Pucon, Chile

Here at the top of the Volcano Villiarica the smell of sulfur will take your breath away!

This was the top of an old ski lift that got burnt up after the Volcano erupted and melted it.

Chile and Argentina are so much more expensive then everywhere else I have been so far, I have been really big on renting a bike for a day and going to check things out for myself. They have a tour that takes you to the top of an active volcano and everyone who comes to Pucon usually does this. For about 50-60$ a company will drive you 15 miles up the road and then you have a guide that you follow up this snow covered peak. I decided to do it on my own and I rented a bike to ride it there, hike the mountain and ride it back to town. I guess I should have taken into consideration that the elevation from where I started to where I finished was about a difference of about 9000 vertical ft. Although I didn´t have any problems, I was really tired after riding a bike for 15 miles, all uphill, to walking up the mountain through the snow where I didn´t exactly know where the path was. Half the time I was cutting a new path through soft snow up a steep mountainside. On the way back down there were chutes where people would slide down in the snow and it was a blast sitting down in the snow and what took 5 hours to get up, took less then 20 minutes to get down. As for the bike ride back it was the same too. It took me around 3 hours to ride up the road and on the way back I was passing cars going down the hill! The day before we went on a 42k ride with some people in my hostel to see the country side and a waterfall which was also a really enjoyable day. Pucon, so far my favorite place in Chile.