The end
This holiday blog was brought to you by:
7 flights
10 accommodations
3 border crossings
10 memory cards
WordPress
Stolen wifi
Reading material provided by Mark Radcliffe, Andrew Collins, Lonely Planet and Footprint guides.
Thank you and goodnight
Santiago
Stopping through only to get a bus connection to Mendoza.
A dirty dirty place!
A police car ride with sirens blaring speeding into the bus station was the only highlight. Apart from leaving.
Rio
The easiest and fastest border crossing (this time into Brasil)
In Rio, Botafago. Arrived in our business hotel without any business to conduct apart from sight seeing.
First port of call, food, Subway. As the weather was good we decided to up to Sugarloaf mountain in the cable car. More queues. And as we got to the tip, the heavens opened and it started to pour. It was grey, wet and not what we were expecting.
The weather has surprisingly been hit and miss. Mostly miss.
So far unable to see Christ the Redeemer as the visibility is very poor.
Had a lovely meal in the coolest looking 60′s restaurant with table mats that would have embarrasesd you decades back.
Jesus still not showing. Get some ‘cultcha’ and drive to the Museum of Modern Art. Closed. “Driver, take us to ermm, a shopping center”
The last few hours trying to save money we had dinner in a Subway, where it all began.
Arrived early for the flight in the. most depressing looking airport and lounge.
Taking off at 11.55pm nye to see the fireworks was a sight to behold.
Mount Villarica
At the start
On our backsides
Arise and shine at 6am. A coffee, a Saturday morning cooking programme, Football Focus. No chance. For today we don’t do regular, we climb a 2200m snow covered live Volcano.
Along with the other attendees we gather in the kitchen with our energy drinks ready and sensible breakfast.. We get the briefing about the day ahead as we meet the ‘expert’ guides that will help us achieve today’s mission.
Outside the minibus is ready to take us as we climb into our orange outer gear which makes us all look like extras from London’s Burning including waterproof windshield, trousers and the heaviest boots known to man (and goths). We are also provided with other goodies in a backpack that we all have to carry and use for different parts of the trek.
At the Volcano base, there’s an option to take a chairlift for an easier start which most of the group take bar two brave souls. Getting off the chairlift was scary, jump off and avoid the oncoming chairs from behind by running out of the way was the first of many challenges of the day.
The trip leaders observe the surface and conditions and decide that we would need our crampons, helmets and ice picks…just like the professionals on TV.
Climbing up was slow but that was the way to do it in diagnal lines so if we slipped we wouldn’t take down whoever was behind. Short breaks for the dullest sandwiches and sips of energy juices were most welcome.
After an hour the temperature increases and more suncream is added. Taking off the shades are really hurting the eyes now. We dared not drop them as if we did, there’s only one way they’d fall and there would be no rushing to rescue them.
The top is looming. Another stop please. It’s not a race y’know? We stay at the back like the unhealthy fat kids in a school race.
The top appears closer after about 3 hours of diagonal walking. We can see the smoke bellowing and ushering us nearer.
We’ve done it. ‘We Was Ere’ High fives all around together with wide smiles follow swiftly by collapsing to the ground. This was a Kodak moment to enjoy but not for long as it smells rather unpleasant due to the sulphar fumes from the Volcano. Yes. we were on top of a Volcano.
Now we were feeling rather smart, we had done the hard slog. Getting down we’d heard that you simply slid on your butt down the mountain. Great we thought, we’d be home in no time.
We put on more items from the bag, gloves and a nappy type costume that went round the back of you.
So we had to slide down on your backside via paths that had already been created. This looked fun and easy. With a kickstart courtesy of the ice pick, we’re offfffff! you become simply a human bobsleigh. Wow it’s fast.
Crash. Stop, Spin…try again.
There were times when slope wasn’t ideal for sliding so walking was easier option but found it harder as it’s tougher on the knees and of courseva tad slippy. When you land on your backside for the umpteenth time the waterproof trousers are indeed being tested.
We ended up further behind the rest of the crowd as now people were sliding past at various speeds.
Every now and then we’d try the sliding method but were encouraged to form human team bobsleigh’s instead of solitary ones. There were a few successful take offs and flights and this became rather amusing crashing into the back of complete strangers with only ice between you. You could only get away with this on a Volcano.
Now with water in my shoe and lots of it. Too cold and awkward to fix it. Nevermind. Carry on like a trooper. Even though you are the slow fat kid at the back. Then in comedy fashion, the left shoe comes off. I struggle to get the moon boot back on helped out eventually by one of the guides who I think was rather peeved that I’d slowed him down. Not quite mountain rescue but still grateful.
With the luxury once again of 2 boots I plodded along at my own pace, water gushing inside and falling over at regular intervals. It was hard staying up so I tried sliding myself down with my ice pick to pull me along (should be watching Football Focus now) but it was proving tough with just my own thrust.
This was definitely the toughest part of the walk/slide. I had imagined that sliding down would have made this part a whole lot easier but it wasn’t like sliding down your local park hillside.
Eventually I left the snow environment and continued to finish towards the starting point over the rocky surface and viewed our minibus with relief. I sat in the bus with water still in my shoe but by this time it didn’t matter. The expedition was complete.
Greeted with beers at the hostel as we unclothed and rung out the water from our gear and dried off.
Rather fittingly we ended the night with dips in some natural hot water springs…it’s what you do after climbing. a volcano.
My team had lost again. Just like another Saturday.
Pucon (long read)
Bariloche to Pucon.
This morning we are on the way to Pucon, Chile. Yesterday we failed (not without trying) to pre book tickets to Orsorno. From there we would get a bus to Pucon. That was the plan anyway. We tried online, calling their office and even taking a cab to the bus station in Bariloche the night before but no luck. With the lack of ticket in hand we decided to keep faith and adopt the simple strategy of get early and get the first bus out of town.
We arrived at the bus terminal next morning over an hour before our bus was due to leave. It was quiet and the bus company office window is not yet open for business. There is nobody in the queue for tickets so no rush we think. Time to purchase Oreo’s for breakfast as options were limited. A short while later a solitary traveller waiting for the same bus waits in the queue. No rush still it seems, it’s quiet. We’re in the queue now ready to buy our tickets. 20 minutes to go but no sign of the salesman. Finally after 10 minutes we have service and our solo traveller purchases his ticket. I ask for mine, two to be precise. Don’t think he understands. I must have slipped into ‘brummy’. A negative hand gesture suggests it’s not good news. Counting the fingers he has up and making out his actions, it turns out there’s only one ticket left. But there’s two of us. Do the math.
This situation was a tad frustrating as not only could we have beaten the other traveller to both tickets, we’d seen an earlier bus go towards our destination but we decided to choose this company as they were Chilean and thought it may have been easier with them to proceed onto our Chilean destination.
Determined to get out of Bariloche we found another bus company that went to another destination but was also a hub to get the connection to Pucon. All wasn’t lost and we had some faith restored, especially as when we boarded we found that the bus would actually arrive in Los Andes de San Martin earlier than expected and this gave us renewed hope as that would. put us in a strong position to catch the connecting bus to Pucon.
After a 4 hr bus ride trying to sleep, read and master the art of spending a penny on moving bus – a possible Olymipic event one day (balance, timing, co-ordination) we arrived at San Martin de Los Andes. In military fashion we split up the responsibilities. ’You keep an eye on the bags and I’ll go get answers’. At the bus information window more negative hand gestures revealed that the next bus to Pucon was the next morning! Cue sad faces. We thought for a second about spending the nite and getting the next bus in the morning but why spend money on another hotel when another is waiting for you? Pucon was a well known destination so we felt confident that some buses would be going that afternoon from somewhere…
Luckily our sad faces generated a response from a few locals. A kind gent told us to get a bus back one stop and then get a car to the border. He said that would be ok, We believed him as he nodded his head in a confident manner. This was promising even if we only got to the border we’d be able to reach out and touch the country. Shortly after stocking up on cheesypuffs (what else?) we caught a bus back to Junin bus station. A bit strange to go back but in life you do that. Go backwards to go forwards, right?o
At Junin bus station. Repeat of military action: ‘You keep an eye on the bags and i’ll go get answers’. We prompty got a cab (probably because this was no ordinary minimum fare) to the border. What will await us? A bus to take us to our hotel? A policeman telling us to go back? A fanfare?
About 30 minutes later and some beautiful scenary we are at the border (my first land border experience) of this no nonsense operation. We searched for more solutions to getting to Pucon which was still miles away. It all looks a but serious here. Better not ask anybody to smile in my pictures. Second thoughts, best not take ANY pictures. Again speaking broken Spanish and interpretting hand signals (of the negative kind which was getting repetitive) our taxi driver revealed he was not able to take us past the border in Chile as you need a license to do that. We needed to work something out. After a few obligitary flicks of the passport and pretend checking we got the rewarding sound of a stamp. Progress anyway. Since we weren’t walking distance from Pucon we politey asked in the office if anybody could take us direct.
Our luck was in as somebody could…fir $100. A bloke from the back (and not in military uniform) wearing a baseball cap answered our request promptly in exchange for this hard cash. He must be off duty or on dress down thursday. They must have saw us coming – from across the border with that kind of price. Either way we had quite literally a ‘get out of Argentina and into Chile plan’.
Mr baseball cap seemed to have a few jovial exchanges with his fellow colleagues probably along the lines of ‘Empanadas are on me tonite lads’ but we didn’t care. We did our best to negotiate a price and knocked it down by a few dollars. We could play this game too. Now take us to your Pucon!
Great, finally being driven directly to our hostel. Moving across the magical line (free now to snap away) in Chile. Driving through the national park which is literally on the border took over 30 mins on a bumpy road. We managed to pick up a passenger en route and passed the time to learn a little about our new driver. He’s been to Switzerland and likes ‘LonDon!’ and now we are providing him with s free English lesson. Edging finally towards Pucon.
Eventually 70 minutes later we reach our destination and right on cue where we are greeted with a warm welcome.
For the first time in the trip we felt like real travellers minus the dreadlocks. We hadn’t eaten a proper meal (not even breakfast) unless you couht Oreo’s and Cheesy puffs. I was unshaven, bleary eyed, but nienow content with an overwhelming sense of satisfaction that we’d made it to our destination. Simple really.
