Buenas Dias,
Well we´ve had quite a week....
In Valparaiso after checking out the main sights we caught a metro to Viña Del Mar where we walked along the sea and saw a chap get drenched by a huge wave which engulfed him! We laughed. Lots. When we got back to Valpo we wanted some food and we saw a really busy restaurant which was full of locals so queued for a table. Carl ordered a dish called Chorrilliana which is basically a huge plate of fries, sausage, meat, onions and cheese. EVERYONE in there was eating it. You can get a platter for 4 people and whole families were eating it with their kids. I ordered a ´tablá´vegetariana which I thought sounded interesting. Turns out it is a platter, intended for sharing, of just pickled cold vegetables. Mmm yum. After the 17th piece of cold artichoke I graciously stopped!
After leaving Valparaiso on Sunday we caught the bus to Chillan via Santiago and arrived there at about 4pm. Chillan has been flattened by two earthquakes and re built but to be honest there isn´t a great deal to do there. Our accommodation was interesting, here in South America there are a lot of rooms available in family homes and this was one of those places. The room was cold and noisy but surprisingly we got a brilliant nights sleep! From Chillan we headed south again to Temuco and then caught another bus to Pucon. Pucon is THE resort in the Lakes District of Chile. Think Aspen meets tiny German village. There are lots of chocolate shops, boutique hotels and christmas lights. The main attraction is a rather stunning active volcano called Volcan Villarica and the most popular pursuit is to climb said volcano. We found a great hostel called El Refugio and checked in for a couple of nights. The hostel had a lovely wood burning fire so we cosied in for the night.
Our first day in Pucon (Tues) we just chilled out and wandered around the shops, used the free internet at the hostel and met some fellow travellers. We had dinner at a nice restaurant called Trawen where we ate homemade soup and a platter of smoked salmon, atlantic krill and homemade bread and cheese. Delish. We also decided that we really should do some kind of activity as Pucon seemed the place to be active. Rather than choose to go to the Hot Springs or fly on a Canpopy Wire we decided to climb, yes climb, an active volcano! We put our names down on a list because the weather the following day was looking ok but not definite so we would have to wait until the morning to see..
So 0700 came and we had our lunch packed and our climbing legs on and the organisers said that the weather was good so we were kitted up with crampons, boots, ice picks and helmets! We drove to the base of the volcano and started the walk. We had been told that there was a chair lift which meant we could get slightly higher up the mountain and therefore would have more chance of reaching the top. We realised as we walked past the top of the chair lift that it wasn´t an option and it was in fact shut so we were unsure how high we could make it. The walking started off fairly easy, nice even pace and we all enjoyed ourselves. The views were INCREDIBLE. Truly breathtaking and probably the best we have seen anywhere. Oh and the sun was shining and it was bright blue sky. It had been a whole week since the last time anyone could climb the mountain so we knew we were lucky.
About half way up it got tougher. The incline got steeper and it was a lot icier so we put on our crampons. Some of the group went further ahead and so we stayed a bit further back with a guide. We were finding it tougher and tougher and then Carl got a strain in his groin and I started to feel my hip tense and we decided to stop. We didn`t want to but realised that we didn´t want to hurt ourselves and also we had to get back down still before it got dark. We ate lunch on the side of the mountain which was awesome. We only had 200m to go to the top and could see the smoke coming out of the crater and were quite sad. But we started down the mountain and when we got 1/4 of the way down our guide said "now you slide down" and I said WHAT??!?!? We had slidy pants in our rucksacks and we put these on and then slid down the side of the mountain! Amazing fun but very numb on the bum! We saw an eagle just gliding above us too, checking out his dinner I guess!
When we got to the bottom we waited for the group who had made it to the summit and when they arrived they said the top was very cold and windy and there wasn´t much to see so we weren´t too disappointed! All we can say is that 8 months ago when we left the UK we would never have considered climbing up a volcano so we´re very proud of our achievement.
And now we´re in Puerto Varas which is also a lovely town and we´re in an even nicer hostel which is lovely and warm and we´re going to cook some tea tonight and drink the local wine and beer which is ever so cheap!
Buenas Noches! B and C xxxx
