Argentina Trip

I made it to a town in the Chilean Andes called Pucon, the major feature of which is a volcano that towers overhead.

It was a tough, four-hour trek up that volcano side through rocks, snow, ice and strong winds, but ultimately worth it. Here I am taking a brief break - notice how the clouds in background are below me.

Here is a picture of me at the edge of the volcano, which last erupted in the mid-eighties, but now is believed to be safe. I have on a helmet to protect me from falling rocks, a cloth hat covering my head and neck with an opening for my face, lots of sunscreen, wrappings to keep snow out of tops of my boots, and I am leaning on an a type of ice axe (not sure of official name). Unseen are my mittens, sun glasses and snow pants.

This is a shot looking into the volcano. We could not see any lava, but smoke and sulfur gasses were coming up and every once in while there was the sound of an explosion like someone setting off dynamite far down below.

The views of the surrounding lakes and volcanoes were unbeatable from any other location.

I was exhausted at the top of the mountain, but we still had to go all the way down. Luckily it was much easier. They had us put on the snow pants, get on our butts, and slide down grooves they had made in the snow.

We left the town at 7 a.m. and returned at 4:30 p.m., tired, sore and soaking wet from the snow. I managed to stop by a restaurant to eat some local salmon and then headed for bed. Best night of sleep I have had since getting here.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Chile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.