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Published: January 9th 2011
starting off biking
our start to mountain biking!"cat power - free"
"the national - green gloves"
"chad vangaalen - red hot drops"
Andrew and I made our way from Maintencillo, a small beach town north of Vina del mar and headed back to Valparaiso were we caught a night bus to Santiago. We arrived in Santiago at 1am and searched for a hostel to stay at. By 2am we had found one and quickly grabbed some rest. We had an 8am bus to Pucon, wich would take us 12 hours to travel. Like two zombies we finally arrived in Pucon around 10pm, the bus was not on time. Such is life in Chile, not on time! And I love that, no strict schedules, rushing from A to B like a mad man. Nope, casual and cavalier, take your time and remain relaxed!
Pucon was breath of fresh air, fresh mountain air far removed from the smog of Santiago and Valpo. I thought this would be a great place to recharge ourselves. I would be mistaked, severely. Pucon was crazy beautiful and it was full of activities. From canyoning, to white water rafting, to hang gliding and climbing a volcano. There was just too much to
do. Andrew and I had an early night the first night. We were both exhausted and my Bronchitis was starting to kick my ass! The next day we thought we would have an easy day. We rented a couple mountain bikes and asked where we should bike to. We were told to bike to a beautiful waterfall not far away. 6km each way in the beautiful Pucon landscape. It sounded great, and we packed a lunch of fresh fruit and peanut butter! Yup, so it was 6km straight up a friggin mountain! My lungs hurt from being sick and I was coughing non stop. The road to the waterfall was not marked and we only guessed the way. After trying to bike up the mountain for about 60 seconds, Andrew and I had no choice but to walk our bikes up the remaining distance. About 2 hours later, we finaly arrived, climbed off our bikes and hiked down about 200 feet to the base of the water fall. The trip was worth it, the subtropical forest was breath taking and the waterfall brought some fresh air AND fresh water to drink! We spend about 30 minutes eating lunch and swimming
a bit in the waterfall´s pool! This is where my camera stopped working so I have no pictures. I am not happy about this!
We left this waterfall and obviously biking down the mountain was quite easy and a welcome fast paced ride down! Andrew wanted to check out another waterfall and we started to bike there. After about 3km my bronchitis was too bad and I couldnt go any further. So we headed back to our hostel. Andrew and I had to hostel hop while in Pucon. We didn´t reserve a head of time and most of the hostels were booked. So we had to move from one hostel to the next each day! This is backpacking I reasured Andrew!
The next day we were going to do a two day hike in one of the national parks. But my lungs were in no mood to hike up a mountain for 2 days. So we headed to a beautiful white sand beach and spent the day laying on the beach! It was a beautiful area. A pristine blue lake with a white sand bottom completely surounded by the subtropical forests of the Lake District Andes Mountains.
That
night we moved into a new hostel and met a couple of Americans, Idaho and Minnesota! Or Ned and Emily! The four of us went out for some drinks and had a chillled evening! The next day the two Americans went hiking in the mountains and Andrew and I decided to climb up Volcan Pucon. A spectical of a Volcano, extremely active and hovering over Pucon like a ticking bomb ready to go off! So lets climb that ticking bomb!!!
What an amazing climb. The Volcano was still completely covered in snow! But we had a beautiful day, plenty of sun and sunburn too!
We reached the summit in about 3 hours. Andrew and I wanted to go faster but our group were a bit slow! There was ten of us in total in our group and about 200 people on the volcano in total! After reaching the summit we entered a thick cloud of sulphur. HA, all that way just to breath in toxic fumes and not see any lava. Oh well, still pretty awesome. We rested at the summit for about 30 minutes then it was time to head down. The summit was at 2870m about sea level
Volcan Pucon
Yup we are about to climb that! and our climbe was about 1500m. After three hours of climbing up, we slid down in about 35 minutes. This was the best part by far. We strapped a slidding........ fabric(?) around our butts and slid down on our ass! So you snow board do you, well I slide down mountains on my ASS! This was a rush and let me tell you this volcano was STEEP! I was a bit nervous at first, as was everyone. Then our guide went down first and holly shit did it look fun. So I said, screw it, what a way to go! While everyone gathered the courage to follow I ran as fast as I could towards the first slide. I jumped 5 feet down the mountain landing square on my ass, used my ice axe to get an extra push and sped down the hill twice as fast as the guide! Andrew did the same and the guide loved our style! Crazy Canadians he would say! It was 1.5 hours for everyone else to slide down. Andrew and I only 35 minutes! At one part our guide was having so much fun with us so he took Andrew and I down
a different route while we waited for everyone else to catch up. We ran down the side of the main route where it was TWICE as steep and NO routes plowed so far. Clearly no one was meant to go that way. So we ran down as fast as we could, jumped down 10 feet to the next level doing a barrel role when landing and trying to jump back up on our feet. Then using are momentum we slid down on our FEET! The guide made it down, but Andrew caught an edge on his boots and tumbled 200 feet down. This was my chance to prove that I have better balance then Andrew so I made sure to make it down skiing on my feet! It was hard and intense! At the top the rest of the group watched what we had done but no one followed. The guide yelled up to them " Dont go this way, these two are CRAZY, go the main route please!" We carefully climbed up the icy side of the volcano to meet up with the rest of the 200 people taking the normal route. The next slide was awesome. We reached
what really was a cliff that you had to slide down. It was nearly straight down for 500 feet then flattened out to about 30 degrees. STEEP. Everyone just gathered and wondered who would go first. They all looked at Andrew and I. Yup we went first. The guide started off and gained so much speed that he hit a bump and flew 5 feet in the air and flipped in the air and landed on his head. He bounced off the snow, landed on his ass again, gave a thumbs up and off he went. AWESOME I thought. I ran 15 feet to the edge and jumped 6 feet down the mountain and took off, flying 4 feet in the air! Andrew followed and we flew by everyone else, got to the bottom and our momentum kept us going on our feet when we popped up off our asses and we ran another 100 yards or so before we could finally stop! Crazy Canadians they yelled yet again!
That night we went out drinking with Idaho and Minnesota until 7am! Idaho and Minni are two crazy Americans and they got along with Andrew and I just fine. We
drank too much, but the disco was a tun of fun. We were the only 4 gringos in the bar! And we managed to dance with every single Chilean girl at the bar, easily! They either really liked us or were too polite to show how annoyed they were! Whatever, it was fun!
Pucon was a great place and we had a tun of fun! I look forward to going back on my own to take in as much of the other activities as I can. But for now, we had to return to Santiago. Andrew has to fly back to Ottawa, his vacation is over, and so is mine. Now I will start my backpacking trip! I have 20 days in Santiago to learn Spanish from a bunch of friends I have made. While in Santiago I will take a tour of Conchay Torro and a couple other vineyards. I will take a three day trip to Los Companas for a camping trip! There are a bunch of things to do in Santiago, but for the most part I will be just laying low and learning Spanish. Towards the end of January I will start making my way
to Puerto Natales for a month long stay at a hostel there. I am looking forward to going south to the Patagonia and I consider my self fortunate to be able to stay down there for a couple months. The Patagonia is the real reason I wanted to come to South America! Following my month stay at the Tin Roof Hostel, where I will be working in exhchange for a bed and breakfast, I will be heading to Chiloe for a the start of my WWOOFING career! Im quite excited about that! Then after that, the end of March, I will have to leave Chile. So I will make my way over to Argentina and move down through the Argentine Patagonia until I reach Ushuaia and the land of fire!!
It will be sad to see Andrew leave, we had a great time. But I am looking forward to spending less money and starting to get to know the people here on a more intimate level. The future is looking great for me here, the people are so nice and country is so beautiful! I can´t help but smile!
Ciao!
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jealous
Tim, love reading about the exploits, and who knew you could write engagingly??? can't spell for shit though. Great to hear you are enjoying it so far. Looking forward to the next post. Be well. M