Skiing, on a Volcano?!?!

This weekend I was offered the opportunity to travel to Antuco with a friend to spend the weekend doing all sorts of outdoorsy activities. Antuco isn't so far away, about 3hrs away which is short by Chilean standards, and is home to another quite large volcano. The plan was that my friend would teach me to ski. This winter there has been very little snow in that area, so we were hoping there would be at least some snow for us to mess around in. We arrived at around midnight on Friday and got some rest for the day ahead, sleeping in the truck. When we woke up we were disappointed to see very little snow. We decided to make the most of the day anyway and we managed to fit 3 hikes into the day. The first was what I thought was going to be a pretty tranquil hike around the lake, boy was I wrong... The path had been carved into the side of the hill by the military many many years ago to connect two military bases. This meant that many parts of the path had disappeared completely in landslides, which meant we had to do a lot of sketchy traverses on very steep slopes on precariously unstable rock. We made it as far as we could and came across a series of abandoned mine shafts and tunnels, of course it'd be rude not to go and explore right? Inside one of the pitch black tunnels we came across a door, this door led into a really creepy bunker with various rooms. Goodness knows what it was built for, to be honest I'd rather not think about it...

We then did a second walk which took us to the Río Laja, a grade 4+ river that is paddleable. We had to do that walk of course, if there is any opportunity to scout a new river, I always jump at the chance. It was a nice, pleasant and easy walk with lots of change of scenery, going from roaring waterfalls to dense forest.

In the afternoon we decided to strap the skis to my rucksack and hike up the volcano to find the snow. As you can see from the photos, the snow was quite a way up. We actually ended up trudging about half way up the volcano with all the ski gear to reach the start of the snow. We spent a good hour messing around with the skis, I actually find I picked it up really quickly. It's definitely something that I'd like to get good at next winter. The descent was a lot quicker than the ascent for sure and I slept like a log that night!

The Sunday we did a bit more of a strenuous walk, we hiked up to the plateau and then scrambled off-path up to the summit of one of the mountains. The path was really steep and the main issue was that the rocks were all so loose. It was a battle trying to take one step forwards only to slide 5 steps backwards, but we made it to the top in the end and were rewarded with an amazing view of the lake. I always forget that it tends to be much more precarious descending really steep ground than ascending... It took us a while to find a safe, or safeish, spot to descend and we went running down the sandy slope, using our feet like skis to control the descent. It was an absolutely amazing weekend, and it was nice to be able to do some proper exercise out in the mountains again!


Oh, and this week was also my birthday. 21st in Chile, what an experience! Some of the highlights of my week include coming home on Wednesday to find that Tía Ceci, the lady that comes to clean our flat everyday, had prepared loads of fresh empanadas for me and my flatmates as well as mote con huesillo (a sweet peach based drink with a dried peach and boiled wheat). It was a lovely surprise to come home to a proper Chilean style birthday meal. I also went out for drinks with a few friends out here. The teachers at INACAP also surprised me one afternoon with some pastries and a Chilean rendition of 'Happy Birthday' , which was lovely. Nadir also secretly prepared a video with my best mates from Cambridge of loads of friends wishing me well, being so far away from the people you love can be difficult at times, but I love hearing from people back home so this has been a really great week for me!

Fiestas Patrias

The bus journey on the way to Pucón turned out to be a little longer than expected. My friend Roberto actually lives in a town call Loncoche, which is about an hour to the West of Pucón, this is where I was going to meet up with my friend. In a last minute change of plans we decided to meet in the city of Pucón itself, because there were some parties happening there for the students which would be fun. This involved a bit a faff, changing buses and waiting for a third bus in Temuco to take me to Pucón. I arrived at about 10:30pm and met my friend at a cabin that he was staying in for the night that belonged to another friend of his. There were four of us in total and after spending a while chatting we left to go to the 'fonda' (Chilean party in a field.) at about 1am. The 'fonda' was in a big field and there were stalls all around either selling food or alcohol. The place was packed with young people and I was surprised to meet so many Americans, or gringos as they say here, who told me there were all ski instructors who were spending the last week of the season partying. There was a traditional Chilean 'game' at the fonda which was a tall wooden pole, probably about 10m, that was really smooth and the aim was to climb all the way to the top. Unfortunately, I didn't quite manage to nail the technique but a friend managed to make it all the way to the top, much to the amazement of all the gringos. We left there about 5am to walk back to the cabin and get some sleep for the next day.

The fonda in Pucón

Impressive effort!

Saturday we woke up fairly late and made our way to Roberto's friend's house which was in the Villarrica national park. There is an amazing volcano in that national park which we got a great view of on the way, I'm hoping to go and climb that volcano as some point, potentially next winter. I was surprised to find that Fifi's (Roberto's friend) dad was actually born in Berkhamstead! I travelled half way across the world and ended up spending the day with a Watford fan, what a coincidence!!! We spent the day walking in the woods, playing music and just generally chilling. I also had my first experience of drinking 'mate', a kind of Argentinian coffee/tea like drink which you drink from a gourd with a metal straw. It was really great, might be a South American tradition that I take back to the UK with me.

The most amazing house that I had the privilege to spend my Saturday in

The snowcapped Villarrica volcano in the background

Walkies in the woods

More chilled kind of day

'Mate', what a great drink.

At night I was told to go outside to have a look at the volcano. The last time the Villarrica volcano erupted was in March 2015, so it's a very active volcano. This means that at night, the top of the volcano glows red from all the fire and lava inside. This was the first time I'd seen anything like it before and it was an amazing sight, bear in mind that the volcano was covered from head to toe in snow but glowing red hot at the top! After a peaceful night's sleep in the countryside Roberto and I hitchhiked our way back to the centre of Pucón, I'm all for the mini-adventures too...

At least the walk/hitchhike back was pretty

The volcano was always in sight

Adventures in Pucón

Sunday was the most traditional day I would say. I spent the day eating and drinking way too much with Roberto's family. We had a BBQ (or 'asado' as the call it out here) and when I thought that I couldn't possibly eat anymore we started to make 'anticuchos', kebab style BBQ'd mean, and we ate once again. This is what I'd been told about fiestas patrias, you're going to eat more that you ever though you could until the early hours of the morning, about 2am in our case, and then fall into a deep, deep sleep. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep anywhere near enough since we had a bus to catch at 9am! I had an amazing weekend and learnt a lot about Chilean culture. Thanks so much to Roberto, his friends and his family for sharing their special weekend with me!!!

This 'asado' was just the beginning of the mountain of food that was to come

A tense week

Last week was an interesting and varied week. We had almost a complete week of classes but you could tell that everyone, students and teacher alike, was gearing up for the 'fiestas patrias'. It was a really exciting week for me because I wasn't really sure what to expect, but everyone told me I was going to have a great time. I've decided to write about this week in two posts, this one will be about everything I did during the week in Conce, and the second will be about my weekend in Pucón.

'Cueca' competition at the ramadas in INACAP

Leaving the festive theme for a short while, on Tuesday I went to my first ever judo class. I was invited by one of my housemates. After a half hour warm up we started practising various holds and throws which all had complicated Japanese names, of course pronounced in a thick Chilean accent. Sadly not too long into contact practice I managed to injure my housemate after throwing him and him falling awkwardly, turns out I'm not that bad at judo. And somehow it felt very familiar, then it came to me... I actually already had years of training under my belt, judo is exactly how twins fight with one another just with more rules! The next day everything ached, mainly due to being thrown around so much. I thought they'd go easy on me, being the regional champion, a member of the regional team and two other experienced fighters. Nope! Before I even knew we'd started I had been slammed to the floor, which sadly was a recurring theme. I did however managed to get two decent throws of my opponents and took them to the floor. Overall a great experience, though the mixture of Japanese and Chilean Spanish was disorientating at times, as was being swung around and flipped countless times!

The door to a whole world of pain...

Empanadas and terremotos, how very Chilean.

Wednesday was an exciting day for the students since they had their 'ramadas' which was a collection of stalls selling traditional food, game, dance competitions and drinks (think university style summer fair). I had a go at playing two traditional Chilean games. One was called 'emboque', it consists of a wooden bell shaped thing with a hole in it, attached with some string to a wooden stick, the aim to to fling the bell up in the air and catch it with the stick. It is extremely difficult, or at least I thought so! The other was called 'rayuela', in which you fling a small metal disc at a distance into a box of mud. Yes, it is as simple as that. And incredibly straightforward but addictive game! This was also my first exposure to the national dance of Chile, the 'cueca', looks deceiving simple but I'm sure it's devilishly difficult to actually do.

'Emboque', simple in its concept, but impossible in reality

Thursday I went out with one of the teachers after work and was introduced to some new Chilean food and drinks which was nice. And Friday was the day of the teacher's lunch at INACAP, this was the day that all the teachers had been waiting for. It was a kind of half-hearted morning of work because nobody could focus on their classes thinking about all the food they were about to eat. At the lunch I was exposed to lots more chilean food: more empanadas (think cornish pasty with better pastry and spicier filling), choripanes (bbq'd sausages in a roll), sopaipillas (fried bread-like fough made with a kind of squash) and of course the asado (the Chilean word for BBQ). Drinks were also flowing, as was the music. There was a cueca competition, the national dance, and a competition of who had written the best 'palla', a Chilean rhyming poem not dissimilar to a limerick. To those of you that know me well, you'll know I'm not one for dancing, mainly for lack of talent and keenness... But Friday I was convinced to make an exception and got up to dance a 'Guaracha' with one of the teachers, I say dance but it'd probably be better described as an awkward stumble through the steps until I was finally embarrassed enough to sit back down again. But hey, it's all in the spirit of the festivities, so who cares!

Asados (BBQs) are an essential part of any Chilean gathering!

Some musicians providing entertainment at the teacher's lunch

After the lunch I had to dash home and pack my things to prepare myself to catch a couple of coaches down South to the city of Pucón, where I would spend the weekend with one of my housemate's family to pass the 'fiestas patrias'.

Professional Honey Trafficker

Yes that's right, I've taken up a new career as a professional honey trafficker... Well not quite. I mentioned last week that I had 27kg of honey to shift from my room. When I've been going down South to work for rafting companies there is a really kind family of one of the raft guide who always lets us stay in  her house or one of the guest cabins. They have loads and loads of beehives on their property and make the most delicious honey, we agreed to transport some of the honey to deliver it to people who wanted some in Concepción. The downside was that 27kg of honey is quite heavy and takes up a lot of space in my not-so-huge room.

It took up this much space to be precise...

Hence why part of my week was spent lugging honey around to various places, thankfully it's all gone now! On Friday I headed down once again with another group of students to safety boat for their rafting trip. This group of students was great fun to work with and were really motivated and interested in the watersports industry. I'm getting much better at delivering safety briefs and games in Spanish now, which is just as well since I'm going to be running some whitewater rescue workshops in Concepción soon.

Warm-up games are definitely necessary. The water here is freeeezing!!!

A motivated crew makes for a better trip :)

Bets are on. Did the rafts fall off the trailer or not?

Concepción is also preparing itself for the 'Fiestas patrias', in fact there are already tents and stalls set up in the Plaza de Armas, the main square of the city. The signs there say that the fiestas go from the 2nd-30th of September! It's a bit like preparing Christmas window displays in November if you ask me... This week we'll be having a teachers lunch to celebrate the fiestas on Friday which should be good fun, after which I'll be heading of to a new city, Pucón, for a long weekend. One of my students has set me the challenge of getting a photo with a 'huaso', a kind of Chilean cowboy, wearing a 'chupalla', the straw hat that they wear. So fingers crossed next blog post I'll be able to show you what a 'Huaso' looks like, because frankly at the moment I have no clue what to expect!

A month long party, yes please!

Spring is here!

September has arrived and in Chile that means we're in Spring! I've been told September is the best month of the year because the county celebrates 'Fiestas patrias', a time of celebration to commemorate the Chilean independence day (September 18th), and it's a time to eat lots, drink lots and generally have a great time. I'm planning to travel to Pucón with one of my flatmates to spend the weekend with his family, so in a couple of weeks I'll be able to let you all know how my first 'fiestas patrias' in Chile went.

Meanwhile, I'll tell you about how my last week has been. It was a particularly busy week because I've been trying to help prepare some of my students for a debate they had on Friday in Spanish. We'll be going to a big competition in the capital, Santiago, to compete against other teams in an English debate competition. The topic of the debate will be social networks and whether or not they have a negative affect on society. It was also an exciting week because my kayak arrived from Pucón, so I'm now all set with my gear, paddle and kayak to be able to go off exploring a bit further afield.

And now I have all the equipment I need to go on paddling trips!

On Friday I took a bus down South again to Santa Bárbara. The afternoon and most of Saturday was spent safety kayaking for a group of adventure tourism students who had travelled down to try their hand at rafting. I had to deliver a short talk about safety and rescue in Spanish which really tested my language skills, there is some pretty specific vocab involved in whitewater rescue...!

Paulo collected his van this weekend, the raft was perched quite precariously...

Waking up to the view of these mountains is pretty special

The students eager to get going

Sunday I safety kayaked for a different company and then went and paddled a brand new section with a friend. It was an amazing continuous section of grade 4/4+ with enormous boulder gardens, beautiful canyons and stunning waterfalls entering the river from all sides. My friend later told me that the section wasn't well known at all and only about 15 people have paddled the section in total! Perhaps the best thing about this river it is ends at a thermal spring, so you jump straight out of the ice cold meltwater and into a nice and warm thermal spring! There are so many hidden rivers out there that need to be explored.

Stunning river and beautiful weather

Why can't all rivers end in thermal springs?!?!

There was also a pretty big protest this week, some fires were started and the Mall was shut with customers inside so the protesters couldn't get in, I happened to walk by not realising any of this was going on and it was quite funny to see the customers inside the mall waiting for the police to come and let them out!

Part of the aftermath of this week's protest

This week I'll be teaching a few more classes and then heading to Ralco on Friday to do some more paddling/rafting. I've also got to shift 27kg of honey from my room... That's a story for another time.