Volcano Villarica (2847 m)

Volcano Villarica (2847 m)
We meet at the guides office at 06:15 to get our gear and take the bus to the foot of the volcano. We have been there the day before and met the guides plus a very sun burned tourist coming back from the volcano in need of telling us what to do (“take the boots the company is borrowing the tourists, as yours could get dirty”; “pay for the chairlift, the way up is boring and there will be many people at the summit if you are too slow”). Yes, sir, and may I kindly recommend you to concentrate on applying sunscreen instead on what we are doing?
We are a group of 11 persons and 3 of us walk from the parking spot with the guide Pancho. The first part is flat in the forest and get slightly steeper and rocky after. The others take a lift for the first part of the ascent, which is so slow that we meet right above the top station, although we walked.
The group is composed of mostly beginners but the pace is not too slow and we have fun chatting to the nice guides (4 in total). We walked a bit on snow before we put on crampons and it goes like this:
Guide: “Now we put our crampons on, please take them out your bag.”
Canadian man: “What are crampons, what am I looking for?”.
Once everybody has been put crampons on (the guides sit people down and put them crampons on, it feels like the kindergarten for adults), we continue for the last 800 m elevation gain. The British lady tells us that when she “hates it and feels her legs hurting, she remembers she paid for it” but we have a good time. The company is efficient and thank to the high number of guides we can split the group and arrive before most of the other companies at the top. The cratere is impressive and fuming, the view of the lakes and volcanoes clear.
We hike down to the pre summit where we let our backpacks, have lunch and prepare for the most fun part of the day: the descent on the little plastic sledges. Our guide explains us the sliding and braking techniques and here we go. There are pre-made lines and laughter is guaranteed.
On the way down one guide recommend us some tours to do the next days and let us ride the chairlift even though we did not pay for it.
After a sprint action to get cash to tip the guides we go to our favourite coffee spot in Pucòn to organise our hike for tomorrow.Baca lagi