Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
1. Cry
2. Vomit
3. Give up at the first stop.
So I didn't actually do all three of these, but I came pretty close to the first two and I did actually do the third! We arrived in Pucon not actually thinking about climbing the volcano, but it appears thats what pretty much everyone goes there to do, and it sounded kinda fun and not tooooo difficult, although clearly I was deluding myself about that, so we decided to give it a go.
Although weather forecast said it would be sunny and clear, when we arrived at the base at around 7:30am it was cloudy and windy. Not to be deterred our guide said it was fine and there'd be no problems. We started to climb the first part, which was only about 15 minutes up to the start of the ski lift. During this part I already decided that I was clearly too unfit to be climbing the volcano, but carried on with the promise of a chairlift to take me up a large portion of the climb. However when we arrived at the chairlift it was closed because of the bad weather, which should give you some clues as to the conditions, so we had to do the first about 45 minutes (for Ben) and about hour (for me) on foot.
The weather got progressively worse as we went up, cold, sleety and the wind getting so strong and cold that it was burning my face! It was relatively steep, with no flat bits so no chance to rest and I was seriously struggling and lagged behind, with another girl in our group who was also finding it very hard (there was 7 of us in total). We eventually got to the stopping point, which turned out to just be a wooden hut with 3 sides and one side open. I realised there was no chance I was gonna make it to the top, and with that defeatist attitude decided that I may as well just stop there because the further I went up the further I would have to come back down without actually reaching the top, and the colder and windier it would get! So the others left me, as did all the other groups, with an extra fleece, the promise that someone would come back soon and take me down, and the instruction to definately not try and go down on my own, as if I would have even attempted it! I didn't have to wait long however as the other girl in my roup and one of the guides returned 5 minutes later and we started to go back down.
It turns out going down was much more fun than going up, I'd even go so far as to say I enjoyed it! We had toboggan things, but as we didn't go high enough up we weren't allowed to use them, but instead I sort of freestyle skied down the snowy slopes without any skis in my walking boots, stopping myself when I went too fast by throwing myself onto the floor! Ben continued on with the others and got pretty close to the top, but the weather was too bad at the top for them to be able to reach the crater. They, however, were deamed worthy enough and allowed to toboggan all the way back down! The massive snowy cliffs were pretty impressive, but the weather wasn't clear enough to have a good view of anything, I don't think I'll try to climb anything again any time soon!
The rest of our time in Pucon was spent sunbathing (and burning) on the terrace, having a big BBQ with our hostel and going on an 'adventure nature walk' as we liked to call it, which involved us walking to the end of the beach and following what was probably not a trail into the woods for an hour. We did discover some lizards and the worlds smallest waterfall, and got some good views of the volcano, but we turned around and ran back when we reached a field with some fighting horses, without owners, and decided that they might see us and try and fight us! We left Pucon with another near miss run to the bus station and headed back towards the coast to Valdivia.
- comments