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Published: April 22nd 2008
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Day 197 - Friday 4 April
The bus pulled into Pucon about 8 in the morning and apart from the stray dogs you get in every south american town, the place was deserted. We´d already booked in somewhere so set off to find it. Suddenly a car pulled up and asked us if we were going to the hostel we´ve booked into. It was the owner and she´d come to give us a free lift. Rather decent of her.
After checking in I left Russ and Pa to go and have a walk around town whilst I had a shower and freshend up. Everybody who comes to Pucon climbs the volcano but as I did one a few weeks ago in New Zealand I wasn´t planning on doing so. However after reading about it on the internet this morning I ´ve decided to do it. Its still an active volcano and apparently you get to see lava at the top. As theres snow at the top as well you get to toboggen down once you´ve done the climb. Should be cool.
Pucons a bit like a mini Queenstown in New Zealand so I headed out to have a
look and find the best price for the volcano climb. Its a nice little town but its a bit touristy and pricey. The resturants are by far the most expensive i´ve seen in Chile so far. After finding the best price I could I stopped off at the 2 lakes to admire the scenery before heading back to the hostel.
Russ has also decided to climb the volcano and even though I think its a bad idea he says his girlfriend is too. Given that she gets tired and has to stop when walking 5 mins down a flat road how the hells she going to climb a mountain. As well be in a group I don´t wont the rest of the group blaming us if we dont reach the top because she holds us back.
Its a Friday night and according to the woman who runs the hostel it will be busy in town tonight but as we have to be up at 6am tomorrow for the volcano we stayed in and watched a dvd instead.
Day 198 - Saturday 5 April
We were up just after 6 am and by 7 we were being
kitted out with the equipment were going to need for the day. We had to carry it all in a bag and Pa was already moaning it was too heavy. I could be in for a long day.
We set off in glorious sunshine to base camp which is at 1200m. (The top of the volcano is just short of 3000m). Usually you take a cable car up to base camp 2 at 1800m but as its too windy today we had to walk instead. 100m in Pa was already needing to stop for a rest and this was the easy bit. As were part of a group we can´t leave anybody behind so the whole group had to wait till she could carry on which caused quiet murmous of discontent. Most people are on a tight budget and have spent a bit to do the walk. They want to reach the summit. I tried to be diplomatic but also keep my distance, I agree with them she shouldn´t be here its a very hard climb and shes never done anything like it before in her life. No disrespect but shes spent her whole life in a city and
isn´t used to walking far let alone climb mountains.
We finally reached base camp 2 and as it get a whole lot harder from now in, the guide diplomatically told Russ and Pa they would have to wait there until we returned. Unfortunately the weather has deteriated extremely fast and the guide informed us all that he doesn´t think we'll be able to reach the top and should turn back. As we´ve all paid quite a bit (various amounts but i paid 32 000 pesos about 32 quid) we all said we wanted to continue. (You get no refunds if the climb is abandoned because of bad weather), the weather doesn´t look that bad and the ice is only 600m away.
So we carried on and with a smaller group made fast progress. 10 mins later we´d already made it to 2000m, when our guide said its too bad and we have to return to town. It doesn´t look any worse than at base camp 2 and were only 20 mins from the ice but he was insistent so we had to return.
It was only 11:30 am when we arrived back in town to much dissapointment.
Although the weather is bad up the volcano, its ok in town. We couldn´t get a refund but did manage to get a few quid knocked off a trip to a nearby spa. With not much else to do as we´ve already looked around town we decided we might as well do it as it will pass the afternoon and be good for the muscles. After all we´d still done a reasonable climb earlier.
As the hostel is basically someones house and were the only ones staying there the kitchen is really clean, so for the first time in 198 days I cooked a meal rather than eat out.
They say threes a croud and their right. I think I might travel solo for a bit as I need a break so I spent the evening researching places I might want visit in Argentina. Tomorrow we cross the border to Baraloche in Argentina before Russ and Pa return to Chile. Im going to make a break for freedom and travel south through Argentina instead.
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