Pucón

I know, I know, It's been a while. Sorry.

After sleeping literally all the way from Santiago, I wake up to a very dozy village. It's cute. Some bad indications of it having rained recently, but overall a quaint little town. It functions in the winter as a ski resort, and in the summer as the centre of adventure holidays (white-water rafting, canyoning, skydiving, you name it). After a quick orientation I find the hostel I booked because, honestly you can't trust the timekeeping in this place at all, and after the incident in Santiago...well, I don't want that to happen again now do I??

After a very thorough introduction to what can be done in Pucón from Peter, the owner of the hostel, I head to Lake Carbuga, about a 40 minute bus ride from town. There is a reason why they call this the lake district after all. We wander to the beach on the lake (half black sand, half white sand, don't you know), new Aussie friend in tow, and it really is stunning. Although some very strange rocks carved into animals on the beach. We also check out the Ojos de Carhue waterfalls nearby. Mesmerising. The walk there took around an hour and you could have easily told me I was somewhere in the Swiss Alps with all the wooden cabins. An early night in preparation for the volcano I've decided to climb tomorrow. Yes. I am ACTUALLY crazy.

Now climbing Villarica volcano is THE thing to do if you're travelling in Pucón. Everyone recommends it. In fact some people only go to Pucón with the purpose of climbing this flipping thing. Safe to say, it wasn't as all that as these people think. We're at the tour operators office at 6:45 (we were supposed to be there at half past, but this is South America darling, no-one's on time). There is a giant frenzy of people being given kit that doesn't fit left, right and centre. Now, I have most of the gear they are trying to give us, but they won't have me using my own gear. They did thankfully give way on the boots (that would have just been gross and uncomfortable). They insist on the jackets and trousers to identify us as customers as that tour group. Which is just as well really because once we got up to the starting point there were about 200 people there all in varying brightly coloured jackets from the different tour companies. I will hasten to add that the journey to the volcano didn't come without it's own little drama. Within 10 seconds of leaving the office there's a car crash. Shouting and kicking pursues. We all pile into another car and leave one of the guides to deal with the mess - and the new driver of our car drives like an absolute maniac.

So. We're at the starting point at the bottom of the chairlift. The guides are introduced as Richards I and II, and Nicos I and II. Easy. We're given the option to take this up 400m to where the real walking begins. Do I take it? No, of course not. I've climbed Aconcagua (and in true Chrissi fashion, I left my moneybelt locked up in the locker at the hostel). It's steep, and a pretty nice walk, but Richard II sets a RAPID pace. My legs actually hate me. So I take it easy and amble up instead of keeping the ridiculous pace, and Richard II comes round to my way of thinking after a stubborn half an hour. The ascent is lovely from the top of the chairlift, and the views of the lakes are amazing. Some of the others go ahead, and eventually, it ends up being me and 2 Israeli girls (who are walking super slow).

Now, at 6:30, the sky was beautiful. No clouds. But as a "seasoned" mountaineer now, I notice some black clouds and speak to Richard II. We're just approaching the final ascent for summit.
Me: "Those clouds look pretty ominous"
Richard II (casual): "Yeah, they'll be here in about 30 minutes, maybe a little more."
Me: "Really?? How long will it take us to get to the top from here?"
Richard II (still casual): "About an hour."

I insisted on going down. There was no way I wanted to be caught in those clouds. In any case, Richard II lied. The rain was on us in 10 minutes. And those "waterproof" jackets and trousers supplied were most definitely not waterproof. We were lucky enough to have gone down early enough to not have our visibility affected by the clouds (others did), but we were soaked by the time we were back down to the top of the chairlift. To make matters worse, we had to wait in the freezing cold for more people to come down because about half of the people who were climbing had to come down with one guide.

Why? I hear you ask. Well, the others didn't turn back. They had the option, but apparently it didn't sound as if the guides were being serious. They made it to the top of the volcano, and by that time the cloud had come in, it was hailing hard and the winds were roaring at 70km/hour. There were several accidents. 3 people went to hospital, 1 guy was seen to fall into a cravasse and 1 guy went missing (later also found in a cravasse).

The mountain wasn´t safe to climb by any means and still trying to work out why they continued when they knew the weather was turning. Anyway, we all peg it down the rest of the mountain desperate to get away from the volcano and dry off. Just a shame that there was no hot water in the hostel.

So the next day - what do you think? A day of rest? Not on your nelly. I wasn't up pretty early, I admit, but I did choose that day to go white water rafting. Grade 4 rapids. SO MUCH FUN. Had a smile plastered to my face the whole way down. Totally worth it unlike that volcano. I'm not bitter.

We had an epic night on the town after my first sample of actual Chilean food. Kind of like a Chilean take on a mousakka, but very nice. I'll spare you the details of the night out I had (my parents read this after all), but after the stresses of the day before we treated ourselves very well! And I woke up with a stinker of a hangover. Best hangover cure: a nap on the beach (there was another lake a few blocks from the hostel), honey melon fresh juice, and the realisation that you only have 20 minutes to peg it back across town to get on the bus. It was late. But I wave goodbye to Pucón and the terrors of the volcano and arrive in Puerto Varas for a bit of rest and relaxation.