Trekking in Parque Nacional Conguillío

Claudio and I have just got back from our second big trip of the year, which was to Parque Nacional Conguillío in the south of Chile. This was a part of the country that I'd wanted to visit for a long time, so when I found out that it was possible to take a weekend tour there, involving two nights travelling by bus and one full day trekking in the park, it seemed like a great opportunity to see the area relatively cheaply and without having to take any time off work. 

Of course, this type of travel also has its downsides, which is something we discovered during our trip. But we're glad to have tried this sort of experience, and overall, we enjoyed the weekend.

We arrived at the park entrance in the early hours of Saturday morning to freezing temperatures and snow on the ground. But there were still some Autumn colours left in the trees.

Then we got back in the bus and drove into the park, stopping at a spot with great views of Volcán Llaima. This was where we began our trekking.

The first place we trekked to was Laguna Arcoíris (rainbow lagoon), a very green lagoon with a little waterfall flowing into it. I wasn't sure where the "rainbow" part of the name came from, but now I've noticed that a rainbow has appeared over a couple of my photos of the lagoon, so perhaps that's why!

We walked all around the lagoon, seeing it from every angle, and then we had breakfast sitting on some fallen trees nearby. Eating was actually a bit of a challenge, as was taking pictures, because my fingers were almost burning from the cold every time I took my gloves off.

The next part of the trek took us over a little wooden bridge across the waterfall, and up towards Casa del Colono, a traditional wooden cabin that I believe has been there for many years.

This was actually the part of the trip where things started to go not according to plan. I needed to go to the bathroom, and as there are basically no facilities within the park, I had to find a spot in the woods. Afterwards, we tried to catch up with the rest of our group, and we found two others who had also got left behind. We followed the route that we thought the group probably would have followed, but it started to get very steep and slippery, which was at odds with what we'd previously been told about the trek being relaxed and low difficulty. So we decided to walk back the way we'd came, as it's not the best idea to start hiking unknown and potentially dangerous routes without a guide.

The one good thing about our time following this route was that we saw a couple of Araucaria trees, also known as monkey puzzle trees, or pehuenes. These are the national trees of Chile, and Conguillío is famous for having a lot of them. In fact, they are known to be thousands of years old, and even existed in the time of the dinosaurs, which is why Conguillío was chosen as a filming location for the documentary series Walking With Dinosaurs!

When we were walking back to the bus, the other two from our group decided to turn back and start climbing up the steep route again, but Claudio and I continued, because we were sure the guides had said something about returning to the bus at 14:00, even though the original itinerary on WhatsApp said we would be returning at 18:00. 

So we rested in the bus for an hour or two, ate some lunch, and tried to get a bit warmer (which was impossible). When 14:30 came and went, we realised that the group wasn't going to return. So we had to decide what to do - we didn't much feel like walking around in the cold, but we didn't want to spend several hours in the bus with no heating and very little internet, either. In the end, we realised we should make the most of the trip, and explore this place filled with so much nature on our own, while being as careful as possible.

Fortunately, there was a trail that started right behind where the bus was parked, Sendero Ensenada. We followed this trail through a forest, and it took us to Laguna Verde (green lagoon). This lagoon was much bigger than Laguna Arcoíris, and even though it was more grey or blue rather than green, it offered amazing, dramatic views of trees, mountains, and volcanic rocks. And because we were on our own, with no one else in sight, it really felt like we were the only two people in the world.

We also discovered this tiny little lagoon surrounded by snow, which looked very wintry.

We followed the trail back to the beginning and then walked round to see the other side of Laguna Verde. This side was a little less spectacular than the first side we saw, but it still offered stunning views.

We got back to the bus at 17:00, just as our group were arriving back. We actually drove round to the side of Laguna Verde that we'd just visited, and then most of the group got out to look at it, while the rest of us waited in the bus.

It turned out that we'd missed out on a couple of nice sights, including seeing lots of Araucarias. But on the other hand, the rest of the group didn't visit Sendero Ensenada, which for us, was the highlight of our trip. All in all, I was happy that we'd seen Volcán Llaima, a few Araucarias, and a couple of lagoons.

The rest of the trip wasn't especially memorable - we went to a strange restaurant, which was in a big log cabin, and Claudio and I eventually came back to sit in the bus after a couple of hours, having still not been asked for our order and stinking of wood smoke. Some of the other members of the group had a much better time at the restaurant, and we ended up leaving much later than planned. After another uncomfortable night in the bus, we were very grateful to arrive back at our apartment in Santiago the following morning!

Overall, we're happy to have been on the trip and to have seen some beautiful sights, but our bodies did not react well to the two nights of sleeping on the bus, and we both agree that spending all day trekking in freezing temperatures is not for us either.

However, we would like to return to Conguillío at some point in the future, and also visit some other nearby places like Pucón and Villarica, but we would do things a little differently. For starters, we would go when the weather's warmer (to be fair, we were meant to go three weeks earlier, but the trip was cancelled). We would also drive there in the car, stopping at places on the way down in order to break up the journey, and we would enter the park in the car, so that we could drive to various viewpoints and trails without having to spend the whole day trekking.

I have really great memories of my first (and only previous) trip to the south of Chile, which was when I went to Huilo Huilo in 2018, and I guess I was expecting something similar from this second trip, and that wasn't really what I got. But we're still glad to have visited this very picturesque place, and we'll definitely be back to the south of Chile in the future - but we'll be waiting until spring or summer!