Pucon, Chile

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So after 2 hours on a bus back to Puerto Montt, a wait of 10 hours (as Id missed the bus by 15 minutes) and a 8 hour bus ride I arrived in Pucon at 8am the next morning, having spent all of the previous day with my spanish/english dictionary in hand chatting (loose expression) to a Chilean girl I was sitting next to on the bus.

I found a hostel and got settled in. The first day I went on a tour with the hostel around the sites of the surrounding areas of Pucon, including a Mapuche village, a waterfall that lands in Lago Azul (due to the minerals) its a beautiful blue colour, and finished the day, lazing around in the hot springs, which the minerals are apparently good for the skin. So obviously you wont recognise me when I get home as I look ten years younger.

The following day I just wandered around Pucon, as there is a lovely beach close by, with black sand (which is a bit weird) and it is just a lovely place to walk around. (I also kept looking at Volcano Villarica and thinking it was a long way to climb and did I think I could make it.)

Anyway various other people in the hostel had climbed the volcano so I figured It cant be that hard, so the next morning at 4am I left with a mini bus full of other people for the drive to the bottom of the volcano.

There is a ski lift that takes you the first 400 metres (1 hour climb) but due to the early start, its not up and running, so being as fit as I am, after about 20 minutes I thought I was going to collapse with exhaustion and have to turn back. But no, 8 people in the group, 3 guides, so I ended up with my own personal guide all the way up, with the other 7 and two guides ahead. In my defence I was only about 10 minutes behind everyone else as I took shorter breaks, but the moral of this story for anyone reading is: DONT SMOKE. well definately not if you want to climb a mountain/volcano.

It was fantastic looking at the sun rise from half way up though. Anyway after about 3.0 hours we had to put crampons on and climb up the glacier, which we did for about 3/4 hour or so, only to find out that we couldnt go any further. This volcano is still active, and the day we were climbing up it, the wind was blowing the smoke in our direction, so having made it to about 2400m we werent allowed to climb the last 350m because of the fumes. Bloody bummer I can tell you. We sat around for a good 1/2 hour waiting to see if the wind would change direction, but as it didnt it was decided we would get too cold so started our desent. We walked some of the way and slid on our bums some of the way, which was excellent fun and made the trip up worthwhile even if we didnt get to the top. The last 40 minutes were walking back down the volcanic rock, and I was so glad Id gone up in the dark else I dont think I would have even started!

The next day..... I slept.

And then I went horseriding, which was excellent, even though my horse didnt really want to go anywhere, and I kept talking to him in English which Im not convinced he understood, although the guide reckoned he understood, Mapuche, Spanish, English and German. It was still really nice though, mooching around in the countryside in the sunshine looking at the views, with no effort involved other than saying "go on" or "vamos". We also got to try some tradional mapuche drink and food. Which was different, and I dressed up as in Mapuche costume, and yes I looked cool.

Next stop Santiago and meeting Sarah

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