Smoking Pucon
Trip Start
Oct 06, 2010
1
9
14
Trip End
Dec 14, 2010
Where I stayed
Pucon, Lake District, Chile, Lake District, Chile
Sunday, October 24, 2010
As we lazed around in the warm spring sunshine waiting for the bus to arrive, a traveler appeared out of nowhere. He hadn't come from the direction of the town, but instead from the direction of the mountains. He loitered around as if he wanted to talk. I went inside to buy some food. On my return, sure enough he was in full conversation with Carla (this tends to happen a lot in South America, when females are by themselves they attract a lot of attention from males). He was a 6’5’’Dutch guy called Geronimo, who had been on the road for a year and a half. He had very little money left, which showed, and had been trying to reduce his spending whenever he could, such as by camping. We were naturally wary of him. However, he had an uncanny resemblance to our friend big Al Bergsma, and so for this reason we trusted him enough for the 6-7 hour journey that lay ahead.
The drive across the Andes was beautiful. We passed through emerald green forests, deep blue lakes and stunning snow-capped mountains. The bright sun sparkled off the meandering Andean rivers and waterfalls, broken only by sleepy alpine villages, where locals sat outside their homes smoking pipes and watching the world go by, in this case us. Some of the road was still undeveloped and made for a bumpy ride. As we approached Pucon there was an air of excitement that passed through the bus. The assistant bus driver hurriedly walked up the aisle tapping passengers on the shoulder and pointing to the smoking, and clearly still active, volcano Villarrica! What a sight! This was the first glimpse of our next adventure.
Carla and I, plus "big Al", were met in Pucon by a horde of touts trying to push their hostel and tours on to us. After managing to beat a path through the crowd, the three of us walked towards the hostel that Carla had pre-booked. Somehow we had agreed that “big Al” would come with us too. En-route he mentioned a number of times his concerns about affording the hostel. It isn’t unknown for travelers to share a room or “loan” money to hard-up travelers…this wasn’t a route that we wanted to go down. We avoided all the hints and eventually said our good-byes after it was decided that he couldn’t afford to stay at the hostel. However, I couldn’t help feeling like I was saying good-bye to a good friend, and that maybe we should have helped him out.
Our first impressions of the hostel were great. The hostel had two amazingly beautiful and huge chocolate Newfoundlands that were more like bears than dogs. Their coats were thick brown, they had big bear paws, dopey faces and the most gentle nature. I never thought that I would find a dog better than Blocky from El Calafate, but here I had found two! They lolloped around the huge garden all day, scrapping and rolling around. They would both engulf you whenever we knelt down to pat them. The second great thing about the hostel was the view of the Volcano from the garden! This was where the good points ended.
We were welcomed by the “activities” manager, but as far as we could tell the most active thing she would do all day was play around on Facebook. She certainly didn’t have any advice for any of the many activities available in the town. In fact we ended up advising her, and giving her facts about her own town. At one point she told us that the volcano was 15,000 metres high! It turned out to be not even 15,000 ft (she was meant to a college graduate from the US). The hostel manager was nowhere to be seen for our entire stay apart from at the end when she wanted payment. The facilities were terrible also. The gas cooker only partly worked, there was no toilet paper in the bedroom, no towels were provided, and no heating…just to mention a few things. The worst thing for me though was that it claimed to be an “eco” hostel, and for this we ended up paying more than normal. The only thing that made this place “eco” were the signs that were pinned in all the bedrooms telling us facts about the damage over usage of water and electricity did to the environment. There was no other evidence of the hostel being eco-friendly, no usage of renewable energy, no “brown” water usage, no obvious recycling of any kind, the sinks had no plugs, none of the appliances were energy efficient, the bathrooms had electric fans and bidets, and the toilet cisterns did not work properly leading to lots of wasted water. They were profiteering from the conscience of its guests. What a great way to charge more and keep running costs down! This place is called Etnico Eco Hostel…DO NOT STAY HERE!!!
It was a 7 am start on Monday morning. We were to climb the volcano Villarrica, which is officially 2,847 metres high (approximately 9,500 ft). We had met with the tour guide the previous evening for our equipment fitting, so when we arrived this morning all the equipment should have been perfect. Unfortunately for Carla this was not the case, he had provided her with wrong size shoes and two right-handed gloves…not a good start for a 6-7 hour hike, where temperatures get to below freezing at the top. To say this guide was incompetent would be an understatement. There was no introduction, no talk about the day ahead, and most importantly no safety instructions.
The group of eight, including two guides, set off on the hike up to the snow-capped smoking crater. Within 30 mins of walking two things became abundantly clear, firstly, this was going to be hard work, and secondly, Carla was not really fit enough to do it. Within 40 mins the rest of the tour group had left us, except for Hector (the assistant guide). He spoke little English, but was far and away a much better guide than the lead. One other thing became clear to me very quickly…Carla was not going to make this fun for me either. For at least the first 2-3 hours hiking Carla moaned and complained her way up the volcano…like a stubborn old mule! It was too cold; too hot; too high; too steep; too far; too much snow and ice…and on and on and on!! About half-way up we were able to use a chair lift, which was such a relief. As the lift approached we both managed to navigate our way onto the chair easily enough, and then sat back and enjoyed the views. Getting off however was a different matter. Two men waited on the upper platform to pull us off the chair quickly, so that we didn’t continue into the pulley mechanism and be crushed in the huge machinery! This I managed with ease… albeit with little grace. Carla on the other hand had more trouble. Somehow she had become entangled in the chair. For about 5-10 seconds there was total panic as Carla was dragged along through the snow, while everyone around rushed to help to her. With inches to spare Carla had managed to free her without any physical injury, although her dignity and pride took quite a battering! This didn't improve her mood! An hour later we stopped for lunch. Sitting in the snow with our crampons on, we ate our lunch looking out to the most amazing views. In the distance we could see many other active volcanoes, all part of the famous Pacific “ring of fire”. This is was another memory that I will never forget. I asked Carla what she thought of the views, but her answer wasn’t very positive... Along with the shortness of breath and headache from the high altitude, aching limbs, acrophobia, she was now suffering from blistering sunburn!!!
To her credit though that was the last complaint I heard from her that day. She put her head down and got on with it. Part way up Carla bumped into big Al, whom she told me greeted her like an old friend with a kiss and hug (I got a wave from a distance). Somehow big Al had managed to hire himself a tour guide to take him up the volcano? It seems our wariness of him was correct. Eventually after about 6 hours of vertical hiking across snow and ice we made it to the top. It was worth it!! We were able to look down into the crater to see the smoke billowing out from the lava. We could also see the formation of mineral deposits around the rim, which created many different vivid colours, and the views were breath-taking. Carla was finally happy!
Our descent was quite different. We had each carried a tiny circular sledge to the top, and now we were finally going to get to use them. With sledges strapped to our bums we hurtled down the steep slopes with gusto …all except for Carla that is…she was too scared! While we all waited at the bottom for Carla to descend, in the distance we could hear fits of uncontrollable giggling that carried across the whole Andean mountain range, as Carla came hurtling down the slopes strapped to Hector the guide, with mouth open , eyes wide, and hair and snow flying everywhere…it was hilarious!!
We finished off the day with a walk to the beach to watch the most visually stunning sunset over Lake Villarrica.
On the day of our check-out we took a local bus out of Pucon to a national park to visit one of the many waterfalls – Ojos del Carburgua. It was great being so far out of town, away from the other tourists, and taking public transport with the locals. It was such a peaceful and relaxing day. On our return back into town we had an early dinner, before catching the overnight bus for the 11 hour journey ahead to Santiago. We booked ourselves a couple of “Premium” seats, which meant we had a full-length bed, were served champagne and meals, and watched movies. It was like flying business class. Needless to say, we arrived into Santiago feeling very refreshed and ready to be in a big city again!
