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Published: August 24th 2007
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Did someone say active?
Pucon with Volcan Villarrica behind Upon arriving in Pucon late at night, I went to what I thought was my hostel and began dutifully unpacking all my things only to be told that I was in the wrong place. Then, after a brief moment of confusion, I was told that the place I was supposed to be was on the other side of town and I had best get a cab. The cab driver seemed at first to know where he was going, but as we passed through town our surrounds reflected the tourism-derived wealth of the town progressively less. By the time the cabby indicated that we had arrived we were in the heart of the Pucon ghetto, and there were some shady looking characters smoking durries and lurking in the shadows out the front of a gloomy looking residence. I had heard of cases where dodgy cabbies take you down a dark street and then stop, whereupon a gang of burly thugs appears from nowhere, beats the snot out of you and takes you for all you are worth. I was bracing myself for exactly this scenario.
To my relief I discovered that one of the shady looking characters was the owner of
It's a long way to the top...
The scenery was amazing on the way up the volcano the hostel, and a very cordial, affable fellow. Behind the gloomy exterior it was actually quite a homely place, if a little basic. With sunlight the next day, the neighbourhood looked marginally less like the back streets of South-Central LA, and I discovered that I was only an 8 minute walk from town. The town proper was quite a pretty place, but without a doubt the great attraction of the area was the opportunity to climb Volcan Villarrica, an active volcano nearby.
I had heard a horror story from some Aussie girls at the hostel about how they'd booked up to do the climb and then been rainchecked for the next 4 days due to bad weather, eventually forcing them to leave town without doing it. Eager to avoid a similar disappointment myself, I booked up to do it that first day so I'd have a few days up my sleeve in the event of postponements. Luckily I got great weather the very next day.
Despite my meticulous preparation of a cut lunch the previous night, the early start of 6:30AM for climbing the volcano should have been a red flag to me that I would be in
a daze in the morning and forget something important. Having not twigged that this was a possibility I didn't pack my bag the night before, and only when we were on the bus halfway up to the base of the volcano did I realise I hadn’t brought any water. It was sitting in the fridge back at the hostel. The guy who sold me the ticket said it was very simple, all we needed to bring was food and water, yet somehow I only remembered the former.
Ashamed of this foolish mistake, I decided that I would not ask if anyone had a spare bottle of water, but would instead demonstrate for all and sundry my terrific survival skills and resourcefulness, making do by eating snow on the way up. This plan slightly backfired when I discovered that much of the snow was covered in black volcanic ash. Not wanting to undermine the image of a sturdy mountaineer that I was seeking to project, I instead used my ice pick to brush the snow of the top and hack away at the clean ice below. I could sense my fellow climbers were impressed by this - perhaps some even
A big, wet, steamy hole
HT not getting too close to the crater pondered whether I was a distant relative of Sir Edmund Hilary.
The second difficulty I faced during the ascent arose from the soft sandy ash which we walked through before reaching the snowline. I was still fresh at that stage, but couldn't help but notice that every time I took two steps forward, I slid two steps back. The problem was not that this was physically draining, but the fact that it reminded me of lyrics of the 1989 hit "Opposites Attract". In spite of the mental anguish of Paula Abdul's voice incessantly ringing in my ears, I bravely battled onwards and upwards, doing my best to ignore the growing sense that this song on repeat was causing serious psychological damage.
By the time we neared the top 4 hours or so later I was on the verge of tears, having been unable to hear anything else but that bloody song in my head. Worse still, I started seeing visions of a cartoon cat doing break dancing moves. I don't think we were at an extreme enough altitude (2,800m) for it to be affecting me mentally, nor do I think the sulphur concentration in the snow was rich
Looking down on creation
The views from the top were mindblowing enough to account for my warped state of mind. It was that song that brought on my hallucinations.
The view from the top was just amazing and enough to snap me out of my downward spiral into insanity. I literally felt on top of the world and also that a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My legs were heavy and my odour strong and manly, but nothing could subtract from the exhilaration and sense of achievement. The view defied description in mere words. Coming back down was excellent fun, as most of the way we just sat on our arses and slid down.
That night, I went out with a few others from the climb to toast our hard days work at the wittily named bar 'Mamas and Tapas'. I was enjoying myself immensely until an E! special on Paula Abdul (independent witnesses will verify this) came on the large screen, and the horrors of that day that I'd worked so hard to suppress and conquer came flooding back to me. I was a shaking mess.
The night before I left Pucon I did a tour of some thermal springs, which was a nice way to relax the ailing bones and joints after the climb. There were 4 pools where we went of varying heat, with the hottest pool totally unpatronised due to its unbearable heat. Unpatronised that is, except for by me, who saw it as another way of proving to the world how tough and manly I am. Being my father's son, I thought I could handle any heat that was thrown at me and twice sat there for 5 minutes as my internal organs slowly boiled. At the end of each stint I was on the brink of collapse, and my skin was red for the next 24 hours, but hey, no hot spring beat me. It was a triumph of man over nature.
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Opposites Attract
Amazing... that song was on Family Guy the other night... with the father dressed like a cat, taking the place of MC Skat Kat. Paula Abdul actually appears in the sequence and supposedly she re-recorded her vocals specifically for the episode. Great writing again Harvey... looks like a sweet climb.