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Published: December 20th 2006
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We arrived in Valaparaiso bloated and tired from steak and wine abuse and vowed to stay off it for a few days. I treated myself to chicken and beer. I didn't really know what to expect from Valaparaiso, I knew nothing about it, we were only there because Lucy had read about it in a novel. On arrival following a quick look around, she said it wasn't really that much like the book had described it. I asked when the novel was written. "Recently" came the reply. "...but the novel was set in 1850"
However it turned out to be a great town to visit with a different atmosphere than most South American cities of its size. A famous old port town, there is only a couple of blocks on the flat before it rises steeply on the hills. My fact-gatherer sat next to me says it has 42 hills and is served by 17 funicular railways. These were a great way of avoiding too much uphill walking but most of them didn't look like they had changed or even checked for safety since their construction a hundred years ago. It was a great place to wander round, narrow windy
Volcan Villarica
Which we ascended little streets with brightly painted houses, and look for empanada tiendas (latino pie shop).
Following three days in Valparaiso we headed to Villarrica and Pucon where we wanted to climb Villarrica Volcano. Unfortunately the weather was English, cold, cloudy and raining. Waiting for the weather to change, we had a day touring the area and in the hot springs, a day mountain biking in a bit of sun. Then following a bus change as we thought the weather had changed for the good we had a day hiding indoors from the torrential rain. It had been four days and we hadn't even seen the volcano yet as it was permanently enclosed in grey cloud. The next day would be our last chance. The guides were optimistic that not only would we be able to see it, we may get up it.
The alarm went off at 4:30 a.m and we noticed that finally the rain had stopped and we were able to go and attempt climbing the volcano. By the time our group of 12 set off from the bottom it was just before sunrise and it was a nice steady walk up the pebbly hill. It wasn't long (an hour) before we reached the snow though and then we all had to attach our crampons to our boots and start using our ice axes properly and not just waving them around and stabbing things. It was very windy and icy but we all took it steady and reached a plateau about three hours later where we had a great view of Lake Villarica and other volcanoes behind us and the peak of our volcano facing us. It looked like we didn't have far to go but unfortunately it was blowing a gale up there and more significantly the incline in front of us was covered in ice. Looking up we could see the blue ice covering the slope and unfortunately the guide said we wouldn't be able to continue on to the summit safely. Although we may be able to get to the top, there was no way we could descend safely in the ice, normally it is snowy and the descent is made on your backside.
After shivering in the harsh wind for a while we accepted it and turned back. There were a few disappointed people in the group including a frustrated dutchman who pleaded with the guide, "Its bullshit man, I have this axe" I think he thought it was a magic axe or something, I suppose they don't have much experience of mountains back home. We took consolation that we got close and at least the views were superb where we had reached. Heading down was slippy as there was still a lot of ice to cope with. A belgian guy took a bit of a tumble and slid a fair way. I went down to check he was ok and then made fun of him. Lucy caught us up and overtook and then suddenly in front of me I saw one of the spikes from her crampons got caught in the crampon lace on her other foot. Following a not so graceful fall she started sliding down the mountainside. Luckily she remembered what she had been taught, turned and tried to slam her ice axe into the snow. Unfortunately the snow was ice, she couldn't get a grip and the axe got ripped out of her hands. This left her accelerating down the hill flying past the guide who tried to stop her. I clumsily chased after her as did the guides but it wasn't long before she had slid quickly out of view. It was clear by the look of fear on one of the guides faces it wasn't the most technical descent he'd ever seen. Fortunately Lucy came to a spluttering halt after digging in hands, knees, elbows and feet, over a ridge a few hundred metres away from the beginning of her land speed record attempt. Even more fortunately she had not continued on to the rocks over the next ridge or hurt anything.
Relieved that Lucy was fine we continued our descent which had become a lot less now following her short cut until we reached a snowy point where we able to slide down on our bums (controllably) most of the way to the bottom of the hill. At the bottom even the Dutch guy with the magic axe was able to appreciate that it probably wasn't safe to continue ascending when we stopped after seeing Lucys fall later.
Following this scare we have decide to concentrate on eating and drinking again. Therefore tomorrow we return to Argentina...
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Geoff
non-member comment
It´s buillshit man
Jon, love it. Great writing skills and very funny story. Glad that you both were ok and jealous of the volcano climbing and a chance to wear crampons and weild an ice axe.