19. My Little Volcano 21 February 2010

Vulcancito mio is Spanish and means "my dear little volcano". That shall during our stay in Pucon grow to be Geert's motto.

We went therefor to Pucon, a village which on its own is not so much to see were it not for being a paradise for people who love outdoor activities. High above Pucon towers the Villarica volcano. A still active volcano that with his last big eruption in 1982 is 2847 meters high.

We are couchsurfing with Rob and Laura, two professional skydivers from Chicago. There we met the Canadian Haley who is at this moment also here with all of us couchsurfing.

Rob and Laura have left the wintery Chicago so as to come to work as skydivers in Chili in its summer season. Skydiving means jumping from a ridiculous great height out of a small airplane, then doing a free fall for about 40 seconds and following that gliding down for about five minutes. Rob jumps with others (duo) while Laura films and makes photos (on these photos you see at the top Rob with a client and to the right and under Laura who is filming): photo

Skydiving is very expensive, therefore luckily Geert decides against this activity:) But as an alternative he wants to climb the volcano and that seems a good idea to me................

..... only the weather will not cooperate. Climbing the volcano can only be done in sunny and not cloudy weather. While the first day was only cloudy (we went then to have a short horseride), the following day was rain.

We did not get bored and had a wonderful time at Rob and Laura's in their small "cabana" (hut). We played with their dog Cherry, walked over the solidified lava, went for a day rafting while it rained hard (if you are at this point wet or very wet really doesn't matter) and slept two nights on a "Mapuche" (Indian tribe) farm where we received wonderful food and learned that "Irma" is a traditional Mapuche name.

The Cabana of Rob and Laura.: photo
Cherry: photo

Geert, Rob and myself and a lot of lava: photo

The first evening we could barbecue and while the men went to buy the meat in the town,Haley, Laura and I worked on making our first homemade campfire and to keep it burning!!!! I had seen my father to that hundreds of time and that helped!!!!!

Haley, Geert and I with our appetizers: photo

With Rob and Laura and the delicious results of the BBQ: photo]

We waited until the rains would stop.... and then the weather prediction was after 4 days a shiny sunny day!!!

After were we got up ridiculously early, we arrived a bit later at the foot of the volcano, where we put on our battle equipment.

Our group consisted of 9 persons. The three guides, the two of us, a German young man, and 3 Americans who were just finished with their study of medicine (1 boy and 2 girls)

and then we left......

to the ski lift that would bring us to a height of 1800 meters. It is an old, very slow lift and there is no safety bar. Above with the ski life, it was clear that we were not the only ones wanting to go high today.

We received crampons and an ice ax and after a speedy course in mountain walking we began our trip to the top.

Half way the two American girls decided to go back down because they were almost fainting. Afterwards I heard from one of the girls that their complete breakfast was 1 (ONE!!) banana.

The blog title "With only 1 banana you can't go up a volcano" was really not approved by Kapu.

And then, after a physical but good effort (in less than 4 hours time we went up 1000 meters), we reached the top!!!! The view was breathtaking: photo

And also two photos that we received from Rob and Laura, taken from their airplane: photos

Back down it went faster; we received a sort of strong piece of material to put around our bottoms. we glided from the moutain side and used our ice ax as a brake. After an hour we were by the bus. I still get goose pimples and a strong feel of adrenaline as I am sitting here selecting the photos. This was soooooo cool!!!!!

Placed by Irma on 21 -2 2010.
Labels: cherry, skydiving, crampons, Vulcancito