Volcano Villarrica

The crater ...
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The day after Christmas we left Osorno for another three days. This time we drove north to Pucon, a little touristic town next to a nice lake ... surmounting of Vulcano Villarrica, an active Volcano ... and this Volcano we wanted to hike up to the top :-) ... this is only possible if you join a group, since it is icy and dangerous up there.

Earlier this week Martina emailed some organizations to find out the prices and the availabilities and by doing that she saved us each $20 ... how she did this? Well, she found an organization, which had an old English web side from 2005 - according to that website the price was 40.000 Pesos per person ... the Spanish already said 48.000 Pesos. So she asked for availability and if the price is still correct. They answered her, that the tour cost normally 48.000 Pesos, but since they haven`t update their English side, they would offer it to us for the old price :-) ... YEAH :-)

View from the top ...
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So we went to the organization, tried on our gear ... we were prepared to climb up a volcano :-) ... nobody of us had done that before and we all were wondering, how tough it would be ... according to our guide we are going to climb an angle sometimes between 25% and 35% ... oh well, we will survive :-). We found a nice little hostel just around the corner of the organization. Bill needed some long pants for the big day, so we went shopping  and had a great lunch/dinner near our hostel ... that place became somehow "our" local :-). We heard, that there are nice water falls near by and so we drove over there to check it out. And it was true ... it was really nice and we hiked for a while ... we even had a little friend there :-/... a bug was following us and went on our nerves!! We weren`t sure what it was, but it looked like it could sting easily. Eventually, we got rid of it, but I even can`t remember how ... Since we had to get up early, we went to bed in time (well, at least we tried ;-) ...)

A Glacier on our way up
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Next morning we went over to the organization (half asleep, I have to say). We got all our equipment (shoes, pants, jackets, helmet, ice pick, backpack, gloves, and hiking poles (optional). We added our drinks and food and got into the bus, which would bring us to the bottom of the volcano.

All together we were 18 people in the group, so when we arrived at the volcano they split us into three groups: Spanish speaking, English speaking and German speaking ... we were assigned to the Germans ... every group had two guides, except the Germans ... so we were asked if we could join the English group instead, because there were just to many Germans for one guide ... of course, we did ... Bill was really delighted :-). So our English group of 10 people started to climb up ... after 10 minutes we arrived at the ski lift ... here we ere able to cheat and save 400m of altitude ... peer pressure!!! ... Yeah, right, let`s face it: $10 and it was worth every cent ;-) ... I was sitting next to Evelyn, a nice woman from the Netherlands ... when we arrived at the top of the ski lift (saved us 1 hour of climbing), we were in the middle of snow! Our guides showed us how to us the ice pick - looked pretty simple and our shoes were made for snow, so all the excuses won`t really work ;-)

We are getting there ...
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Over 1000 meters of altitude were in front of us (the top of the lift was at 1800m and the top was at 2870m). So we started, the path went up in zick-zack and we passed even couple of glaciers - just beautiful! Ones in a while we stopped for a water, food, and camera stop and than we continued climbing up. Evelyn and I had exactly the same speed, so we hiked behind each other for most of the hike ... this way I learned new facts about the dutch school system (she is a teacher there). I have to say, I wasn`t really sure what to expect from this climb, but it was an awesome view and it wasn`t tough! The biggest problem I had, was that I could feel how the blisters on my feed were growing and growing and even my blister bandages didn´t help at all ... the shoes weren`t mine and I could tell, that they didn`t really fit on my feet ... later, when I took off the shoes, my heels were one big blister - that will take a while, before that will be healed :-/.

A last view up to the Volcano ... this was the distance we hiked up and slided down ... :-)
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When we were almost at the top, the slope was really steep!! The last 200 meters we had to climb on igneous rocks ... dark (the sun was shinning!!) and slack ... buh, it was hot and exhausting ... after 3 1/2 hours we reached the top ... and it was worth it ... a gorgeous view and a big crater were waiting for us ... when we were standing at the edge of the crater we could hear the lava ... we could`t see it, because the smoke was too heavy. Talking of smoke ... before we started to climb, our guides told us, that it could be that we would have to turn around, because the wind was blowing the smoke right over the path ... and the smoke is not really healthy to breath in (which I can confirm: while I was standing at the crater the wind blew a little bit of the smoke into my face and I thought I never would be able be breath again ... it was stinky, but much worth was the strong ammonia ... buh!). But we were lucky ... while we were climbing up the wind turn around, but later when we were back down, we saw, that the wind turned back ... lucky us :-)!

Ready to slide down on our butts!
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The way down was soooo much fun ... we all had a blast! Before the fun started we all had to wear the complete gear ... including "diapers", a plastic thing we had to wear around our butt to protect the pants from ripping ... we hiked down to the area, where the snow began and there were kind of pre-formed trays (can`t think of a better English word, in German I would say "Kuhle") in the snow and after a short instruction we slid down the hills ... some of them were very steep and we had to break with our ice picks ... we really became so fast ... what a great feeling ... gosh, it was AWESOME!!! So much fun :-) ... even the wet butts and pants didn´t matter ... actually it was refreshing since it was really hot in all this gear :-). I could have done that forever!!

But eventually we arrived at the bottom, took off our gear and got back to Pucon by bus. After the organization served some drinks (beer and coke ... and yes, I preferred a coke at that moment ... you should have seen Bills and Martina's face, when they realized, what I chose ;-) ...) we went to our hostel and rested for a while ... than we went to "our" local and had Pisco Sour :-) .... it was our last night together in Chile and so we had to celebrate :-)

The next day Martina and Bill wanted to see some Volcano caves (I decided not to join them, because they were kind of expensive and I need to watch my money (at least ones in a while ;-) ...)), but they didn´t go either, because it was even more expensive than our guides said. So we drove towards Osorno. On the way we stopped in Valdivia, a nice little town on a river - known for its Beer! Around 6 PM we arrived in Osorno and I packed my Backpack - that night I took a night bus back to Santiago - Martina and Bill will stay for another day. So I said good-bye to Familie Zeissing and around 10:30 my bus left ... it wasn´t a real luxury bus, but compare to the buses I had seen in Peru or Bolivia, it was good! The lake district was really beautiful and against all odds we never even had one drop of rain ... but what can I say: When angel travel :-).