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Anna´s Blog: I don´t know about you, but I never expected to spend any part of my honeymoon standing under harsh fluorescent lighting at 2am being interrogated about whether or not I had any meat or plant products in my bag. Welcome to Chile. As terrifying as the ordeal was, they eventually accepted that the half eaten bag of crisps stowed away in my bag were not an immediate threat to the environment and we were permitted to enter the country. It was a sharp contrast to two days earlier when we had toured around Mendoza in Argentina sampling reserva malbec and taking in dusty wineries flanked by the snow capped Andes. Well, travelling is meant to be an adventure.
Wine has been made in the Mendoza region since the 1500´s when the Jesuits made it for Mass. It has only been in the last two hundred years however that it's been made on any kind of commercial scale and even more recent still that it has been internationally recognized as a leading wine producer. Mendoza is famous for Malbec, a grape variety more commonly used to mellow out blends in other wine regions of the world, but here it grows in a way, so far unmatched in the world, that produces single variety wine of stellar quality. Still, Argentina only export 30% of their produce, meaning they drink most of it themselves (and oh how it is yummy).
Our second day in the area was spent touring the high tors of the Andes themselves. We made a slight saving on this tour by going with a local operator, however we hadn't really taken into account that this would mean the entire tour was in Spanish and in fact we were the only non-Argentinians on the bus of 20 people. Still the Inca bridges were very pretty…even if we had no idea why they were there or what they meant.
Finally making it into Chile we arrived in the dead of night at Santiago bus station to find it dark and uninviting. We had four hours to kill until our bus to the Chilean Lake District departed. Sat on our bags in the dark at 4am in a strange city in a strange country I can tell you…we felt a long way from home.
Eventually however, we made it down to Pucon and found ourselves in the Alps! Lush green hills, rushing rivers and forests surrounded by icy peaks with wood cabins, alpine lodges and wood smoke filling the air. Absolutely beautiful and a world away from where we´d been so far on our trip. There are many things to do in Pucon but we decided that with neither of us having visited a gym since July and having enjoyed a diet of hamburgers, pizza, steak and wine over the last three weeks, the best thing would be to climb a volcano. An active volcano called Villarica. The Lonely Planet described it as fine for most fitness levels and our heads were filled with lush alpine foothills making way for periodic snowy trails. This was not the case. Six hours of incessant climbing through waist deep snow with heavy hiking boots attached to awkward crampons, we made heavy going progress up the mountain. The snow was deep from the start and the incline only ever got steeper until it felt we were trying to climb the travelator from Gladiators…for hours on end with no breaks. Eventually we made it, ruddy cheeked and exhausted to the plateau, and how the view was amazing! We were above the cloud level and Pucon lay before us nestled into a shimmering vast lake. In the distance another volcano glimmered, one that was higher but less steep our guide assured us (then why the hell weren´t we on that one?). Finally we could stop, take in the view and have some chocolate. Then came the matter of getting back down again.
I had felt our guide was a trustworthy sort of man in his late 50´s of rugged wiry fitness but a collected sensible brain. Now I wasn´t so sure as he produced the strangely shaped plastic bum shield we´d packed into our rucksacks back at ground zero. I had idly thought at the time that there might be an area fun for sledging and that we´d be invited to take part…however it appeared that no, in fact, the bum shield was to be used the entire way down the mountain…we were to slide down it…on our bums. Our brake was to be the ice pick that had steadied us on our ascension and the only thing between me and certain tumbling, falling, leg breaking velocity was my own upper body strength…oh dear. We made it however and I´d rather not go into the time the ice pick flicked out of my hands and led me to a state of screaming and flailing arms - the point is we made it back down and it was a hell of a lot easier and quicker than the way up. Plus the volcano didn´t erupt and we arrived back in Pucon to find a clear warm sunny day. After a sleep and a rest we began to feel nearly normal again, the hot springs in the evening helped a bit too. Having said that, as I type this three days later - I can tell you my arms still bloody hurt! Next stop Santiago and the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama. Much love, Mrs Hughes xx.
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