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Whitneys on Tour
We arrived in Pucon in the Chilean side of the lake district from Bariloche after another long days travelling using 3 different buses. We're getting very acquainted with bus travel on this trip!!
What we first noticed about Pucon is that it isn't as picturesque as Bariloche but what it does have is all manner of white knuckle activities for the outdoor sporting minded. Our first day here was spent organising ourselves for our stay here and trying to sort out our one blot on our otherwise pleasurable travelling landscape.....Barclays bloody bank!!
Rant time..... We`d like to publicly stick two fingers up to all those monumental cretins at Barclays Bank who have done their best to make our trip as difficult for us as they possibly can. By mistakenly cancelling Jo`s card and not providing a pin number for mine despite numerous requests they`ve denied us access to our own money. To each and every ill trained retard who has given us misinformation during our many expensive phone calls may you be BBQ`d Argentinian style without delay. Especially the guy who suggested we go to Barclays Bank in Argentina to sort it out!!
Rant over, we have got money from other sources and back to more positive stories....
We arranged a trip to the natural hot springs for our first full evening for a pleasurable few hours soaking under the moonlight beside a river.
For our second day it was time for the big one, the reason most travellers come to Pucon. We were to ascend the Villarrica Volcano which is an active volcano and at just under 3000 metres dominates the local skyline (see the above photo!). The weather was set fair and we started our climb with a couple of guys from our hostel (who we'd also met in Ushuaia and bumped into again. This happens alot when you're travelling!) and our guide at around 9am. The ascent was pretty steep and through very thick snow which had Stuart slipping and sliding around like a Hippo on skates! This made him a tad nervous when all you could see below you was cloud, so we were a long way up.
As we went further up the weather turned on us a little with all the cloud plus the steam from the volcano was quite heavy that day and there was a doubt from the guide whether it was wise for us to go all the way. However, we pressed on and we made it after just over 4 hours climbing, coughing and spluttering from the toxic gas. We were pretty proud of ourselves after all that effort and despite the fact that the views were obcscured by the cloud it had been well worth the sweat and toil. The crater itself was very smokey and we couldn`t stay up the top for too long due to the fumes. Because of all the smoke that day we couldn`t see any lava, which normally you can but it was still pretty memorable.
The real fun started with the descent. This was to be no normal walk down. We put on what were basically nylon nappies and slid down on our bums. We kid you not!! We suffered pretty numb and cold butts for our troubles but it was an absolute blast and it had us giggling like school kids all the way down, especially when the speed went a little out of control. One time Jo`s braking skills rather deserted her and she slammed straight into our guide, yelling Ì can`t stop` Woman drivers eh!
We arrived back pretty exhausted and we`re pretty stiff and sore the next day.
Next it was off for another mammoth bus journey. A 38 hour effort via Santiago to the desert town of San Pedro de Attacama in the north fairly near the Bolivian border.
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