Villarica Park Lake Hotel Pucon

... derniere partie que lon devra metre nos crampons, la neige est gelee , il fait un vent a "dedefenser" les mamouths, un froid de lama peruvien!!!!<br>ons equipe, en plus de nos piolets quon adepuis le debut, on enfile un surpantalon, une surveste, un casq, des crampons. on dirait des envahisseurs, jugez par vs memes!<br>il fait vraimt froid.<br>ca y est on y est, on veut voir le cratere ms on ne peut pas trop ...

... weather good enough to climb the volcano. first day here we went on a mini-tour of the area, saw a lil lake with really really blue water and the big one by the town, aswell as a couple of waterfalls. then we went to one of the many many local hot springs which was nice, though with the warm water we were half asleep in there in less than an hour. after 2 days of weather unsuitable for volcano climbing, we´ve done white water rafting and canopying. Rafting was pretty cool, 4 of us plus ...

... piece and had a laugh (nervous laughter mostly) with it. The trek up took 4ish hours, made up of 3 different parts.. 1st - climbing semi solid gravel, there is a ski lift for this bit but again, newly acquired skills led us to dis-mis this... after half an hour we were panting for breath and our thighs were on fire, with the conversation around "why, why" however it got a bit easier or perhaps we just got used to it. The second bit was trekking ...

... mountain village on the side of a big lake with mountains and a volcano as a backdrop. We decided to take it easy and relax while here our legs are still sore from all the walking in Santiago and Valparaiso. We also tried our first Mate here. You would think that Mate would be easy to find here since apparently everyone drinks it but none of the restaurants we´ve been ...

... background. And then we found the ´beach´, a term i use loosely considering the water consists of a lake and what would normally be sand is really just volcanic grey gravel. However it did serve the purpose of filling in our afternoon with some sunshine and sunbaking. Day two was the day of the big climb. Collectively we were a tad nervous, not realyl sure what to expect, which consequently turned out to be a good thing, as if i´d had a ...

... didn't want me too - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!! I just about filled my pants watching Niall jump! Finally on our tour of watery places, we ended up at Los Pozones Hot Springs. It was now dark and was really good fun soaking in the hot pools. We would then jump in the freezing cold river and then back to the hot pools - excellent. We also sipped a few Pisco Sours whilst soaking - just to be sociable. We headed back to the ...

... get the ice axes out as a slightly steeper acsent awaited. The altitude started to play its part and the sun rose so it all got slightly harder. But the top was still reached fairly easily and we were treated to incredible views over the whole region. Not only that, we were able to do a complete circuit around the rim of the crater seeing right down into the depths of the smoking volcano. At points the sulphorous gases were too much and breathing ...

Finally it was time to get back on the buses and take a short bus ride north to Pucon, the adventure centre of Chile. Rob, one of my friends from the boat and Chiloe, was also heading that way so we ended up finding a rather quaint hospedaje in Pucon where we ended up virtually having an entire house to ourselves. After we had sorted that out, we took our hostesses recommendation and booked ourselves on a climb up the nearby volcano - Volcano Villarrica, a ...

... 716 7639.stm Interestingly, lava itself is not the dangerous part of an eruption - molten rock moves slowly and typically doesn't go very far. Around here, people are most concerned about water. When the Patagonian volcanoes erupt, all the snow and ice melts into a massive sheet of boiling water and mud called a lahar. Villarrica's snow cap is over 20 feet deep - so we're talking about ...

... a nice place a couple of blocks away, with a nice balcony area overlooking that part of town and looking over the mountains all around us. <br><br><br><br>We ordered a couple of pints of draft beer and a big plate of chips and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the sunshine. (Sorry Dad, I'll try not to mention the sun again!) <br><br>It wasn't quite dinner time when we finished, so we ...