Climbing Villarica Volcano..Ouch!

Today we awoke at 6am, packed the sandwiches and water and headed to the pickup point, we arrived at the base and picked up our gear and then it was an hour drive to the base of the Villarica volcano - South Americas most active volcano!

We arrived at the volcano and of course the chairlift that cuts the first hour off the journey was closed, so we went on our way hiking through the fine gravel.

About half way up, Tina had enough and threw in the towel (which was an effort in itself), I persisted on even with my feet bleeding and blistered, the climb got steeper and steeper and then we reached the ice and things got even harder! I must have fallen a dozen times, and as I was waiting behind with Tina for a few minutes I fell behind and got knackered trying to catch up and not getting a long enough rest.

The guide pushed me and I continued even through I felt so tired, I was tempted to throw in the towel a number of times but mind over matter kicked in and told myself I had to do this!

At one stage I thought I saw the top and was told by the guide that was the middle, apart of me cried inside :) ,but as I'd gotten this far I knew I had to climb to the top.

Once we got through the snow of the next ascent we had to climb up through gravel and magma, my legs were giving in and then I was up the top VICTORY! The adrenaline must of kicked in because I was straight over to the volcano to look inside and then walked to the other side to take some pictures of the landscape and glacier. All I was missing was a tricolour to pin on the top!

Once we finished taking in the beauty of the top of the volcano we descended to the snow part, this itself was tough as the rocks were pretty slippery and at one stage a huge piece of magma dislodged by another climber rolled down the hill and hit me in the leg!

We got to the snow part of the hill and now the fun part begins, the snow that took us over 3 hours to climb..only took about 30 minutes to go down thanks to some dug trenches and a piece of plastic we sat on! It was pretty good fun but obviously not the safest descend , especially considering a group of condors were circling the area we were sliding down...dinner??

After changing lanes in the snow a couple of times, we got out of our wet gear and began to head down the gravel hill, it was pretty dusty heading down, and I'm surprised I still have 2 ankles intact, then we were at the bottom 8 hours later.

This is without doubt the toughest thing I have ever done..both the best and worst experience of my life! At 2840 metres, Villarica is nearly 3 times taller then Irelands highest mountain (Carrauntoohil - 1038 metres)..."basic level of fitness required!" I don't bloody think so! Lots of people threw in the towel along the way so I'm very proud that I stucj it through and finished the climb.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt, it has to be one of my biggest accomplishments of my life so far, but I don't think I'd climb it again!

Later we headed to the thermal springs, this has to be the most tired I've ever been, lets hope it helps!

Pucon

We arrived in Pucon and found the main street which seems to be always called 'Bernado O'Higgins'..a quick google search showed us that he liberated Chile from the Spaniards and his father was born in county Sligo.

The night bus..which was excellent, The conductor even places a pillow behind your head! I'd passed out and Tina told me the conductor put a blanket over me...we even got 'breakfast' albeit a caramel biscuit and juice.

We arrived at our hostel, well we arrived outside it at 8am, and waited there an hour and a half, we knew we weren't going to get our room but imagined there would be somewhere for us to hang out until the room was ready. The guy eventually arrived at 9:30 and the place was in bits, apparently their was a party last night and the place was wrecked.

So around 10:30am we were given our room, the guy could tell we were pissed off and apologised and told us to see him about some activities later on! Not a bloody chance mate!

We walked around the town and admired the Villarica Volcano that overlooks the town, it's almost like being in New Zealand/ Dantes Peak.. it's not a huge town and we don't have the whole 'cling on to your stuff hard' although we never let our guard down. It does however have a safe feel to it, the place is full of street dogs that seem to enjoy playing chicken with moving cars, they're friendly enough though but I try and avoid them as I could do without a series of rabies jabs, although one came over to me and puked by hand to rub him!

We booked out Volcano climb followed by Thermal baths that evening from Pucontours (Free Plug: http://pucontours.cl/ ) from 2 of the nicest tour agents you'll meet Judith from Germany and Martin from Norway/Chile! They explained everything in detail. Just ask and they'll shave a few bucks off the package for you. We did venture into other tour agents in Pucon but this one had the best customer service of the one's we'd gone into to.

Had a bit of Mexican food today, I can't really deal with all this chicken and chips all the time! It was a decent bit of grub that was needed badly.

So it's time for bed now..tomorrow we'll climb the Villarica Volcano, we were told a basic level of fitness was required...Hmmmmmmmm

Chile, Santiago

February 16

After 31 hours, 2 flights and then a 1 hour bus journey we arrived in Santiago, Chile and it's 30 degree heat, so we are nearly 40 degrees warmer then Tokyo.

We arrived at the hostel at 2.30pm and checked in, tonight there is a BBQ and wine night so we signed up for that and were in the bed at 3pm, Woke up around 8:30pm and went down for a glass of wine or 3 and a huge mixed grill! It's certainly an improvement from raw tuna. We stayed in the hostel for the night as we are feckin wrecked from the flight!

February 17

Woke up at 6am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, our bodies are still in a different timezone, so we are suffering a wee bit of jetlag..We are now only 3 hours behind Ireland now. We wandered around the streets and saw a few of the sights. It's an interesting place to walk around, it's definitely through to it's Spanish roots. The afternoon it was time for the obligatory beer and then onward for some street exploring. The streets have a massive police / security presence but it's a very developed country with the best of roads, public transport. Their are street dogs everywhere, but there in a lot better condition then the SE Asian street dogs, I found my dogs twin albeit with two black eyes...Would you believe at 9pm I was passed out on the couch, we decided to hit the leaba and recover from the last 2 days.