The Lake District.. Heading further North

Rafting on the Trancura river, Pucon Chile

Class 5 rapid called the Diablo...

Galen and I have been exploring the Lake District of Chile for the past couple of weeks. From Chiloe, we travelled to Puerto Varas to Valdivia to Pucon. We stayed in Valdivia only for a night, but got to explore the highlight of the town, their outside Mercado (market). The market was right on the river where there were loads of sea lions that would perch themselves up on the rocks beside the market to beg for fish scraps. It was quite the site. These were not your ordinary sea lions...these sea lions were ENORMOUS! They were about 8 feet long and Galen could probably wrap his arms only half way around them. We got to see them up close when we rented a little motor boat for 45 minutes to cruise the river that cuts through the town. Galen who loves his boats, was on cloud nine. He had a permanent smile on his face the whole time he drove it.

The next destination was the fabulous Pucon. Pucon is known as the vacation hot spot for Chileans and now we know why. The town itself is much like a ski town that you would find out west in the states, but it offers much more than skiing. The first full day in Pucon we bumped into our friend Alex from England that we befriended in Santiago. That afternoon we went white water rafting with him and his friend who is visiting from England. We had an absolute blast crashing through the waves of this class IV river.

The next day I woke up early to climb up the Villarica Volcano that is about 20 minutes from town. When I arrived to the Volcano with three other tourists, our guides told us there was a possibility that we would not be able to hike to the very top because of the strong winds. We decided to take our chances and started hiking. Thankfully, the winds had subsided enough for us to continue past the midway mark. They handed our crampons and with our ice picks in hand, we started trekking up the snow. After five hours, we finally made it. It was unbelievable to be on top of an active volcano. We got to look inside the hole with smoke billowing out of it! For part of the way down we got to slide down with these little plastic spoon like sleds.

Galen with his bad knee, made the wise decision to go downhill mountain biking with Alex instead of hiking the volcano. Heres Galen: Hey guys! Our trip from start to finish was great and painful. Our guide showed up in a ´kitty truck´which is a short bed and a tiny cab. the driver and guide sat up front and they put us in back and stacked the bikes in our laps and away we went. for 45 minutes we bounced up an old dirt road listening to the poor engine wine and groan. once at the top we strapped up with helmet and the most pathetic looking knee and elbow pads i´d ever seen. A couple strips of duck tape to keep them on and off we went. Mind you, none of us have all that much experience rocketing down the side of a Volcano on a down hill bike before so it really wasn´t all the graceful to watch. It was some of the most technical riding i´d ever done and within a few minutes every person in our group of four had at least one bloody gash. We found out quickly that the rocks really weren´t all the forgiving. the ride took a total of 4hrs and was probably one of the most fun and most painful thing i´ve done yet.

The following day kara, myself and friends went ´hydrospeeding´. This sport is quite different from most river sports, you have a wetsuite, flippers, helmet, and a giant foam board similar to a ´boogy board´but with more depth where you can hold on inside. We went down the ´Bajo´class 2 and 3 rapids which was the same river that we had rafted but the lower section. Despite the fact that Kara isn´t the biggest water person and doesn´t like to be cold, she didn´t wipe her huge smile off her face even even after flipping over dozens of times.

Today at 5 we catch a bus to Temuco about 2hrs North where we will fly out tomorrow to go to the Northern tip of Chile to a town called San Pedro Atacama. This town is in the middle of a giant desert, actually the worlds driest desert. The area is also known for having some of the clearest skys in the world so we hope to do a SPACE program where we will be learning astronomy.... Afterwards we will enter into Bolivia and start...... who knows!

PS- For all of you that don´t know Kara got accepted to the Emerson graduate program!!!!!!!!!