29-30 April: Pucon and Volcano Villarrica
29-30 April: Pucon and Volcano Villarrica
29 April: I took the 6am bus from San Martin across the border to Pucon. Arrived at the border in time to see on a snow covered volcano at the border. Hired a Mountian Bike to ride out to Lago Caburgua (About 25km from Pucon) in the afternoon. Teed up a guide company for the volcano that afternoon.... I'd managed to avoid guided tours up until now but taking a CONAF approved guide is the only way you're allowed to go up.
30 April: Up at 7 to go climb the active Volcano Villarrica (2840m). Really windy and the guides advised that I reschedule for tomorrow. I already had my bus ticket out that night and it was a perfectly clear day so I decided to have a crack and risk doing my doe (about US$60). Jumped on the bus to the volcano with the rest of the group which was a group of Ozzies and English on a S America adventure tour.
We set off despite the chance of having to turn back due to high winds. The upside was that there was only about 30 people climbing that day from all the tour companies combined because the guides had been warning against it. We hit the snow line about half way up the 1400 m climb but instead of donning crampons like all the other groups we went on without as the guide said we wouldn't need them. Not sure it was the safest option as there were definately some hairy bits where there was steep downhill drops in the downwind direction... the ice pick came in handy after a crash course in mountaineering.
The summit was very impressive, both for the view and the volcano crater. We saw a few good lava explosions because the wind was clearing the sulphur cloud away enough to get a clear view into the crater.
The trip down was a bit of a laugh.. Method of decent on the snow section involved tabogganing on your butt using the ice pick as a break. Some weren't too successful at the braking part though and ended up tobogganing into the rocks! Not something you'd get away with on a guided tour with western safety standards and litigation etc... loads of fun tho! So the trip down took about 1.5 hours after about a 4.5 hour climb.
Got back to Pucon in time to jump on an overnight Cama (bed) bus to Santiago and onto Mendoza the next day.
