drop-dead views of the mountains and lake; but, without our passports with us, \u00a0we decided to\u00a0turn around before we got to Argentina.\u00a0 We also drove via gravel roads to beautiful\u00a0Lake Caburgua.\u00a0 The gravel road to Huerquehue National Park looked very rough so we opted not to take the risk in our rental car.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, we leave Pucon for a 3 1\/2 hour drive to an another area of the lakes region of Patagonia called Puyehue.<\/p>\n

\""Free<\/a>
“Free Water” in the Chilean countryside<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Significant<\/a>
Significant mountains<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Small<\/a>
Small countryside church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Magnificent<\/a>
Magnificent jagged cliffs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Build<\/a>
Build the road around these unusual pines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Great<\/a>
Great scenes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Industrial<\/a>
Industrial revolution<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bridge<\/a>
Bridge to camping area<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another<\/a>
Another country church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Black<\/a>
Black beach on Lake\u00a0Villarrica in Pucon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Volcano<\/a>
Volcano Villarrica that erupted in March<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We landed in Temuco, part of the Lakes Region of Patagonia, \u00a0and drove about 90 minutes to Pucon.\u00a0\u00a0 This town, like Queenstown in the south island of New Zealand, \u00a0is a major center of “adventure” tourism in Chile.\u00a0 It is best known for thermal baths, hiking, rafting, skiing\u00a0and the Villarrica Volcanco which recently erupted in … Continue reading The Eruption and an Engagement<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Si9J-mA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1423,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/1423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}