Chile-Pucon

Well, on Friday morning I was up at 6am, we went to the tour office where we had a beautiful breakfast of dippy eggs...it was like being a child again, I told everyone that they should have soldiers. So, there we all were with earl grey tea, eggs, soldiers and fresh yoghurt, building up our bodies for the walk up the volcano. Only for the man to come back with the weather report and say it was too dangerous as it was hailing up at the top of the volcano. So, off we went back to bed. I didn´t do much with my day, stayed in bed for a while,it was cold and wet so just hung around and chilled out in the hostel. So, Saturday we woke up to beautiful sunshine, definitely the day to climb the volcano....so back to the tour office, dippy eggs again! This time we got fully equipt with snow boots, trousers, jackets, helmets and a nice pack up. We had special sunglasses, big mittens and an ice pic! So off we went, I was sitting in the van driving to the bottom of Villarica volcano wondering what the hell I was doing...but just thought, this has got to be done! So, we get to the bottom, heavy rucksacks with helmets, 2 litres of water, ice shoes the lot...realy quite heavy. We started our climb. The crater looked so close, but it was so far! There was 200 people climbing with lots of guides, 18 in our particular group with black and orange jackets! We started walking and I could barely breath, just wondering how I was going to make it. It was a steep gradient and really hard to walk on the snow, but we were taught how to use our pic axe should we fall. 5 hours later atfer several stops, realy sore ankles and a sore groin I reached the crater. It was so hot, I had walked all the way up in just my t-shirt as the sun was so strong. It was quite amazing to see all the sulpher coming out and small bits of lava creeping out....in all honesty though, not sure the 5 hours of agony was worth it! The way wack down was far easier, in our rucksacks we had a bum strap, we clipped it around our bum and away we went...it was pretty scary at first as it was a very steep slope, but we just as Aimee would say ´greased our arses and slid!´ It was a lot of fun, but there was walking in between when the slope wasn´t quite steep enough to slide...funny how I didn`t notice those bits on the way up!! My groin was killing me and I just wanted to get to the bottom so much, but it still took nearly 2 hours to get back down. Finally we made it, I could barely walk and my ankles were all red and swallen...but I am really proud that I did it.
The worst thing was having to spend the night on a most uncomfortable nightbus, I could hardly sleep, my body was in bits. We arrived in Santiago at 7:30am, my final South American destination. I had an hour rest and then went out to have a look around the city. The main square is lovely and has a great big Christmas tree, first time I`ve really thought about Christmas. We took a walk around, went to a museum, the museum of pre columbian art, it was pretty cool. I then had a bit of drama with a cash machine which decided not to give me any money, but then made myself feel better having a mint milkshake...lovely!
With all the changes in weather I´m realy not feeling well, we went out for a fantastic meal last night, but then I had to go to bed as I am suffering. Have bad chest and head cold, but I`ve been to the pharmacy this morning and have lots of things to make me better. Feeling better already! Today my tour has ended, but I am here until Wednesday and so are the other people who are continuing the tour so I will be spending some more time with them until it´s time to go. Just going to explore the city a little more today and tomorrow. I need to work out what I´m going to do when I get to New Zealand aswell. That´s all for now....