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Published: March 19th 2008
Hey hey hey!!
So, all of ISA spent this past weekend + Friday in Pucon, a small tourist town 12 hours south of Valparaiso. (Yes, another bus ride!) The town was really cute with lots of chocolate shops and other touristy features. The main attraction to Pucon is all the totally awesome outdoor activities you can do. You can raft, canoe, kayak, do a canopy tour OR climb a volcano! Due to budget I did only one of these... the volcano! It was incredible! We arrived in Pucon around 8 am and literally hopped off the bus and ran to the outfitters. (Because of the weather we had to change from our originally plan to climb on saturday and climb on friday instead) We got fitted for boots and gators and grabbed a pack full of our other gear (Jacket, pants, crampons, gloves OH and an ice pick!) and hopped on the bus to take us to the foot of the mountain. Since we were starting late in the day we took the ski lift (my first!!) up a bit of the 9500 foot volcano. (Whose name is Villarrica by the way) So long story short the climb was probably
one of the hardest things I've ever done. The bottom portion was all sand the middle all ice and the top big volcanic rocks and dried lava (yea, LAVA). Our guides werent exactly #1 either... like we didnt even know we had crampons till we were back at the outfitters and those suckers would have come in SUPER handy. The top was a HUGE crator billowing with clouds of sulfur so much it made my eyes and nose burn just to look towards the thing. However we were above the clouds and it was incredible during the assent to look up and see clouds whizzing right over head in the blue blue sky and right around us! So cool! The way down was a little less challenging. We had special jakcets and pants (they were huge and practically acted as a parachute on me!) that made it easy to slide on some of the rocks and the ice! We slid down the icy part completely on out butts! The people that have actually been around snow (obviously NOT me) said it was like sledding. Then the sandy part at the end (no lift this time) was pretty tiresome but all
and all the volcano climb was amazing! (Well for me anyway, a few people couldnt make it to the top, one girl had a panic attack, and another guy was having a lot of trouble with the altitude) I spent the rest of the weekend swimming in the BEAUTIFUL, but freezing cold, lake, cooking with girls, bbqing with Zach and the guys (who m,ade awesome ribs and burgers!!), and just hangin out. The last day we went on a short hike (mostly get on the bus look at stuff and get back on) to a bunch of waterfalls. They were incredible and the water that fed them was blue, bright blue! There were also TONS of blackberrys ripe for the eating! After the "hike" we went and relaxed at the hot springs until the rain came. The hot water felt good on the blisters I was suffering after being forced to wear HORRENDUS boots. One the walk back to the bus we pick someones plums right from the tree. Yummy! It was a beautiful weekend!
This week we only have 3 days of class... Its easter this weekend (which I admit I didnt know till Zachs mom told me
after this entry was saved...) so we get some time off. I plan to stay here and hang at the beach and have a cookout with a bunch of people at the botanical gardens. Like a I said before... life is hard.
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