Volcan Villarrica, Pucon

Nothing like a nice Easter vacation to relax by the beach and recover from the first month of teaching, sleeping in and eating good food... or as in the case of this last weekend, nothing like a nice 10 hour bus ride to go white water rafting, zip lining and climb an active volcano. Thats right folks, I climbed a volcano. Now, this didn't seem so weird until telling my mom about it and after some silence hearing, "so you mean, like, you could have fallen into lava" and um well, yay, thats kinda the way it went. But this represents the whole weekend really, as I had no clue what i was in for going to Pucon for 4 days.

I left Wed night straight from work, headed for a touristy outdoor adventure village, which was very picturesque--- filled with cute little wooden houses, the mountains, 2 lakes and the small town feel. Arriving at 8am Thursday morning, we entered town to see the huge volcano which I for some reason came 10 hrs to climb. In case no one knew like me, volcanoes are actually really really big. And hard to climb.

That first day we went white water rafting and it was pretty intense. I totally fell out of the raft once, my legs flying in the air above me, doing a backflip out of the raft. Our guide kept getting us stuck um purpose and pretending to freak out in Spanish. One rapid was too big for our non-existent rafting skills, so we had to walk around on the shore while the guide took our raft down a mini-waterfall alone (quite entertaining to watch!) Walking through the woods along the shore we saw the Copihue, or the Chilean bellflower, Chile's national flower which only buds for 2 weeks a year in the South of Chile. It was cool to come across it unexpectedly. It was really just so beautiful, and looks like a bright pink bell. Finally we got to this cliff and they tell us "ok get back in the raft now," as we're looking at our guide 25 ft below us. Although I at first thought he was joking (as we were just rafting through sharp rocks) we all jumped into the water... and when I say water I really mean liquid ice.

After getting fitted with climbing gear that night, we woke up at 3:50am, as I pretended to be ready for the sunrise hike of Volcan Villarrica. The guide picked us up at 4:20am and we went with a group of 18 people and 5 non-existent guides to the volcano. It was 3 hrs of steepness on basically volcanic ash in the dark and by the time we reached the snow it was daylight. At this point we put our helmets and cramp-ons on and hiked 2 more hours in the snow. Now, one would think that the night before when I was given cramp-ons I would have realized what I was in for. But nope. I didn't know what cramp-ons were or why they were used. They are freaking spikes you attach to your shoes so you can walk on ice... that should have been a sign that I was in for a physically demanding experience! But no, I still had no clue that I was going to be climbing up straight ice and in case I slipped and went flying down the volcano, no worries, because I had a little ice ax and a 2 minute description of what to do, and then the guides began their run up the mountain. And ps, I signed no legal waiver! The top of the volcano was probably one of the best views I've ever seen in my life, being way way higher than the clouds... but also possibly the most smokey place I have ever been. Tons of smoke was flowing out from inside the volcano. I ate avocado and cheese sandwiches from the top and worried about how the hell we were gonna get down.

So one of my students who I passed on to advance and so am now aloud to be buddy-buddy with worked in Pucon last summer at a tourist agency. When I told him I was going to Pucon, he came in the next day with information about the town including a DVD, a recommended schedule of activities and he even called where he worked to tell them I was coming. (This is how you get an A.) We got a discount for canyoning (zip lining) and I got to feel cool, name dropping to the big boss and my arrival being expected.

My bus got back into Santiago at 7:30 Monday morning and I practically went straight to class, back in the busy city and feeling the flow of it all. Congested air, I'm ready for you!