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Published: March 21st 2006
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Volcano Villarrica
The Pachamama tour Arriving back in Santiago after Easter Island my plan was
simple, get back into Argentina asap (its alot cheaper). A
week later and I´ve still not moved, the reason is the
La Casa Roja Hostal. It turns out to be one of the best hostels I´ve stayed in so far, a converted Mansion, great kitchen, garden and loads of fun people to hang out with.
To get back on the
sightseeing wagon I booked a 5 days tour of the
Chilean Lake District with Pachamama. The highlight was
climbing Villarrica the rest of the Lake District was pretty average to be honest.
Villarrica is an active Volcano near a town called
Pucon. 9am start at the foot of the
Volcano at around 1400m, with the peak at 2880m. A ski lift takes you to 1800m but my group decides to walk the whole damn lot. The first section (upto 1800m) is gravel & rocks and probably the hardest (hence the lift I guess) of the climb. From 1800m it was about 4 hours of trekking through
snow to reach the summit. The views from the summit were pretty damn good! but the best was looking down into an
active Volcano Villarrica
T-Shirt head wear is the only thing to be seen trekking in this season. larva pool!! Fascinating to pier down at the larva bubbling away, every now and then exploding into life. It would have been a hell of alot easier if it wasn´t for the
sulphur clouds the larva pool was bellowing out.
I spent as long as possible watching the larva before starting the descent. Which was fun, no walking down here! I
slid on my backside all the way down!! We got to race each other got up some pretty good speeds with plenty of spinning round and collisions! The trick to going fast is minimal body contact with the snow and squeezing your bum checks for that added bit of zip!
The
Pachamama tour dropped me off in
Puerto Montt were I caught the
Navimag Ferry, Magallanes. The Navimag is a 4 day cruise through the
Fjords of Chilean
Patagonia. There were about 200 passengers on the ferry, a mix of travellers and a slightly older crowd. The bunk beds and food were much better than I expected, 3 square meals a day including vegetables for the first time in ages.
If your not in your bunk there are only two other places to hang out, on
Volcano Villarrica
Slowly advancing up the Volcano the deck taking in the scenery or in the bar taking in the scenery (through the windows). Guess were i spent most of my time.....
It was constant views of mountains and forests for entire journey. On the afternoon of day 3 we stopped at
Glacier Pio XI, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere advancing at 2m a year. Truly enormous! I liked them before but after seeing one up close I´m now a big big Glacier fan.
The real excitement of the cruise took place on the
last night. Just after midnight the Ferry ran
aground and nearly hit an island! Those on deck at the time could apparently touch the over hanging trees on the island. I (and a few others) were partying away in the bar and didn´t actually notice we had
stopped moving or nearly hit an island until 3am...pretty heavy night. There were a few announcements but no one really took much notice.
The order of events seemed to be a power cut just after midnight, probably causing the auto pilot to cut out. The ferry then runs aground, the anchor is dropped to stop us ploughing further into the island! We're
Volcano Villarrica
Views from the summit then stuck and have to wait for high tide so the ship can get off the sea bed. The ships then
limps off around 8am and stops in a nearby bay to wait for the
Chilean Navy arrive. They turn up mid morning and send divers in to inspect the hull for damage! While this is going on the crew kept informing us we only have a minor engine problem, no mention of nearly hitting an island or the Navy divers.
They gave the option for 140 passengers to get to take a 3 hour Catarman straight to our final destination or spend another day and night on board.
Another night in a comfortable bed, good food and a decent´ish bar - I wasn´t going anywhere. We eventually arrived in Puerto Natales a day late but it definitely made the cruise!
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Mark
non-member comment
A great travel writer
3 inch your trip seems to get better and better! I think South America is clearly a great place to go - very jealous mate. Just a shame you can't lay any of these fellow travellers, my advice is more alcohol....