It was with a heavy heart I left Bariloche in Argentina, and made my way into my fourth South American country, Chile. I was heading to Pucón, which is home to one of Chile´s many active volcanoes.
Unfortunately I was unable to get a bus directly there so I was going to change at Osorno in Chile and then catch another bus direct to Pucón. Given that my timing of buses was also a little off, I would also have to stay the night in Osorno.
Crossing the border it became clear that the Chileans are more thorough with their security. The bus and all our luggage was searched with sniffer dogs and mirrors were used to look under the bus itself. After what seemed like an eternity we were allowed to progress with out journey to Osorno.
Driving there, the weather was really hazy, which we soon realised was due to the ash cloud from nearby Chaitén volcano which had recently started spewing again. All the trees and pretty much everything else in sight was covered in the ash, making it look as though it had been snowing!
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| Volcanic ash, not snow! |
He was right. No offence Osorno but you are one ugly town. I bought a bus ticket to Valdivia straight away.
Whilst waiting to buy my ticket I met a German girl who was also going to Valdivia so we decided to travel together. It turned out she worked on a ranch just outside of Pucón and was returning there after renewing her visa in Argentina (you have to leave the country every three months apparently). She was very sweet but I've never seen someone chain smoke and drink as much coffee as she did!
We stayed in a quiet but lovely hostel called Bosque Nativo which was owned by the Timber Merchants Cooperative of the region as most of the area is made up of forests.
We only had the morning to discover Valdivia as our connecting bus to Pucón was at 1pm. So after breakfast we ventured out for a walk around town. Valdivia is a fairly small town and there wasnt really much to see except for the sea lions who were sunbathing along the river bed in the centre of town and the local fish market.
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| Its hard work this lazing around... |
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| Catching some rays... |
The bus journey to Pucón went quickly and we soon arrived and I said good bye to the German girl. I quickly dropped my stuff off and went for a wander through the town.
According to my guide book, Pucón's fame can be boiled down to three things: the lake, the volcano and its easy access to every kind of outdoor sport imaginable. And I could not agree more. They have built this town around tourism and as such there is everything available to the mixture of tourists that visit, from the casino (which seems to pop up in pretty much every small tourist town I visit) to bars and clubs and hikes up the volcano.
I started by visiting the nearby lake which was the most gorgeous turquoise blue surrounded by black sand. (a result of the nearby volcano).
Then after a wander around town, taking in the traffic light signal system which warns you of the state of the volcano, I spotted the almighty one in the skyline:
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| Green, All is calm |
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| The almighty volcano |
I decided to do what pretty much every tourist does when visiting Pucón, and climb the Villarica volcano. The minute I booked it, it started to sink in what I had done and I began to get worried about climbing one of Chiles most active volcanoes! They assured me that I didn't need any previous mountaineering experience and that it last erupted in 1971. Neither assurances were taking away the concerns I had...
That evening, to take my mind of the impending hike, I decided to go to one of the nearby local hot springs called Termas los Pozones. The drive there was beautiful and felt at times like we were driving through the English countryside:
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| England? |
The springs themselves were so relaxing and felt like you were stepping into a hot bath. There about five in total which we spent time in. As the sun went down it felt quite odd sitting in a hot spring in the dark, even more so, when we discovered that looking down in the water we were surrounded by thousands of flies and midges floating in the water!!! not nice.
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| No sex inside or outside the springs! oh and don't nick any of the plants and tress either! |
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| Do not use the spring as a toilet either... |
Six hours after returning from the springs it was time to get up and make our way to the company that was running the hike up the volcano.
I was told to wear just leggings, a top and a fleece and that the company running the hike would provide us with trousers and a jacket along with the rest of the gear.
On this basis I decide to wear my thermal bottoms (which I wouldn't normally wear on their own) and top and my fleece and leave my water and wind proof jacket and trousers at the hostel.
Never again. It turned out that the jacket and trousers they provide you with were specifically to wear when you were descending the volcano, not ascending. I was therefore freezing to start with. Thankfully hiking up a volcano is hard work so I soon heated up. (You're lucky volcano hiking company!!)
We were driven to the base of the volcano along with the backpacks they had prepared for each of us. After catching the chairlift, which incidentally had no safety bar to hold you in, we arrived at the first section of the climb.
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| The start of the chair lift... |
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| The view going up... |
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| Look no safety bar!! |
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| The view behind us as we were going up... |
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| The view once we got off the chair lift... |
Here we were taught how to use the ice picks we had been given. Basically you hold the pick like it is a walking stick with the serrated axe section facing away from you.
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| Awaiting our instructions |
Once they had shown us what to do we started our climb up the snow. Yes that's right people, volcanoes can and do have snow on them! It involved walked up in a zig zag formation as you would when you ski down a mountain, ensuring you dug your foot deeply into the footprint of the person ahead of you. The hike up was actually easier than I thought. The only thing that I did not embrace was the amount of back draft farts I would walk into!! People´s digestive systems were obviously getting moving with all the walking...
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| The view looking up - check out the volcano smoking! |
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| Close proximity = bad smells |
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| zig zag formation... |
Eventually we reached the first rest stop and sat down and caught our breath and filled up with water and food. Whilst there I saw the most amazing green bird fluttering around...amazing considering how high up we were! The views were stunning and all the snow made me hanker to go skiing again.
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| Volcano birdie |
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| First resting stop |
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| Spectacular views |
After a few minutes r&r we were off again, stopping at a few more points as we climbed further up the volcano.
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| No, that's not ants to the left of the picture, that's people! |
Soon the snow turned into volcanic rubble, we had to be careful here that no rocks started to fall. If they did we had to all shout "roca" at the top of our voices to warn those below that there was one tumbling their way.
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| "Roca!" |
Finally at midday after three hours hiking, we reached the summit of the volcano. It was a mixture of excitement and trepidation as we approached the smoke that was billowing out. The mouth of the volcano was big but not as big as I was expecting but it did go a long way down, so far there was no way of seeing any lave unfortunately (or fortunately!).
However you could hear this growling noise coming out of the volcano, which we established was the sound of the wind as it went down. Very eerie.
We ate lunch beside the mouth of the volcano (most bizarre place I've certainly eaten!) and then walked around and admired the views inside and outside the mouth of the volcano.
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| The mouth of the volcano! |
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| People walking around the volcano |
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| view from the volcano |
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| me |
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| open wide! |
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| another view from the volcano |
Finally it was time to descend the volcano. We were told to don all the gear that was in the back packs we had been carrying. This included the jacket, trousers, gaiters, bum protector, gloves, mits and a plastic paddle attached to us.
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| ready and raring to go! |
Our descent was a mixture of hiking to begin with and then the remainder was sliding down using ready carved out half pipes in the snow. We were told to sit on the plastic paddles and dig our heels in as we slid down, using our ice pick like an oar as a brake. This sounds much easier than it is. I almost flipped over during my first attempt which left me shaky and unwilling to go down the next slide on my own. One of the instructors kindly let me sit behind him so we could slide down together, this proved successful and enabled me to remove my fear of what had just previously happened. Unfortunately on our way down, his ice pick hit me in the thigh. At the time I didn't really feel anything due to the layers I was wearing and all the adrenalin that was pumping through me. It wasn't until the next day when I wondered why my thigh hurt so much that I saw the severity of the bruise I had received : (
Regardless of my injury, it was the most amazing experience whizzing down a volcano on your bottom! Although my bum did end up numb from all the ice...
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| wet bottom |
At the end of the snow, we reached the chair lift which we were told only went up and not down. Great. This meant another hike down, this time through volcanic gravel. We removed all our now wet jackets and trousers and kept the gaiters on as these would stop any stones from getting into our shoes.
Walking through the gravel was actually quite fun as being down hill, you just slid most of the way. The only down side was that this caused the most ridiculous dust clouds. The result was that many of us had to wear sunglasses and wrap our scarf's around our faces.
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| going incognito |
During our descent, I randomly found $1000 Chilean peso note (now don't get too excited as that is actually only about £1.30) which I was quite chuffed with!
This find, along with the fact that I had just climbed and descended an active volcano left me feeling extremely happy and proud of my achievement. Glancing back at the volcano once we reached the bottom only reinforced this to me : D
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| My lasting impression of the hike |
