i'm in chile!

at my last post, i had just arrived in bariloche, in the northern part of patagonia with my french friend, nancy.  bariloche is surrounded by mountains and we'd planned to go up cerro cathedrale as it was supposed to have great views and condors everywhere but when we arrived at the base of the mountain, it was too cloudy and not worth the effort!  i even had to buy mittens for the excursion as it was freezing! 

we headed back into town (another free lift but squishy from a family) and ate a great deal of chocolate and ice cream. bariloche is famous for its chocolate and i can attest to the fact that it's superb as is the ice cream! nancy and i ended up going out to a local bar/night club one night called 1970. it was filled with local students (no gringos to be found :) and we had a great time dancing up a storm.  unsurprisingly, we were accosted by a plethora of argentinian men :) 

i headed over to chile on my own and have been feeling a bit under the weather - too much hitchhiking in a cold climate for me!  i spent a day in orsorno and had intended on going to a nearby national park to see some waterfalls and hot springs but i just wasn't feeling up to it so i decided to head onwards to pucon instead. 

pucon is the mecca for outdoor activities and it's got a lovely vibe!  there's a volcano nearby called villarica which is active and i summited it today :)  it was quite the hike up in the snow and cold - about 1 vertical kilometer up and unfortunately, you couldn't see any lava at the top as there was too much steam/gas coming out of the volcano but i did manage to get some great photos of the volcano :)  after all the work climbing up, we got to slide down on our butts as there was snow the whole way down!  it was great fun - 4.5 hours on a stairmaster and then 1 hour on a roller-coaster ride on the way down!! 

i am going to do some cycling tomorrow and am on the lookout for some waterfalls and hot springs or some whitewater! 

miss you!

sarah

Virus-free. www.avg.com