Days 73 - 78: Volcan Villarica and Southernmost Chile

Hola!

We arrived in Pucón after a night van (public holiday so all the night buses were sold out!!) and a hideous lack of sleep! But it is a beautiful town at the foot of the Villarica volcano, next to Lake Villarica. Very picturesque, with a touristy feel, it seems to be the Queenstown of Chile.

So the next day we climbed the volcano. It is constantly steaming, but is not at risk of eruption. The volcano is a popular ski field during the winter, but good for climbing all year round! So the guiding company gave us ski pants, jacket, gloves, snow boots, ice axes and helmets, and we set off!! The climb was easier than we expected (anything seems easy compared with the Inca trail at altitude now!) and luckily the ice axes weren't really necessary! At the top it was absolutely beautiful. Hopefully we can get some photos up soon. To get down again, we sat on tiny plastic sleds and slid down all the way! Was great fun!!

The next day we took it a bit easier and went to visit one of the nearby lakes in the national park. The weather was stunning so it was very relaxing sitting on the beach, Sam went for a swim but the water is still very cold this time of year!

We then took the bus to Puerto Varas for our last two nights in Chile and the southernmost point on our trip! Puerto Varas is a town settled by the Germans beside a large lake with snow capped mountains in the distance, including Osorno, another beautiful conical volcano!

The next morning we took the bus to look around Puerto Montt, a major port and fishing hub. In the afternoon Sam went Canyoning in the mountains - which included traversing down an icy river by jumping, sliding and abseiling!
It was capped of by an abseil down beside a 40 meter high waterfall and a 14 meter jump through the same waterfall - he was the only one in the group brave enough to do it!

Today we travelled across the border to Argentina and the resort town of Bariloche! It was an awesome drive through mountains and along glacial lakes - some of the best scenery yet!

Lots of love xoxo