Pretty Pucon

Hello Gang,
I am now writing this while I`m whiling away the time before leaving Pucon to head further north to Valparaiso overnight by bus.

Pucon is a lovely place in the middle of the Chilean lake district (located in central Chile).
The town is set on Lake Villarrica and is surrounded by Mountains and Volcanoes.
The Volcano Villarrica lies about 7km away and last erupted in 1985; the town of Pucon is on constant alert and has a traffic light warning system in place with lights located across the town.

I arrived to a shock with the heat very different to the cold and rain that I`d left behind in Puerto Montt 7hrs earlier. The first task was to find a hostel and I somehow managed to stumble into a house that offered rooms. The guy seems nice enough and so I decided to stay. The room however was like a cell with the bunk bed just fitting in (1ft space on two sides) and no windows, all for the sum of 6GBP per night (that's a lot!).

This was my first idea that Pucon may be expensive and it wasn´t to be my last. Pucon turned out to be touristy with a capital T. The tourist majority was not foreign though but families escaping from Santiago for a summer break.

Activities was why I came to Pucon and on my second day I did Canopy(zip lining) in the morning followed by rafting in the afternoon.
Canopy was good and very exhilarating but not for one whose scared of heights. I was part of a group that contained some Americans on summer holidays from teaching in Santiago. It was a good activity and reasonably cheap which made a nice change!
Rafting was great fun (despite being the only English speaker) and the guide ensured we all got wet. Nearly as soon as we got in he pushed us out and encouraged us to swim in the calm waters between rapids.
The river was grade 4 rapids yet we had to get out the raft at one stage to allow the guide to navigate the small section of grade 6 rapids. Our way of getting down was finding a large rock and jumping off down the 25 ft drop to the river below and swimming like mad to get to the raft.
The final part of rapids was grade 2 and we were given the option of swimming/floating down in the water (with the safety kayak nearby). This was the most fun of the whole day.

Next day I woke early (05:00) to climb the Villarrica Volcano. The day was going to be a tough climb up to the summit (approx 2900m) before a tour at the top and sliding down on ones bottom.
We were extremely luck that the day was fine and still meaning we had increased chance of making the summit. We were kitted out in Helmets, suits and with Ice Axes (and a very heavy bag) and given in depth guide as to what to do if you started to fall!
There was about 30 people climbing in our group with a guide for every 4 people. I managed to go with the quick group of 8 who raced up to the summit in 3hrs! I was hanging on sometimes to the tails of the Swiss and Austrian climbers who seemed quite serious.
Lunch was had sitting at the summit admiring the spectacular views. We then walker the perimeter of the crater careful not to get to close! You could not see any molten lava (I was quite glad) but it certainly was hot and the sulphur stung the eyes and throat.
The decent was tremendous fun as we were kitted out with what can only be described as nappy like pouches. We then climbed the first 200m down before sliding in channels on our bottoms . At the end you hit a pile of snow and had a short walk to the next channel.
Arriving back at the base camp I was rightly knackered but with a big smile on my face.

Next I´m looking forward to visiting Valparaiso (after the 13hrs overnight on a bus) and then will travel up, further north to La Serena to see if I can find some decent surf. Three weeks and counting now till NZ!