Blogs from Villarrica Volcano, Araucanía, Chile, South America - page 6

We left Puerto Natales on 30 April and took a bus to Punta Arenas. This is another town in Patagonia where you feel at the end-of-the-world and stuck in time-warp. There wasn't much to do here, so we got another bus and travelled 28 hours north until we reached Osorno. Bri and me have decided to go our separate ways, so I headed to Valdivia, which is a tranquil student town in the Lake District area. I passed a day wandering around the local fish market. The fishermen throw handouts to huge sea lions that come right up on to the promenade. I witnessed a fight between two drunks. One of them was losing, so his wife came over with a wooden bat and proceeded to whack the other guy on his leg which happened to ... read more

We arrived in Pucon in the morning after taking a great all night bus from Santiago. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit overcast and a bit cold. The ground was wet and it looked like it had rained the night before. Melia and I wandered around the town after finding accomodations and tried to figure out what we wanted to do here. Pucon is listed as the outdoor adventure capital of the Chilean lake district. We had read our book and found all the typical activities one would expect....mountain biking, hiking, fishing, rafting, horse riding, ropes courses, volcano climbing etc..... Mount biking...hmm not for us, hiking..why pay when we can hike on our own, fishing...don´t have a kitchen so what would we do with the fish?, Rafting...we just did that in Mendoza, Horse Riding....weather wasn´t great, ... read more

Opposite to Bariloche, in the Chilean side of the Andes lies the city Pucon. The main attraction there is the active volcano Villarica, and the possibility to climb it. The road that connects between Bariloche and Pucon is really a picturesque one, as it goes through a region of 7 different lakes. We therefore decided to rent a car, and explore the region. The lakes were really quite and surrealistic, almost all totally for ourselves, as it was the middle of the week and there were almost no locals resting. I was ready to spend days there, just lying on the shore of one of the lakes and relaxing, but we had to continue to Pucon. Upon arrival, we signed up with one of the companies that organizes the climbs. If a few years ago you ... read more

Pucon is the first taste of good weather I've had in a long time. but donning a pair of shorts was not the entire reason for travelling here: the plan was to climb the 2847 metre Volcan Villarica - an active Volcano on the town's doorstep. The ascent can only be done with an accredited guide, so we signed up with one in town and we were fully kitted up with boots, gaitors, waterproofs and best-of-all an ice axe!!! As I said to Chris, my motivation for doing even the most menial of tasks would be huge if only I was able to complete them using an ice-axe!! I don't know why but it just feels really good to be wielding one of the beasts!! The ascent initially sounded quite daunting, 1400 metres straight up the ... read more

I am now in the little town on Pucon in Chile. The main attraction here is the Villarica Volcano, a perfect cylindrical volcano like Mt Fuji in Japan. For some silly reason, we climbed it yesterday, but it was fantastic! We were supposed to go the day before but got up for the 8am start (almost killed me!) only to get there and be told by our guide that it was too cloudy and dangerous so we had to put the trip off until the next day! Yesterday started off REALLY windy, so our guide didn't decide until 11am we could go. Were supposed to set off walking at 9am, but didn´t set off until 12.30, which meant we had major time constraints. Therefore, we were dragged up at the speed of lightening. Or group had ... read more