Sights in Villarrica
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Volcán Villarrica
It may seem shocking that so many people live and go about their daily chores in the shadow of the smoking and rumbling Volcán Villarrica. The 2847m-high cone is a basaltic volcano with an open crater and a violent history that includes at least four fatal eruptions. Carbon dating has determined that Villarrica had a massive eruption around 1810 BC.
The first historically recorded eruption was in AD 1558 and since then, the volcano has had small to medium eruptions on well over 50 occasions. The largest modern eruptions were in 1640, 1948 and 1971.
That 1971 eruption opened a 4km-wide fissure, spurting out some 30 million cubic meters of lava and displacing several rivers…
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Museo Histórico y Arqueológico
Mapuche artifacts – including jewelry, musical instruments and roughly hewn wooden masks – are the focus of the Museo Histórico y Arqueológico, alongside the tourist office. Gracing the grounds is a Mapuche ruka, oblong-shaped with thatched walls and roof, traditionally built by four men in four days under a reciprocal labor system known as minga. Reeds from the lake provide the thatch, which is so skillfully intertwined that water cannot penetrate even in this very damp climate.
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