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Other entries in Pucón

Lakes and volcanos

First stop on the Budget Expeditions bus, after a 12 hour day of driving south from Santiago, was Pucon, a small touristy town in the Chilean lake district. It's a beautiful area of forests, lakes, mountains and volcanoes. Over the next few days, camping at a site next to the town, we tried to get used to all the group chores we now had to do on a rotating basis - making dinner for 23 people, washing up after 23 people, and cleaning out the truck after 23 people! Learning Spanish was also out of the question now as the people on the tour were almost all from the UK, Ireland and Australia (and the token American and German).

Stef - While in Pucon I took part in a guided climb up the Villarrica volcano, an active volcano over 2,800 metres high, rising in a perfect, snow-covered cone above the town. For the climb we were kitted out in waterproofs, heavy rigid boots and ice axes. It was an absolutely exhausting climb up relentless steep slopes with deep wet snow. However it was overcast so at least we weren't climbing up under a hot sun. On the upper slopes the air was noticeably thinner too due to the altitude so it was hard to get my breath back. However I made it to the crater at the top, which was quite active with regular roars and explosions, and even the occasional burst of molten lava thrown into the air. Going back down was much easier. We were wearing thick nylon waterproof trousers so could slide down the mountain at high speed for most of the way. Back at the campsite we were on cooking duty, which was annoying, and after that I barely had the energy left to crawl into our tent and fall asleep.

Gwenda - while Stef was off climbing the Villarrica volcano with most of the group I had opted for my first horse ride (as the climb is very steep and I suffer from vertigo).  I have always wanted to try my hand at horse riding and was determined to do it while I was in South America.  There were only two who took up this activity - Mala (UK) and me.  We were picked up in the centre of town to a farm outside where we started our horse riding.  I was very excited and a wee bit scared as I had never done it before and was slightly worried that I would not be able to control my horse.  In the end I had nothing to worry  about except for the fact my horse kept stopping to munch on grass.  The ride was fairly easy which was good for me but not for Mala as she was pretty experienced at riding and was looking forward to galloping on her horse which never happened.  The route we took was really beautiful passing through rivers, forest and also catching the view of the other two lesser known volcanos in the area.  However we did keep encountering lots of dogs from farms who would just bark at us as we also had the dogs on our farm following us.  This did worry me a bit as I did not know how my horse would react to it all but he was really good.  Before long we were back on the farm where they offered us some Chilean wine before we were picked up again to take us back into town.  The only disappointing note on this was that we thought we were going for a three hour horse ride but it was three hours in total on the farm and the ride as well.  All in all it was a really good introduction for me to horse riding and I looked forward to going horse riding again.

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