Pucon, Chile

In high need of some adventure we travelled 738km south to the city of Pucon.  Pucon is located between an ice cold lake and a beautifully shaped active volcano.  This city is known as having quite stable weather and is loaded with students and Chilean families during the months of Jan and Feb. Somehow our luck followed us yet again… and when we arrived in the city at 8am in the morning the weather was crap! It was so cloudy you couldn’t even tell that we were in the mountains! We walked around to look for a hostel but apparently the weather hadn’t scared people off because everything seemed  to be booked up… until we came across Sylvia… a sweet little lady waiting to take us off to her home! The only problem was that her home was like a 3km walk from the town center! It was really cute though and made Corne, David and I feel like we were off at Grandma’s lake cottage! All of the homes in the area are cabins made of logs, which is quite a difference from all of the tin and cement homes we were used to seeing. It was beautiful! Later in the day the sun began to peak through and the wind started to push the clouds away.  We went for a long journey into the town center and had to reassure each other that we were in Pucon and had not taken an overnight bus ride to Banff! 

We set off to booking a tour up the gorgeous Villarrica Volcano. The photos at all of the tourist agencies looked amazing with lava and molten rock gashing out the top!  After talking to a few agencies we booked our 7hr trek for the following morning  and spent the rest of that day touring the city in style, on a pedal bike. I ran into a few curbs avoiding busses and Dave ended up getting pretty dirty having to fix my bike... OPPPS!

Waking up at 6:30am proved to be incredibly difficult for David and I as we have broken our last electronic item that we brought on our trip and haven’t had an alarm clock for a couple of weeks…. Which means that we’ve slept in every single day since then! I have no idea what we’re going to do when we get home!  We did manage to drag ourselves to the tourist agency though and got all geared up for our trek.  I’ve never been on a hike where you needed an ice pic, cramp ons, gaiters, snowpants, a winter jacket , gloves and a helmet, so I started to get a tiny bit intimidated.  Once again our tour group consisted of a bunch of Chilean boys so we knew that we would be entertained throughout the entire upward battle! The drive out to the base of the volcano took about 40mins and I wish I could tell you about the scenery on the way there but we were both so tired that we completely slept through the entire trip!

Once at the base camp we were told that we could either take a gondola up the first part of the volcano and then begin our trek a couple meters up.. naturally I was completely against that idea but when everyone else in our group nodded their heads we were forced into take the trip up as well. As soon as I got on though and peered down at other groups that had decided to make the journey I knew that we had made the right choice! So I would just like to comment on David and my physical conditions at this moment in our trip. We sleep in everyday, wake up, have a big breaky, walk around cities, eat street food snacks all day, have a few ice creams, make our way to a restaurant that then  eat nice big dinners, drink lots of wine and for David, at least 2ltrs of beer each day. We are fat messes and totally out of shape!!! The Chilean boys were pretty much completely opposite of us! The only plus side was that they had gone out the night before and only had one hour of sleep! Back to the hike though. 

The beginning of the hike was dry, on rock and we zig zagged our way up until we hit an old chair lift that was destroyed when the volcano erupted in the 70’s. The view from here was amazing! As we continued upwards the guide forced me to lead the pack with him which slowed down the group, making me feel terrible. Apparently no matter how many beers or ice creams Dave eats he can power through anything, I, on the other hand, found it quite difficult! The hike was straight up with absolutely no flat break parts and our guide refused to take any breaks on the way up. Once we hit the glacier it was even more difficult as you were walking through snow and had to jab your foot in every step to ensure you don’t slip! Man on man did I want to die!

I stopped once and let the boys pass and when the guide turned around and didn’t see my face behind him he was livid and then screamed at me for ten minutes. I then thought about hiring him on as my new personal trainer! Almost as good as Louie back home! We continued up the steep incline for 4.5 persistent hours.  Pretty sure we passed every other tour group on the way up as well! Once we were nearly at the top, the glacier cleared and our climb was then on volcanic rock. The guide explained that if we were to step on a rock and it lost it’s grip we had to scream, “PIERDE” so the groups below could clear the way.  A few times this happened and we watched in amazement at how quickly the rocks flew down the volcano! COOL! Until some idiot from a group coming back down stepped on a rock, forgot to call it and just peered down at us as a huge rock come directly in our pathway, scream at the last second, I looked up, see this rock 3 times the size of me, throw myself on the guide ahead of me as the huge rock hit another rock above me, split into 3, one comes straight for me, another to a Chilean boy and the other down the volcano. Haha sooo much fun!!! Knocked the wind out of both of us but made the adventure so much better! After about another 45mins of trekking, we made it to the crater at the top.

Unfortunately there was way too much sulphur rising and we couldn’t really see into the crater at all but it was still really cool! The views from the top were amazing as well, we were able to see the beautiful mountain range,  3 lakes that were in the area and the town of Pucon and Villarica. After having lunch at the top it was time to make it back down. As the climb was incredibly steep we were starting to get worried as to how we would be able to make it down. The first part was a little bit sketchy edging our way down the molten rock but once we got through that and back on the glacier we noticed these huge cracks in the ice. Our guide then instructed us all to sit in them and slide down! It was insane! The seat of my pants had ripped the previous time so like anyone would do they mended it with some duck tape. Boy was I happy they had that brilliant idea cause I flew down those slides!!! Sometimes it was a bit scary when you would round a corner and there would be an exposed rock that would knock you pretty hard but it made up for it with all the air you caught right afterwards! The ride down only took us about 2hrs. It was pretty awesome! Don’t know if I’ll be climbing any volcanos in the next couple of days (have to let my bum heal) but I would for sure do it again! I’m also pumped that we’re back in adventure mode, it should only get better from here!!!