Chile : Articles : Pochoco Hill

TREKKING IN THE POCHOCO

It' s nine o'clock in the morning and we are at the foothills of the Pochocho Hill. Everybody is preparing his equipment: sun block lotion, cap, water and high cut boots (with a good sole), well tied, and we start walking with our "Pochoquero" walking sticks.

The hill doesn't let us up; there is no warm-up, since we are going up since the very beginning. The air is fresh, clear, and fragrant. We are looking towards the valley of Arrayán and we see the way this clean air gets polluted closer to the center of the city.

As we go ahead, we find back lighted soapbark, colliguay, chagual, bollen, guayacan bushes, cacti, etc. If it is spring, we see how every plant blooms and everything gets green. If it is winter, we find snow spots, surrounded by snowed hills

We go up, and the path leads us along the different slopes of the hill, allowing us to distinguish the vegetation differences, when the slope faces north or southwards. In the meantime, we start meeting a remarkable variety of people, ranging from 70 odd year olds to children on their fathers. back, enjoying this wonderful landscape, some of them even with their pets.

If the slope faces towards the north-northwest, we find a poor and sunny land, with lots of chagual, bollen bushes and cacti, able to survive due to their capacity to store water. In spring, pitifully, only some chaguals offer their bluish green flowers, due to the fact that most of them are dry, having bloomed in past springs.

If the slope faces towards the south, this is dark, humid and woody; cold in winter, and salvation in summer. With it, we can' t forget the traditional greeting: Good morning Mr. Litre!, so that it doesn't get angry with us, giving us a rash for more than a couple of days. We can' t also avoid getting astonished with the special guayacán, which seems to be a fairy tale bush.

After an hour and a half walking, going mainly upwards, we get to the top, where we enjoy the sight of the andean mountain range, with the snowed tops with eternal ices of the hills La Paloma, El Altar, La Leonera, El Plomo, while we are eating some delicious oranges, apples or melons, and sometimes, the sky offers us the solemnity of a white neck condor, stretching its wings, until it flies away...

The way down is a bit different; the hill slope may make us loose our balance and slip. It is now, more than ever, when the good clefts of the shoes and our "pochoquero" stick are our salvation, allowing us to go down at a good pace, so as to get back at a good time. An excellent lunch is waiting for us!