The Spa Experience

Booking a tour from Valdivia in the off-season is no easy task, but eventually the stars aligned and I joined Valdivia Tours early one morning for a day’s outing to the Termas Geométricas (Geometrical Hot Springs). In a region east of Valdivia, dozens of thermal springs steam up from a few of the many rivers flowing between lakes and the Andean mountains. Termas Geométricas ranks among the best and most beautiful of the bunch.

Tortillas al horno:

Two young couples from Santiago, a driver/guide, and I set out in a van, pulling off the road after an hour at a rustic wooden restaurant. Next to the restaurant, a man stood at a table near two large earthenware ovens (hornos) shaped like igloos. In one, flat rounds of bread called tortillas lay on a layer of warm ashes. Their baking completed, the man had taken several from the oven. Wiping the ashes away with a cloth, he placed them in a basket, to be sold in the restaurant. In the second oven, wood was turning into fiery coals, which, when converted to hot ashes, would bake another batch. I bought several. They have a nice taste, similar to biscuits.

Onward:

Villarrica, the lake and volcano

Our first major stop was the small historic city of Villarrica (introduced in a previous post about Villarrica). This city retains more of the feel of a traditional urban community than the resort town of Pucón on the opposite side of Lago Villarrica. Concrete lounge chairs looked out over the lake from a riverside park, and several boats were anchored near an expanse of dark-sand beach. The day was clear, and I finally got a view of Volcán Villarrica. However, the tourist season being over, few people remained to enjoy the view.

Playa Chica

Leaving the city, we headed into forested mountains to the small town of Lican Ray at the edge of another beautiful forest-bordered body of water, Lago Calafquén. Two beaches, Playa Chica, with a gorgeous view of the lake and snow-dusted mountains, and Playa Grande, for the serious bather, border a wooded peninsula jutting into the water. Paths crisscross the peninsula, but a Mapuche Indian cultural center was closed — along with a number of other tourism facilities — until next summer. Back in town, where cottagelike homes surround a spacious plaza, we had limited time to find ourselves lunch. I gulped down cazuela de vacuno (beef stew) at a wooden open-air restaurant.

Skirting the lake and ascending into mountains, we soon reached Coñaripe, a one-street village crowded in by mountains on both sides. Beyond, the road is rough and unpaved. We traveled past sheep pastures with glimpses of the lake below and a snow-tipped volcano above before entering the Villarrica National Park and the entrance to Termas Geométricas.

Termas Geométricas: 

The Termas Geométricas Hot Springs Complex was built over hot springs bubbling up in a misty rain-forested ravine in the vicinity of two volcanoes (Villarrica and Quetrupillán). Bright-red raised walkways angle up the ravine to 17 slate-bottomed pools fed from natural hot springs, terminating at the foot of a waterfall. The geometrical patterns of the walkways and pools gave rise to the complex’s name and inject a Japanese-like symmetry into the natural cliffs, ferns, and other plants that grow in wild abandon.

Each pool is identified with the temperature of the water, ranging from 35 to 45° C. (95 to 113° F.) Employees constantly check the water, and if the temperature rises above 45°, the pool is temporarily closed. There is also a cold-water pool listed at a bracing 9° C. (48° F.)

We had four hours to enjoy the springs. From the main lodge, where you can buy drinks (non-alcoholic: alcohol is not permitted) and snacks prepared in a wood stove, we were given towels and a lock with wristband key. First, we checked out all the pools. Though dozens of guests wandered the walkways, no pool had more than five or six bathers. Next, we went to one of numerous rustic red cabañas where we changed and stored clothes and valuables.

Slipping into the first pool, up to my neck in liquid heat and surrounded by lush rain forest, I felt about as close to Eden as one can get. Then it was on to another pool, different shape, different scenery. And another. By around my sixth pool, the heat was getting to me. No matter how long  I stayed out, the water began to feel oppressively hot. The cold-water pool tempted me, but, with no one to coax me on, I never screwed up the courage. I imagine one could tolerate the heat better in the winter, when snow blankets the surrounding countryside and the temperature contrast is greater.

Though my body couldn’t take too much of a good thing, my mind will often return to the idyllic beauty of Termas Geométricas.