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Published: January 25th 2007
Mt biking in Pucon
Adventure all go...! From Santiago we travelled overnight to Pucon. Content with our last feed of Lasagne at Kathys.
Pucon, Chile
We spent 2days doing some extreme mountain biking efforts in the surrounding hills. The area was rich with trails and waterfalls.
Despite this on the second day we spent 4hours ascending a gruelling hill in search of a waterfall. With the ridiculous directions of several children selling woolen socks we cycled past it and missed our destination.
However, the disappointment of not seeing the 70ft waterfall was overcome by the shear exhileration of descending down the gravel road at break neck speed. There was definately some close calls. I attribute this to a lack of front brakes, dodgy gravel patches and oncoming cars around sharp blind corners. The 4hour trip up was recipricated by a 20minute descent!
Yeah haaaaw!
Bariloche, Argentina
So another day on the bus, travelling up the nuts through a spectacular Andes pass. We arrived in Bariloche to find all the hostels CHOKED.
We managed to find a B&B to stay and spent until lunch time the following day sorting out a hostel for the rest of our
F off!
Molesto Davano, great illustration of the trouble we had with the aggressive flying pests around the river and bush. time. It was a pleasant hostel with 8 hospital beds, the other 6 occupied by Isrealis. Aparently it is a ritual for them to travel in packs of 1000 throughout South America. So we used our down time living like an Israeli, which was an education in itself.
After getting set up we learned of the BridgeSwing. So having tried Bungy, Skydiving etc Leon and I had a calling to jump off a 40m bridge. As you can see from the pics, the guy set up the ropes from scratch and Guinea Pigged it (tested) the ropes himself before sending us up.
I went second after Leon. The drill was to climb through the struts in the bridge, where the guy set you up with caribinas and the rope attached to the bridge. You then has to gather yourself and jump, fall, swing - missing the river the 2 cliffs on either side. Sounds dangerous, looks dangerous but the buzz from it definately yeilded some adrenaline.
I decided to try a second jump and managed to convince the instructor to let me climb higher on the bridge struts. Confirming it was ok, i pulled off a mind blowing backflip
Lunch time
Leon chilling out by the horseshoe shaped water fall. before being swung through the valley.
Leon and i then jumped off another bridge a few times in to the river - thinking we needed more thrills.
The following day we reengaged our adrenaline with a jeep tour around the neighbouring lakes. The driver thought it was acceptable to take the roughest way possible and we found ourselves holding on for dear life as we were thrown around.
Outstanding.
We followed this up with a bender just to sample the nightlife. GOOONE! Just the same as everywhere, the nightlife started at 2am and i got home around day break.
Sunday we decided to walk off our hangovers with a nice stroll to a lookout point.
Much the same as Queenstown, they have a Gondola going up.
I decided to run up it.
However, it was not long before i took a wrong turn and ended off trial and bushwacking my way through chest high sharp bushes. Leon and our new Isreali friend, Adam took the more conventional method and ended up beating me up - despite me running the first half an hour.
The views were amazing and we chilled out at
Andes
View from the Argy border. In the middle of the Andes the top - appreciating our efforts after the 3hour walk.
We got back to the hostel around dark and headed out for a famous steak and a chocolate or 3 from the many chocolate shops. Not too shabby.
All in all this place was pimp. Ski resort by winter, adventure trekking by summer.
Top stop.
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