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Published: March 24th 2006
After sadly saying goodbye to Ben and Subhani, Angus and I headed to Chile to do a different kind of trek. It was a four day trek around a beautiful volcano in the Southern lake district of Chile. We camped at the bottom for the first day and then climbed over 1000 metres to the refugio half way up. It was a wooden hut with beds for 16 people and a wood burning stove. We met lots of interesting people including a friendly Belgium couple, a German policewoman and some Israelis. The next day everyone set off at the crack of dawn to climb to the summit of Volcano Puyehue. After a torrential down pour the first day, we had perfect clear blue skies. At the top we had wonderful views of all the surrounding volcanos (Osorno, Lanin, Tronador,.....), and the 'River of Lava' (a river of black rock left over from the last time the volcano erupted), lakes and the crater of the volcano filled with snow.
From there we walked across the volcanic plateau to eventually reach our campsite, next to which are hot springs. Angus tried out all the hot pools. Most were too hot or too cold,
but we found one of a perfect temperature, so it was a great way of relaxing after a long walk.
The next day after wading across some rivers we arrived to an area full of geisers and pools of bubbling hot mud. The colours of the rocks were beautiful, a mixture of reds, yellows, oranges and greens. As it is out in the middle of nowhere there are no barriers around the geisers. So of course Angus went right up to couple and stepped down into a bubbling mud pool, neally burning his foot. That was after one of the Israeli guys had to be evacuated as he burnt the whole of one leg from doing the same thing a couple of days before. Still was fun to get up close for a good view.
We walked back the same way to the Refugio and then down to the bottom, with a break in the hot springs on the way.
We spent the next two days driving round the Chilean lake district. We drove along lots of dirt track roads and found secluded beaches, local farm houses and had stunning views of Volcano Osorno, one of the largest in the
area. We found a camping spot on Lake Llanique with a view of two volcanos. We cooked on a table on the beach and were lucky enough to have a beautiful sunset which lit the volcano up in red colours.
We then headed back to Bariloche to drop off the car before heading for the Sun in Northern Argentina.
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