Lunch Stop - The Most Active Volcano in South America

At lunchtime on our second day in Bolivia we stopped at the base of the most active volcano in South America. It is the border of Chile and Bolivia. You may remember from an earlier post that we climbed the second most active volcano in South America. It's funny how things work out, seeing the two most active in Volcanoes in South America on the same trip, especially since they're so far apart.

Follow the left side of this volcano up until it makes a slight peak and you'll see the smoke coming out of this volcano.

The venue of the lunch stop also provided some interesting rock formations to explore and climb.


We must have dropped in elevation a bit at this point, because this was the first place that I didn't have to use my jacket all day. Actually I remember the sun getting pretty intense here prompting us to put on sun screen.

I asked Sita to take a picture where it would look like I had the smoke shooting out of my head. I wanted to have an accompanying angry face to make it look like I was "steaming mad", but I couldn't suppress the reflex to smile in front of a camera.

Climbing the Volcano

Here's the post you've all been waiting for (whether you knew it or not). Some of you must have thought to yourselves "well they can't spend a week staring at that volcano and not go up it". If you thought this then you won't be disappointed.

In order to climb the volcano you have to go with a tour company. I took this picture of the volcano from the vantage point of the tour company, before we left that morning. The tour company we chose was "Enjoy Tour" we asked the cave tour guide for a recomendation and he gave two, this was one of them. He said some places employ guides that like to party and get drunk at night but this place is reputable. We asked in a couple other places just to see the prices and their prices were about the same. You'll pay 38,000 pesos to scale the mountain plus an additional 5,000 when you get there. This is about $80 each. Here Sita is putting her gear on getting ready for the days journey.
We drove to the base of the volcano in this van, past a few of the ski lifts.
From here you could get a great view of another two volcanoes.
The extra 5,000 pesos you need at the volcano is to pay for a ride on the chair lift. The lift is not a high speed one, but it saves you one hour of hiking. I took this picture while we were on the lift.
At the top of the lift there was a nice view of lake Villarica.
The sight of the other volcanoes was also spectacular from the top of the lift, and this was before we even began 4-5 hours of climbing.

Once at the top of the lift we had to put the crampons (spikes) on the bottom of our boots for walking in the snow.As we zig-zagged our way up the view got better and better. This poto is from only 20 minutes into the trip.

Sita says this photo is good to show how steep the terrain was.
One of our fellow trekkers from Brazil took this photo of us while we were taking our first break. Sita was the only Chilean on the trek in our group, the rest were from England, Brazil and Israel.
As you can see we were not the only group on the mountain that day.
It was pretty cloudy for the first two hours of our trek as you can see from this photo. Sita is the second one from the left.
Just a few more meters up and the clouds had cleared, I started falling behind because I was taking pictures. We had split into two groups, with 6 in ours (the other group didn't end up making it to the top, they dropped out early). Despite being in the first group I had already asked the guide if we could go a little faster, because it seemed like our pace was so slow. His response was that there was two more hours before we reached the top. After taking this photo I went at a jogging pace to catch up, after that I didn't feel inclined to ask for a quicker pace. I got so out of breath and I really felt it in my legs, I realized it was like running up three flights of stairs just to catch up, and if we picked up the pace it would be like jogging up stairs all the way to the top. The top is around 2800 meters (9100 feet) high, not that high by New Mexico standards or Chilean standards, for that matter, but considering the base of the ski basin is at only 1200 meters, we must have climbed a fair way.
A view from when we finally got above the clouds, its like a view you' get from an airplane.
Watch out or this crazy dude will get you with his "ice ak". Sometimes the guides would speak in a broken english and they consistently referred to the "ice ax" as an "ice ak". I guess they thought "ice ax" was plural. I didn't have a pair of sun glasses so one of the guides lent me these bug-eyed goggles. Also I was so hot from all the climbing I had to strip down under the jacket.
More great views.


The "ice ak" is always in the hand facing the top of the mountain for balance purposes.
We made it! Sita and I at the top of the volcano. We must have held our breaths for this photo, because the rest of the time we were covering our mouths and noses with our shirts because the smoke from the volcano is not good for your health. It contains high levels of sulfur and it feels like it is burning your insides when you breath it in. We were only alowed to be at the top for about ten minutes because of the smoke.
Pictures of the crater. You couldn't see straight in, but I did have the opportunity to see some lava being thrown up. I came up and went down so quick that I barely even realized what it was, and then I regretted not being able to take a photo. I had ventured closer to the crater than anyone else, at that point so I was the only one who saw the lava. It wasn't red hot, but rather greyish half-solid/half-liquid blobs. The sound of the volcano was really cool, I'll show anyone who wants some short videos I took at the top when I return.


Sita from the top of the volcano looking out on lake Villarica.
Ahh the way down. What took us 4-5 hours to climb took only 45 minutes to descend. That's because you get to slide down. Woo-hoo! They provide you with this gear that you strap to your "bum" (as the britains put it) and teach you how to use your ice ax as a brake.

Careful not to slide off the edge though.
Sita was asked to lead the way for part of the way down. We did have to walk a little.
A view of one of the steepest slides. Previous trekkers carved it out for us, which made it easy for us to use the brake against the side wall. We were advised to use the brake the whole way down this particular track. I wanted a lot of speed so used the brake initially then stopped, but then I gained so much speed that I almost lost control and I didn't want to roll over my ice ax so I started using it as a break again. Sita went after me and was applauded by the guide as a model for how to do it properly.

In this photo Sita is showing how to use your ice ax if you need an absolute stop (rather than just a reduction in speed). It's a good thing to because this is one of the places you could slide off the edge and you will not be landing straight in the lake which is so beautifully illustrated in this photo.
Go hiking on the snow in the morning and haning on the "beach" of the lake later in the afternoon, Pucón has it all for the tourist, just make sure you save up (it's about as expensive as a visit to a vacation town in the US, with somethings more expensive and some things less expensive).
A couple of views of the volcano and one of the lake from the van on the way down.

Cave

Our first day in Pucón we visited a cave that was formed by the volcano. We learned that the volcano, known as the Villarica Volcano, is the second most active in South America. The last activity was in 1998 and it erupted in the early 70's. We saw a diagram of what towns and areas would be affected if it erupted again. The most active volcano in South America is in San Pedro de Atacama. We'll be flying there tomorrow.

Here we are all waiting at the base of the volcano to go on a tour of the cave. From left to right: Sylvia, Jorge Jr., Sita, Jorge Sr., and Hari.
This is a view of the surroundings before we entered the cave. You can see volcanic rock covering most of the ground.
This is the opening of the cave.
As we walked down into the cave I was reminded of Carlsbad Caverns. The drop in temperature as you enter is very stark. I was the only one under-dressed and far too under-dressed at that. Our first day in Pucón was cloudy throughout, this ensured that it was jacket weather outside the cave, but once we were inside it must have been less than 50 deegrees F and I was in shorts and a t-shirt.
A view of the entrance from inside the cave.
Just a few dozen feet into the cave you see the last natural light for the rest of the tour. I thought this was a pretty cool natural "sky light".
Sita urging me to go deeper into the cave. I guess I was going to slow taking all of the photos.
A neat viw of the ceiling of the cave.
The whole tour was guided by lights near the ground except for when there were some interesting sights above which would then have lights focused on them. Because of the non-uniform nature of the cave bottom there were many wooden bridges, steps and walkways throughout. At the very end of the tour the tour guide asked us to turn our cameras and cell phones off and ensure we were on solid footing. He then turned the lights off and asked us to remain as silent as possible. It's not often that we can experience such darkness. This darkness combined with the silence (which, despite kids being present on the tour, was amazingly quiet) was for me actually the best part of the tour. It's the surprising/unexpected experiences that make great vacations. Without that I certainly wouldn't have thought the tour was worth the 10,000 pesos we paid per person (By the way, 10k pesos is a little less than $20).


The tour guide asked the kids if they liked chocolate and they excitedly responded "si", he then pointed them at the following cave wall which he proclaimed to be similar in color and texture to chocolate.