Volcano climbing in Pucon

After beaching it up around Santiago I wanted to get out into the countryside and do some hiking.  I´d also planned to do Spanish lessons and didn´t fancy doing them in Santiago as I´d only just left one big city, London.  It seemed like the town of Pucon ticked all the boxes, so I headed down South on a night bus.

Pucon is a fairly small town in the Lakes District of Chile, not too far North of Patagonia.  It´s a beautiful place, surrounded by jagged mountains, sparkling blue lakes, and the snow-capped Villarrica volcano.  I found a hostel and went straight out for a trek into the countryside with a couple of the other backpackers.  We ended up at Salto de Claro, a huge waterfall out in the hills.

The next day a couple of us hiked out to Cartagua to visit a huge lake and some more waterfalls.

Day 3 was the day I´d been waiting for - a few of us had decided to climb Villarrica volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in Chile!  The bubbling giant provides a striking background to the sleepy town of Pucon.  You can see the sulphur gas spewing out of the cone during the day and the glow from its lava lake during the night.  It´s 2,840m tall and, even though it is the middle of summer, the last 800m are covered in snow.

We woke up at 3:15am (!!) and got all our gear together. We took a transport up to the start of the climb, already 1,000m up.  We hiked through the first 1,000m in the dark, looking up at the stars while zig-zagging our way towards red glow at the top of the volcano.  It started to get light at about 6:30am and for the first time we could see the fantastic view out towards Pucon.  We could see the lakes, mountains and countryside as far as Argentina.

At about this point we hit ice.  It was already ridiculously cold as the sun wasn´t properly up but this was the point the water in my bag started to freeze!  Anyway, we deployed the crampons and started the long walk to the top, ice axes in hand.  Walking on ice in crampons takes a lot longer than trekking across the ground.  You need to keep your feet flat so that the spikes can dig into the ice properly and therefore have to zig-zag more.  The last 800m took another 2.5 hours before we were finally at the last scramble to the top.

We all ran up the last 20m over the cusp and into the crater.  There was sulphur steaming out of the gaps in the rocks and a sheer 60m drop down into the crater.  We couldn´t see the lava as it was too far down but we could hear it bubbling away.  The 5hr hike was definitely worth it, we could see for miles - the view was truly stunning!

After about 15 minutes the sulphur had burned away the lining of our throats so we headed down.  Luckily, getting down was easier than getting up.  We pulled down the backs of our coats and slid down on our asses!  5hrs up, 45 minutes down.  What a day!

Today I´m going back to school!  I currently have the Spanish skills of a two-year-old so I´m going to do 5 days of Spanish lessons.  By then I should at least be able to get around without using the English-Spanish dictionary...  Here are a few more pics from the last few days:

Saying goodbye to friends in Santiago (Claire from Paris and Fabiola from Santiago)

A bit of street art in Bella Vista, Santiago

You meet backpackers from all over the galaxy.  This guy was French.

Cartagua - the lake, beach and some sandstone carvings

Me and Eoin ready to tackle the volcano!

About 3/4 of the way up

Looking back to Pucon in the twilight at about 5am

Having a quick rest before the last stretch...