Chile - Puerto Montt to Valparaiso

Armpit:

We were advised against staying in Puerto Montt - apparently it´s just a grim, semi-industrial hole. So we ended up heading to Pucon, further north in Chile, where someone had recommended climbing Villaricca Volcano and hiking around the lakes. Reading about the climb while on the bus, it began to sound a bit more serious than we had imagined - guide essential, only possible weather permitting, bring own crampons and ice-axe, that kind of thing.

More photos here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.cp5nwwsy&x=1&y=-j7hikv

Impending doom:

It was a beautiful journey up through Chile´s Lake District, skirting round vast, motionless lakes, through lush farmland and over ragged peaks. It was marred only by repeated screening of Final Destination 2 in the bus. (They showed it 3 times in a row.) For the uninitiated this film revolves around the concept that death has a list and when it´s your time to go it´ll get you but you can cheat it by reading the ´signs´and staying clear of what they predict. It isn´t very good. By the time I got off the bus I was determining prophetic symbols of my demise in every glance from a workman on scaffolding and in every dog´s bark. Lot´s of dogs here. Again, dozily traipsing the streets, nonchalantly stopping traffic and rarely issuing a bark.

Bragger:

We went back to a hostel with with a pleasant chap called Claudio who accosted us in the bus station - he seemed nice and the facilities were ok and it was cheap for Chile. It turned out later that the hostel was full of very odd people, the walls were made of paper and Claudio was a sociopath - it was probably the weirdest place we´ve found so far. As well as running the hostel he was an official tour guide so as soon as we were settled he began his sales patter... "Mine ees not the cheapest climb in the town but ees the best. We have best equipment which ees all new and I am fastest guide so we leave early in the morning and be first to top of volcano. You lucky because ees raining for 2 weeks and there are no tours so you arrive just at the right time but there ees people who are waiting 2 weeks to climb and it will be very busy so ees best to get up fast with me." It might have been this that made the hostel so strange - the people there were going stir-crazy after having waited so long for the climb.

Ignoring Claudio´s guff we went with a cheap and friendly Israeli company who seemed competent enough. Claudio became pretty tetchy when he realised later that we weren´t booking with him. It seemed that everybody else in the hostel had. But we ignored him and got an early night in preparation for the 6am rise to climb. I think that ear plugs are the most useful things that I´ve brought on this trip - while James unfortunately had to listen to the elderly Scandanavian gentlemen in the next room talking at the top of their voices until 1am (one of them also seemed to be marching around the room in boots), I was able to block them out.

Volcanoing:

It was harder than it looked zig-zagging up through the snow and ice, most of the way at a 45-60 degree angle. Started off freezing with no feeling in toes but pretty soon warmed up and shed layers - each tme emitting plumes of steam. It took our group of 8 about 5 hours to reach the summit. We passed Claudio about half way up struggling with a couple of greeting Canadians and we were the first to arrive at the top. Had about 20 mins before others started arriving which allowed us to wonder around in peace and admire the views. The volcano itself wasn´t up to much, just a bit of sulphurous smoking and the occasional burst of lava shooting out of a hole way down below. By the time we´d had lunch there were about 100 people milling around on the top. We headed down through thin clouds gathering about the volcano.

Descending was a bit quicker as our guide, Hernan, handed out rubber trousers and demonstrated how to slide down using the ice axe as a break. This was a lot of fun. The brake was essentially useless and only really served to start you spinning round. Either that or it ended up dug too far into the ice, almost wrenched your arm out or the socket and you lost it as you sped down. He took every run first and half the time just disappeared into mist from where you´d here a "next". So we just rattled down and generally managed to stop before toppling over anything too dangerous so that we could pick ourselves up and walk to the next downhill run. I was soaked through by the time we reached the bottom an hour later but contemplated doing the climb again for the sake of another descent.

Back at the hostel Claudio returned a couple of hours after us looking very red in the face. He´d neglected to use any protection and the sun was fierce all day (added to that there´s not much ozone layer down here). The rest of the hostel dwellers had similarly suffered, it looked pretty painful. I was ok with only a slightly burned left ear and a blistering burn on my right wrist that must have been caused by lava or something. Jim´s sunglasses had failed him and he´d burned his eyeballs. Judging from his description of the sensation it is as sore as it sounds.

Valparaiso:

We got a bus up to Valpariaso which is supposed to be the cultural capital of Chile. It´s a port, about half way up the country, set into the Andean foothills. It used to be thriving and grew rapidly until they opened the Panama canal when it went into decline. We spent a couple of fairly uneventful days there wondering around the suburbs (shanty towns) and eating home cooked meals comprised essentially of tomato, pasta and garlic. The highlight of the stay was probably a visit to Pablo Neruda´s house which was pleasant enough.

View more photos here (though they are a bit dull):
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9s5mjjy.96i97fde&x=1&y=-jl6zwi