Chilean Holiday – Pucón Weekend – Day 3 – Villarrica Volcano
I started the day by riding to the bus terminal with my backpack and the same cardboard box I sent my bag from Valdivia a few days before. I really have to do this more often, pack your bag with the amount of stuff you need, put it in a box, send it to the destination you will be for the weekend, ride there and pick it up. It was the best way to do it I think, anyways. After sending my bag back to my parents place I went to grab a coffee and nerd out on maps, maybe to try and take a different route back but I also wanted to go up Villarrica Volcano so I did that.
Road to the climb // On the climb up Volcano Villarrica
The climb starts right away, like, not even a kilometer away from where I was. It wasn’t paved the whole way up but it was still a category 2, 8 km climb to the gravel. I really thought I was going to be able to ride some of the gravel roads here but they are completely different from the ones we have in Victoria, definitely not rideable.
“Camino al Volcan rd” translates to “Road to the Volcano” and yes, that is a Movistar thing on top of the sign.
After making my way to the top to start this 175 km day with a nice climb I started going towards Villarrica. The traffic on a narrow, bumpy road like this one wasn’t too bad on a Monday but still sketchy when a bus flies by you almost touching you like most bus drivers do here. I can hear them yelling “Fuck your 1.5 m of distance, I get 10 points if I touch your jersey!”. Nah, they probably don’t mean it but they are pretty bad here.
Pucón to Villarrica view from a bridge // Road home
When I got to Villarrica I decided to take the same road back. I wasn’t too familiar with the other route so I said fuck it. The road to the highway was nice anyways, pretty flat with some rollers but mostly next to farms. The only good thing about riding on the highway here is the gas stations, they are pretty full of everything and you see them very often. The other thing that I guess is also good is the shoulder of the road, it’s pretty wide but unfortunately just too shitty for a couple of long stretches, I got so good at dodging stuff and bunny hopping shit when I really need to since I got here at the beginning of the month, it’s pretty funny.
Roads on the way back from Villarrica
Farmlands on the road back to Valdivia
After I got to the road that takes you towards the coast into Valdivia I stopped at this little store that had a pretty big, obviously fake cow outside and bought some juice for the last 30 kms. The last bit of the road is under construction probably for the next few months which sucks and honestly I’ve never been so stressed out on a bike until this day. I rode pass huge logging trucks and buses that were all waiting to move up towards the one lane road, the guys letting people through let me go right away every time and it turned into me basically attacking and time trialing to the next safe spot before the logging trucks got to me, it was scary.
Desinations: 69kms // Uh…. what?
Back in Valdivia [below]
But hey, I made it back safe and pretty happy with the riding I got done after being in bed for a week due to a dumb crash. February is going to be pretty good too, even better!
The Strava profile of Fabian’s ride up Villarrica Volcano: