Pucon
Hey guys
What's the craic? Haven't been writing in English for a while and then got to know that some of the non-French speakers were reading the blog from time to time and weren't leaving any comment. Anyway I'd like to take this opportunity to thank those who wrote some lines. The pics are real. Don't worry Camille, I'll surely find something funny to say about David. By the way Dominique, we still don't know where we will be for Xmas and New Year's Eve. Maybe somewhere in Peru.
Roysh, where did we stop last time? Ah yeah, it was pouring down in Valdivia so we woke up and left the town a few hours later heading for Pucon. As soon as we got to the bus station, there was a woman offering us her bed & breakfast. She wasn't actually living in the same house but somewhere in the back garden. After a few days we eventually realised that she was renting out her house and was living in a shed! Now we understood why her two kids were spending so much time watching the telly with us.
So there we were in Pucon. The book described it as being the backpacker haven where we could do it all: hot springs, hiking up an active volcano, horseriding, rafting, canopy, etc... We spent the day going from one travel agency to the next comparing fares. But the weather was so miserable that it felt good to go 'home', cook a nice winter dish with loads of spuds & cheese and drink down a bottle of wine. We even got to listen to the Red Hots.
The following morning, that was Tuesday 14th, the weather cleared up a bit and we saw some ad for a package combining horseriding and hot spring for something like 30 euros.... We were bored of being stuck because of the wet weather and decided to give it a go even if it meant we could get soaked later on doing some horse riding. It was David's first time (I'm still talking about the horse riding here) and the experience was quite good. I really loved it. It was only the two of us with the guide in the middle of nowhere, crossing over shallow streams and going up wild hills, looking at all sorts of animals passing by. And it didn't rain. Reminded me of the horse riding classes back in Termonfeckin. The difference there was that there was no helmet, no boot, no nothing. Just the saddle and one thick rope.
After that we just relaxed down a bit for an hour in a hot spring. We got to know later that it was an artificial one.... We did enjoy it though.
Wednesday 15th was a big day. We got up at 5:55am and headed to the travel agency where we put on
some hiking boots and some thick trousers. We were all given a bag with crampons, helmet and an ice pick. Because the weather had been so crap for so long and because it was the first day that the sky was completely clear, we found a big bunch of tourists participating in this excursion: Villarica Volcano. It's 2000 meters high... or something. I had forgotten my sunglasses. A disaster. I was lucky the guide had an extra pair otherwise I would have had to cancel the tour. Anyway we walked from 8:00am to 5:00pm. The view was just stunning. You could see miles and miles of the Andean mountains. I must say I was really scared. I am not used to the snow and I am not used to hiking up in the snow either. Everytime you had to dig your ice pick then one step forward then the other foot then the pick etc... You couldn't enjoy the view or anything but just focus on the person's feet opposite you. Very stressful. Of course, we did take some breaks where we could just breathe for a few minutes and enjoy the scenery. After many hours, we reached the summit and you are like, 'oh my God, I'm at the top of an active volcano'.... the lava erupted a bit while we were standing there. Our eyes were crying the whole time. I had forgotten the whole sulfuric effects.
After 10 minutes at the summit, it was already time to go down. I hated that bit as my foot kept sliding off the wrong side. Then we reached a point where we had to take off our crampons and we just slided down the slopes on our bums. That was a fun. Still scary sometime but exciting. We were so wrecked when we got home. Jaysus, I could have stayed in bed for a long time but the following morning I woke up with a burning feeling on my lips as if they were pure flesh, like open flesh.... David was the same. The look on his face when we turned towards each other... our lips were so swollen that it seemed as if we had some african genes in our blood. They were so sore though. I am writing this article today which is Sunday and my lips have their normal size again but they are covered with blisters! I would have never even thought that getting blisters on lips was possible.
So we spent Thursday hiding from the sun under the shade of a few trees in Pucon. That was a very quiet day. At 8pm we were on the bus to Santiago. That's all for now. See you there.