Pucon (or That Awkward Moment When Yas Climbed A Volcano And Mike Didn't)

From Bariloche we headed over the border to Pucon, Chile, on possibly our most beautiful bus trip so far. It had been snowing the night before and was still snowing in the morning, so we travelled through a swirling winter wonderland, of fresh, untouched white powder.

Pucon is a gorgeous little town, heavily aimed towards tourists. However as the majority of tourists come in the summer (fools!) we mostly had the town to ourselves. We stayed in my favourite accommodation so far... a hostel run by two ladies, our 'room' was a bedroom in a little cottage out the back, complete with lounge, kitchen, fireplace and tea cups and saucers - heaven.

Our cottage - sigh...

We were lucky enough on our second day to have fine weather to attempt to climb the resident active volcano, the 2847m high Volcan Villarrica.


The view of the Volcano from our hostel

 We turned up to our guides office at 7am to be fitted out with waterproof pants, jackets and gloves, crampons, packs, boots and ice-picks. We had a group of about 12 people. I was pleased to see a few other girls, who also had no idea what crampons were.



The group heading off



The first section of the climb. Note the chair lift in the background... we didn't get to take it



There were a few different groups climbing the moutain that day, including 2 people who climbed to the top with their skis ON. The groups soon merged together, and about 2/3 of the way up the mountain they split us into a "fast" group, and a "slow" group. Stupidly, I (Y) found myself stuck in the fast group with 5 guys and spent the next 2 hours wishing I was dead and trying not to look down. Eventually we made it to the top (well the guys made it to the top, I trailed (read: staggered) along about 10 minutes later). At the top I was rewarded with toxic fumes, blizzard weather, and biting cold. Ahhh.... the life of a volcano climber.



At the top, with the volcano behind me. I was not taking one step further back as I did not want to be a sacrifice because I am such a good whistler

Mike: It's at this point that Yas has asked me to put my own 2 cents in about the volcano climb (or torture trek as I like to refer to it as) this is because it is probably the only time we have spent apart since arriving.  I would like to give some sort of excuse for not reaching the top but I have none.  All I have now is shame.

The first 2 hours of the climb were ok, my legs were burning a bit but it was a spectacular day and our guides were great.  The going got a bit harder as we hit an icy shelf and had to don the crampons and carry the ice axes, but up we climbed, stopping every half hour or so for a quick drink/bite to eat/leg rest/view appreciation time.  Our team seemed to be charging ahead of other company's on the way so it felt good to be passing people.  As we got higher I really started to struggle sucking in the oxygen, it felt as if I had a hessian sack over my mouth and very little air was getting through and I started falling back from the pack then crawling back on to the end of the line. You know how you hear people describe others as "80kg of pure muscle"...well in the soft snow I was 105kg of hot lead, sinking faster than the Titanic with each step.

The group split happened after one of our breaks and a blind man could see I didn't belong in the fast or "rapido" group, but Yas was doing great and was the only girl to make the cut.  About 25 minutes after the fast group had taken off ahead I turned to my inspirational guide and asked "At this rate will this group make it to the top in time?", he looked deep into my eyes, reached into his soul for those motivational words that would make all the difference and said "You will never make it to the top". I can't remember the guide's name but it was about this point I started referring to him as Dick. I also think it was at this point that my sole focus of reaching the top started to fade.

And so it was that the slow group stopped 400m below the summit and had the pleasure of some magnificent views and 40 minutes of Dick regaling us with his lifetime mountain climbing expeditions.  I was glad when he finally released us as a captive audience and let us slide on our bums to the bottom.

So, while Yas dug really deep and got the well deserved prize of first female to the top, I was relegated to the dubious honour of first back to the van.  Yep, cool.  Might just head out for a run... Back to you champ.

The rest of our time in Pucon was unfortunately plagued with constant rain which put a bit of a dampener (ha) on things. We made the most of it by visiting lots of cafes, cooking, drinking endless cups of peppermint tea, birthday celebrations, hot pools and exploring the town.