May
2009
Pucon
This past weekend we visited Pucon, about 800km south of Santiago in the heart of the Araucaria region, Chile’s lake district. It’s very much like Banff, an adventure sports town where everything is made of wood surrounded by forests, lakes and snow-capped volcanoes. We did a day of horseback riding (beautiful) save for when I fell off during a gallop and got the biggest bruise I’ve ever had. The next day I convinced Ashley that it was a good idea to climb up Volcan Villarica, a 1400m ascent over rocks, dirt and ice. We slugged it up the side of the volcano with our group kicking ourselves for thinking it would be easy (it wasn’t). The views at the top were spectacular however and well worth the trip, once we got over our exhaustion. The last photo is from our descent, showing that my girlfriend is indeed hardcore, using her crampons and ice axe to descend down below the clouds from the peak.