Advertisement
Published: July 21st 2006
Together with our firends, after the ferry, we got a bus further North (5 hours) to Pucon in Chile. It was refreshing being in Chile, we had a new currency to play with (which for some reason I was particularly excited about), and the food is a little different. Travelling in a pack (9 of us from the boat) soon became lucrative as you can haggle prices down when there is a big group. So it worked really well, especially as they were all good company.
Pucon is a little town sitting right next to a LIVE volano called Villarrica. Another first for us! a real life volcano! Remember those drawings we all did in geography lessons? well thats what it looks like ...... a perfect cone shape and snow capped. Have to say it was pretty cool as it smokes 24 hours a day and the tip glows red like a cigar at night!! I think it does this just to remind you that you need to be ready to 'leg it' if it blows!!
We only had a couple of days planned in Pucon and perhaps foolishly decided to try and climb the bloody thing! You hire 2 guides
and all the gear - which was funny as we all looked more like miners (or lemmings!) ...... with our helmets and pick axes! Due to the time of the year the weather is extremely hard to predict and you have to decide whether to go ahead with the climb when you get to the base. If you dont go, you try again the next day and so on. When we got there the weather was clearing so we all took the decision to crack on, especially as we didnt plan to stay in town long.
To cut a long story short (most unlike me!) it was bloody hard work!! The climb was in snow from the start and the ski lifts that are supposed to take you up 1/3 of the way up from the base were not running! Lynny and I lagged behind the main group (see pics) which is why you have 2 guides ..... for slow coaches. It got steeper and steeper so we were having to zig-zag the whole time .... climbing across the gradient instead of straight up it. Anyway, half way up, the guide points to the sky and says in 1 hour
Us!
nobody told me my helmet was wonky!the weather will turn and we wont be able to continue (we had over 2 hours to go). The leaders and their guide were out of sight so we decided to turn around and hide in a dis-used chair lift thingy until they came down as well (see pics). Getting down the volcano was great fun! It took no time at all! Sliding down on our bums using the pick axe as a brake. To give you an idea of how steep it was ..... as soon as we sat down we were off. It ensured a high spirited end to what was a dissapointment - not making it to the crater. It was a cool experience though and the views were amazing.
The next evening, with a few aches and pains, what better way to relax than a trip to some local Thermal baths. Lynny was petrified at first having seen the film Volcano when the people sitting in a natural bath start to boil just before the eruption!! The heat in some of them was incredible ..... lovely!
The only other fright we had was when we were walking around town and the eruption warning siren
started up!! Obviously we quickly realised it was a drill.
Gray x
I was not scared of the thermal springs boiling us.... just wary. Nobody said it couldn´t happen!!
Lynny x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0276s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
MOUSE!
non-member comment
Ahhh man!
I wanna be there soooo much! Gray you look sooo funny with your wonky helmet! LMAO! And the thermal baths look best ever! I want me one of them! They shelter thing looks cool and what amazing views! You lucky mice! XXXX