Adventure in Pucón
Trip Start
Dec 06, 2005
1
8
80
Trip End
Jun 17, 2006
Pucón,
Chile
Friday, December 23, 2005
Day 1: Woke up early (8am) to meet up with 2 mates from Viña and go to a national park close to Pucón, called "Parque Nacional Huerquehue". We hiked for a total of about 5 hours, through dense forest, blue/green lakes and icy-cold waterfalls. One aussie, one frenchman, and one german/croat makes for some interesting conversation! Anyway words can't really describe this, so i'll put some photos up. After the park, we sampled some local kebabs (left a lot to be desired) and beer (not bad) and called it a night.
Day 2: Woke up stupidly early (5:45am) to climb up Volcan Villarrica (yep, the same one that has been exhibiting high seismic activity recently) with a small tour group. Probably the best thing I've done in Chile so far, it was incredible
01 NP Huerquehue, Waterfall fun
. The first 1.5 hours was walking up a really tough rocky slope, where we had the option to take a costly (well...around A$10) ski lift but declined. It was a good choice though, got us warmed up for the rest of the climb. A good 3.5 hours of snow climbing and we arrived at the crater, around 2800m of altitude, and with actual volcanic activity. Apart from the out-of-this-world gurgling, fiery hole (albeit small) of lava that we saw in the crater, the view was magnificent - the Andes, another perfectly conical volcano (Volcan Llaima), and the marvellous lake that Púcon sits by. And there was more fun to come - the descent was 90% luge-style - sliding down the snow-capped volcano on our butts! Ascent - 5 hours, Descent - around 1.5 hours. Nice. Photos coming soon. 
Comments
looks fantastic tom!
amazing photos and you're looking v healthy!! I SO want to travel too! i'm in melb for about 40 hours for a careers fair junket - went out last night with claire, emma katie etc til about 3am. off to uni now! it's nice to be home. looking forward to seeing you in a few months, keep those pics coming! love fiss