Pucon

This weekend I ventured 10ish hours south of Santiago to a little town called Pucon. The trip was organized (and paid for!) by our study abroad program, so it was definitely a lot more relaxing than most weekend excursions thus far.

We left Thursday evening around 10PM and made it to Pucon at about 8AM. Definitely had a very restless night of sleep. I'm convinced that there is no feasable way to position a grown person into a comfortable sleeping position (read: one that won't give you a stiff neck, won't entail your booty falling off the seat, won't give you a headache from the vibration of the bus window, etc) on those tour buses.  Furthermore, the temperature inside the bus was abouuut -4 degrees celsius. Woke up about every hour or so but fortunately did get a few winks of sleep in.

Luckily, Friday morning we were greeted in Pucon with a few lovely surprises. The first surprise was our rocking crib for the weekend. We stayed in these adorable little cabins in the beautiful outdoorsy oasis of Pucon. For a cabin of six girls, we had 3 bedrooms (one with a king size bed, one with 2 twin beds and one with 4 bunk beds!) + 2 bathrooms (one with a jacuzzi and a shower with little massage showerheads!) + a kitchen + a living room with a flat screen tv! We were definitely spoiled to the max.

After bouncing around our lovely new homes for a bit, we headed off into the tour buses once again to get acquainted with the sights of Pucon. The first (inevitable) site was the massive Volcano Villarica, which basically serves as the centerpiece for the city and can be seen from every which way you turn. But more on that little natural wonder later.

And then began what I like to call the "Water Water Everywhere!" section of the tour:

First stop - Lake Villarica. Nothing too exciting, but it was quite massive and quite surreal to see an actual lake when I'm so accustomed to only seeing manmade lakes in Georgia and South Carolina.

After the lake came the waterfalls. Walking through the forest to get to the waterfalls reminded me of being back home, walking through Simpsonwood and then being in my backyard with the Chattahoochee :( Miss you fam.

After the waterfalls came the thermal baths. Basically like jumbo-sized outdoor hot tubs, heated by the nearby volcanoes.  Stayed wayyy after our fingers pruned up. Had some great conversations with our program director about his days in the Peace Corps. Then did some interesting people-watching...especially of this one tourist who decided to prance around in a thong bikini. Looovely. 

Went out to dinner then came home and went to bed early in preparation for a big fabulous Saturday...also known as....

   VOLCANO DAY! 

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[kaboom! gurgle gurgle, sizzle sizzle, kaboooom!]

Woohoo. 

So yes, Saturday I rose and shone bright and early in order to climb the one and only Volcano Villarica, which apparently is an active volcano (I learned this at the summit) and which also apparently (thank you omnipotent Wikipedia), is one of only 4 volanoes in the world with an active lava lake inside its crater!

We started our ascent around 9am and made it to the top around 3pm. Wait, rewind...I completely oversimplified that story. Let's try this again:

9am: We get to the bottom of the volcano. usually, people start out the trek by taking the ski lift a good ways up. Unfortunately, the ski lift was not operating at this time of year. This meant +1 hour to our journey. An hour behind and we hadn't even begun. Oh me oh my.

10 am: We get to our first rest stop. I'm feeling pretty good because we've  been going at a really smooth pace and we've been taking really small steps. Plus, the summit doesn't look that far away. I'm beginning to wonder why people made this ascent seem like such a big deal (a group of my athletic guy friends went the weekend before, didn't make it to the top and still said it was absolutely exhausting!)  

Tried to make small talk with our guide, but he either couldn't hear me through the wind or just didn't feel chatty. However, he did let me know that he had ascended this volcano hundreds of times and one of our other tour guides had ascended Mount Everest and K-2. I was beginning to get tired, but this news reenergized me.

11 am: We all collapse for a break after a really steep stretch of climbing. The booty is aching, my backpack clasp is broken and thus putting all the weight on my shoulders and the sunglasses that I borrowed from a friend are falling off my face. But the glasses were absolutely essential to prevent my corneas from being scarred by the sun's crazy reflection. My friend comes up with a nifty headband-over-the-sunglasses invention that solved my small-head, big-glasses problem yet makes me look ridiculous in all of the volcano photos. Oh well, as they say, vision over fashion. (that is what they say...right?)

Confident that we must be at least 2/3 of the way done by now, a fellow hiker asks the guide how much more we've got left. The answer? "4 more hours". En serio?! Oh heavens me. This is where I start begging God for energy.

12pm: Have I mentioned that we've been climbing in snow this whole time? And no, not nice, packed, been trampled over a million times snow. More like powdery, mushy, take-a-step-and-watch-your-foot-plunge-two-feet snow. Fortunately we had our piolets (woo!) to keep us steady. Unfortunately, the piolets plunged down just as deep as our feet. This is where I pop in my iPod (this was God's way of granting me energy :)

lalala, climb climb climb....and three hours later...

tadahhhh! We made it!

That is Carmen, me, Marni, Caitlin and George - the only brave CIEE souls to make it to the top. Hoooray. If you'd like to get your own view from the top, take a look-see here. Fortunately or unfortunately, we didn't get to see any lava at the top. However, we did look inside the big old crater and we sniffed a bit of that lovely sulfur smoke spewing out the chimney. 

Froze our booties off at the top. Then began our AMAZZZZING descent down. I took a few videos, so I'll upload them when I get a chance. However, in the mean time, check out this video for a preview.

Basically, the only logical way to get down from a giant snowy hill is to sled down. However, we did not carry sleds to the top of the hill; thus, our booties served as our sleds and we just maneuvered our way through slide after slide of these little natural luge paths!! The video above really doesn't do justice to the slide...in reality you go a lot faster and the ride is a bit bumpier, but at least you'll get the idea from it.

Eventually the slides came to an end though, so it was back to plunging our way through the powder once again. But doing so downhill is a bit more entertaining- just makes you feel like a giant oompa loompa waddling your way down and (at least in my clumsy case) taking a good fall every 5 steps or so (but laughing hysterically every time). Good fun good fun.

Came home, passed out in the cabin and watched "My Best Friend's Wedding" in spanish. Went to dinner then had a cabin party at our neighbor's cabode. Played silly games with silly rules and then came home and had a sing along party in the king size bed. 

Sunday was rainy so we opted out of the other Puconian activities and instead made a massive breakfast of omlettes and fruit salad and then wandered around the city a bit. Ate a chilean asado for dinner and then got back on the bus to take one more try at the search for a comfortable sleeping position. I failed once again.

Got back to Santiago at 6:30 AM...just in time to head to campus to study for my 10AM quiz.  As much as I love exploring, I'm going to be excited to actually feel relaxed after weekends next semester.

Other highlights from last week:

• I was pooped on by a bird. A big ol juicy white plop right smack on my forearm. Fortunately a nice man on the street handed me a napkin and told me "Es buena suerte!" (It's good luck!) At least it wasn't on my head, I suppose.
• my baby sister got into college!!!! yayyyyyyyy I can't believe she's all grown up :(

that's all for now folks. more updates in a jiffy.

un besito!

Lindsay