FROM PUERTO VARAS

My time in Santiago ended up being a bit rushed. The tour I'm on cut one day from the itinerary and added it to the next town. Snuck out of the hotel the one full day I was there and did a quick sprint around the city by myself.

Took in several parks, had lunch at the central market, walked by the Presidential Palace, visited the Pre-Columbian museum, the central square (Plaza de Armas) and the outstanding Palace de Bellas Artes museum.

In general, I'm "pro-Santiago". It's a bit westernized, but the people seem happy and healthy and prosperous. The architecture is beautiful...weather nice....easy to get around. I didn't run into any smog. (all in Ivan's imagination) All in all, a pretty nice spot set in the shadow of the Andes.

From Santiago, we hopped a bus south to Pucon (hard "c" sound). Lovely town in the lake district overlooked by Volcano Villarrica...which I climbed. More in a sec on that.

In terms of it's infrastructure, Pucon is insanely well set up for tourists. It's nice, but also a tad off-putting. Has a nice beach set-up on the lakefront with bars and a concert stage....and for this past weekend an inflatable soccer (futball) field that was sprayed down like a slip-and-slide. I didn't participate in any games, but about 8 people from the tour did. It resulted in one guy from our tour breaking his leg in two places. I met him for like 5 minutes total and now he's off the tour. For those scoring at home, that's two tour mates with broken bones in the past month or so.

So back to the volcano. I foolishly signed up to hike up 1,300 meters to the top of this active behemoth. It's not "active" in the same sense that the one in Vanuatu was though. No enormous, flaming rock being thrown from this one. However about 2/3 of it is covered by a glacier.

Really didn't think the hike was going to be that tough after hearing the description. Well, it was for me. Came close to stopping a couple times (as two girls in our group did), but in the end and after just under six hours, I made it to the top. Was outfitted in full hiking gear: waterproof suit, heavy boots and a cool ice axe that surely has some other, more technical name.

On the bright side, coming down was REALLY fun. Paths have been worn into the ice so you can slide down on your butt. Good fun and a heckuva lots faster going down that up.

Fairly certain this was my FINAL long hike of the trip!

Once we got home, some of us hit the thermal springs outside of town to try to soothe our pained muscles...or in my case, whatever is in the place where muscles are supposed to reside.

The following day I did a half-day rafting trip. Some good rapids, but our raft guide wasn't particularly good. Still glad I did it though.

Last night, almost the entire group put together a great BBQ in the yard at the hostel we were staying in. My contribution was to pour wine and do dishes. Was quite effective in at least one of those two chores.

This morning....early....we barely made our bus to another lakeside down, Puerto Varas. Seems nice...we'll see.

Two weeks from today I hop a plane home. Lots of jobs waiting for me, right??? Right???