Advertisement
Published: November 30th 2010
Edit Blog Post
DONNY
Right, so the 12 hour bus journey from Valparaiso to Pucon was a doddle, which is a good thing since there are 35hr+ journeys on the way very soon. We just watched movies and slept and tried not to retch at the intermittent toilet stench.
We arrived at Pucon at 9.30 am and headed off to our Lonely Planet recommended hostel, Ecole. We were greeted at reception by an evil witch who is clearly their best attempt at a friendly face. Having read on their website that their staff were English speaking I politely enquired in Spanish if she 'habla'ed inglese'. She replied that "No, this is Chile, in Chile we speak Spanish". Charming. Anyway the hostel was largely disappointing, with snooty staff, no kitchen, dreadful atmosphere and a vegetarian only restaurant which, for the carnivores among us, needs no further explanation.
It may seem that I have concentrated a bit too much on transport and accomodation details but there is a good reason: the weather in Pucon was horrible for the first 3 days (howling wind, horizontal rain etc), in fact pretty reminiscent of sunny Scotland. We had to wait it out until the weather was due
to clear on Monday before we could book our epic climb of Volcan Villarrica.
Unfortunately, on Sunday night Whytey lived up to her name by vomming after inadvertently eating some beef lasagne which most definitely didn't agree with her. This meant a hasty rearranging of the climb to Tuesday. Monday was instead spent on the lakeside beach getting badly sunburned. (SANDY - erm, that'll be Donny btw, damn those ginger genes...Oh, and the lasagne was actually advertised as lasagne vegetariano!)
We finally did get to do the climb on Tuesday and it was well worth the wait. A ridiculously early start, a group of really irritating Germans, hundreds of other climbers and the acrid sulphuric acid fumes from the crater were not enough to detract from the awesome views and sense of achievement from climbing our first active volcano. Sliding down the mountain on our bums was also pretty cool, even if I would rather have snowboarded. We rounded off the day with an evening visit to the geothermal pools at Los Pozones which were amazing, and so good for soothing aching limbs after the climb. Shame they don't have something like that in Glasgow, but I think
the bams might turn the water a strange shade of yellow (urine) and red (buckie and blood). (SANDY - Ditto Donny's comments. Volcano Villarica, some 2,847m high, is the most active volcano in South America and the views were unbelievable. I won't lie, i found it a hard slog and likened it to climbing something like Everest - right leg shuffle, left leg shuffle, right leg shuffle...(ok, slight exaggeration) but it was worth every minute for the reward of sliding down the volcano on nappy like contraptions at high speed! Sadly my wee schnoz got slightly burnt with all the nose blowing and wiping off the sun cream so Bariloche hasn't seen me at my finest).
Our next stop was Valdivia, a nearly coastal town, which sounded quite nice for a stopover according to the guidebook. Turns out it's only nice if you are really keen on paying over the odds for the privilege of sleeping on a flea bitten mattress on the floor, and sightseeing in a grotty town with nothing much going for it. We did stay, and actually had quite a nice chinese meal, but we pre-booked a spot on the 8.30am bus out of town
for the next day. (SANDY - Chinese was awesome, although it was slightly unnerving watching a Chilean news report while we ate, about a huge bus crash involving TUR bus, our new fave mode of transport. Turns out, epic bus journeys aren't the best for sleepy bus drivers. Still, we're telling ourselves that now this has happened, all the bus companies will be on high safety alert!)
The bus was heading out of Chile and into Argentina, San Carlo de Bariloche to be precise, where I am currently writing this entry. It was a 7 hour journey across the Andes on some of the most spectacular roads I have seen. I'm afraid I didn't see much of it since mostly Whytey and I were glued to Flashfoward on the laptop. Absolutely addicted to it. (SANDY - our first experience of a border crossing was pretty uneventful. Well customs forgot to stamp Donny's passport leaving Chile, which would have taken some explaining in Argentina...worry not, we quickly noticed and traipsed back in to Chilean customs just before the bus sped off in to Argentina).
Anyway, Bariloche is beautiful, we love it here. We've been mountain biking and done a
bit of exploring, seen some incredible scenery and tried to catch a tan (I just got a bit redder) (SANDY - and i've walked around wearing a balaclava covering my schnoz) and we have just started a Spanish language course. Its all going well and we will have done some more action adventure stuff by the time we leave here. Next stop, somewhere cold in the south.....
SANDY - So it's back to school (school bells and homework, seriously) for a week. Morning spanish lessons with fun stuff to fill the afternoons (homework permitting). We splashed out on a rather fancy spanish dictionary so we're getting to grips with cheap hostel cooking (chicken salad last night & pasta tonight) for a bit. We're currently plotting out our trip south and it looks like the next 3 weeks will be spent mainly on a bus. Had better book seats next to the bus driver so we can keep him awake ;o)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.043s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0254s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Mum Whyte
non-member comment
Fantastic photos - love Donny's cuddly bear tee shirt. What a difference from the snow covered volcano to biking in the sun by the lake. What a great time you are having. Never mind the witches, you will soon be able to speaka the lingo.