Pucon de Chile. Martes, 14 de Septiembre

Bariloche is where we said goodbye to our snowboards and sent them off to Uruguay for later collection. We’ll spend the next fortnight wondering if we will ever see them again, time will tell!!  Couldn’t have done without them but more than happy to stop dragging that giant bag around behind us, ok well Matt is happy as it was rarely me carrying it.

Both of us have been feeling the urge to ski again recently so from here we intend to hire some planks if we get the opportunity down in Ushuaia.

From Bariloche Matt and I travelled 11 hours in a bus back to Chile, to a town called Pucon. The attraction here being Volcan Villarrica, as we wanted to hike up it.

Volcan Villarrica, 2847m.

Pucon is an excellent, laid back town (again located on a lake) with literally everything one into the outdoors could ask for...............definately a hot favourite for towns we've visited so far.

Its certainly a tourist-town but also has a great local feel going on too.

Again as trigger happy tourists, we have a million photos of this volcano as we climbed it, snowboarded down it and cycled around it.

Villarrica last errupted in 1984 but still has visible magma deep in the crater and at night creates an orange glow with the constant flow of smoke.



30 second exposure. Best we could do with the small  moon but views better if enlarged
(click on photo).

 

Here is where we found our first day of rain for the trip so we have been super lucky with the skies throughout the last 5-6 weeks. The forecast was looking dodgy all week so our entire stay in Pucon was planned around possible climbing days.

In the end we were so lucky and couldn't have asked for a better day - the only clear day of the week and fresh snow.  
Matt and I managed to convince the tour leader to allow us to take up snowboards as the other option was sliding down on a giant plastic spoon-like apparatus. Provided the avalanche risk was adequate and the appropriate guide was free, we were all go! 

View from our hostel bedroom window - worth $14 per night just for the view.

The group in action, on the lower part of the mountain.

  

We all eagerly wondered if we might witness a lil explosion at this
point with the sudden change in smoke colour!

Other lemmings up ahead of us.

The climb takes approximately 6 hours, depending on your group.
Villarrica has a small skifield on the Pucon side of the mountain so you begin by walking up the slopes, getting many a bragging comment from people on the chairlift.
The guide stepped a path as we went, zig-zagging our way up approximately 6-7km.
Unfortunately only about 50% of people reach the top and this was the case in our group - lack of fitness, not incident!

Facts: In the high-season last year (summer) our guide summitted Villarrica 20 days in a row, with two days off, and then another 10 in a row. 300 people attempt it daily in summer so we were glad to be here in the off-season.

Crater and sulphuric smoke.

The gas is chokingly toxic so you are only allowed 2 minutes at the top peering into the crater -Rotorua will never seem stinky again!
Unfortunately for us the wind was too strong and in the wrong direction so we couldn't get to the higher side of the crater to view the magma, big disappointment!! Was amazing to hear though, sounded like waves crashing into a blowhole.

Construction working snowboarder ready to go (helmet really wouldn't fit in my bag!).



Us with Miguel our guide.
He too was stoked not to have to slide down on a plastic spoon.

6 hours up, 30 minutes down - Has to be said that the run down was unreal!

The other 5 days in Pucon we spent wandering, drinking coffee, mountain biking, and visited one of the local hot springs. Must admit that we enjoyed the cafes a lot!

Termas Los Pozones



Stair entry, straight from the change shed into one of the pools.

 

Our time in Pucon was definately more of a highlight because we coincided with Chile's Bicentenary celebration weekend. This marks 200 years of independence from Spain and was a four day public holiday of drinking, BBQ's and general 'Chileno festividad'. Great times!