Pucon and Santiago

After a brilliant time in Bariloche we arrived in Pucon in Chile. Basically we went there just because they had a big volcano and we thought it would be cool. When we arrived in the town we got a bit lost as the "lonely liar" had an old address for the hostel we were in search of, the hostels owner then came up to us in a pick up van, baring in mind it was pitch black at night and we didnt know who he was, and offered to take us to the right hostel. I instantly said that he must be fucking joking and I wasnt going to get into his creepy van, it transpires that he and his funny looking wife were lovely and being full up for that night, booked us another hostel and took us to it agreeing that they would have room the following night. The other hostel we stayed in had three tiny kittens so i was sold and reasonably annoying as i gulped down my food so I could play with them whilst nick was eating his food in the evening and in the morning, and pined as we had to leave them.

The next day we returned to lovely Herman and Marias hostel, Herman owned an activity store in town so we set about organising our trip for the following day up the big fuck off volcano.

The volcano trip was hillarious for several reasons...

Luckily there were only 4 of us in our group as well as our guide which was great, and one girl had a bad ankle so had to go back down the volcano near the beggining so i was stuck with three boys, Rodrego our guide who loved the ladies lets put it that way, Daniel a yank, and Nick and myself, we each had our strengths and weaknesses and took our turns at being a bit shit at different things. Baring in mind that it took over 5 hours to get to the summit and only an hour to get down you can take a guess just how steep it was. We had to climb on ice using our ice picks to steady ourselves, it was bloody scary at times, and i am so greatful that i dont suffer from vertigo otherwise you would be screwed. Even with factor 60 on we caught the sun and climbing on the ice took ages and was very hard going and a bit demorilising as it took about 30 mins to cross what looked like 15 meters. Other groups were allowed to use crampons but oh no Rodrego would have non of it. I was nearly dead by the time we reached the top and I could have hit Rodrego the amount of times he said Vamos vamos vamos but the view from the summit was amazing and we were right over the clouds.

The smell of sulphur at the top was really strong and Nick did some good gagging and an Isreali girl from another group had a bit of an asthma attack slash panic attack whereby Rodrego leapt up and carried her to higher ground asap... loving the ladies. I got to see some lava though so thats all that mattered really and i threw some volcanic rocks over the side like a stupid big kid, oh and we bumped into Nicks god sisters ex boyfriend, my god that is tenuous, but he is lovely and let me have some ketchup so i recon she should probably ditch her current boyfriend and get back with tiny bearded lovely ketchup dude.

After we had been at the top for about 40 mins I asked Rodrego how the hell we were getting down to which he replied, we slide down, of course you do stupid flo. so we put on our crazy yellow jump suits that were sexy and were instructed how to slide down the volcano. Half of this was done on our asses literally sliding down, and the rest was basically sking without skiis. I loved the sliding but could not stay upright when we were meant to be, after me shouting back at Rodrego several times he just held my hand on the way down basically pulling me allong like a toboggan, a glowing yellow stupid toboggan, which was cool.

It was really good fun and a real achievement and when we got back home Rodrego cracked open a couple of beers for us and some fake non descript pringle things and we were happy chappies.

The next day was recovery day, the boots we had been made to wear the previous day were snow boots and looked and felt ridiculous and my legs felt like jelly. I managed to fall asleep and loose nick for a couple of hours this day but finding him again we agreed to relieve our weary limbs at the natural hot springs the next night.

We were picked up for the hot springs at 8pm and guess who should be in the van but mr lover lover himself Rodrego, who I had already bumped into earlier that day in search of nick and he had expressed his interest in all things ladies, British, and bikinis. Fearing a reasonably embarrassing night we met loads of really nice people whilst wearing next to nothing and had a really good time, to state the obvious the hot springs were really hot but really really nice kind of like really deep rock pools, there were 7 in total of varying heats, probably not at all naturally heated it was dark after all, but i like to believe they were.

After lots of lazing around enjoying the sun we decided to head for Santiago...

We are now at a really nice hostel called Chilli hostel. Our first night was a bit of a challenge as a BBQ was organised and no body there seemed to speak much English but we attempted to speak to them, got ourselves understood, and by way of reward an irish girl arrived at the end of the evening, yey, by the way I cant use any punctuation on this computer as the keys are fucked so image where I would have put things please. Any way Santiago is a bit weird, we have visited itçs beautiful parks and yesterday we went to the poet Pablo Nerudas house which was really really cool he collected anything and everything and his house his like an amzing flo dream world. But the city is covered in smog from polution and makes my eyes sting he he brilliant stuff huh. As it is easter weekend the whole city has shut down and hardly anything is open, crowds are accumilating round a huge statue of Mary in the middle of the city and there seems to be a big live baned rehearsing ready to play on easter sunday. No chocolate eggs for me this year booooo, the chocolate in Santiago is shite, any way we are heading to wine capital Mendoza back in Argentina on Monday and meeting up with Emily so that is something to look forward to, and we may be meeting up with a canadian we met a couple of weeks back to.

Love to all

flossy

xxx