We caught a midday bus and arrived into Pucon at around 9pm. Luckily, we had come prepared and brought supplies with us to make the same delicious sandwiches for lunch, afternoon tea and dinner!
We checked into our accommodation and were greeted by a lovely couple around our age who were renting the house, and as part of their rental agreement were able to legally sub-lease rooms on booking.com! The set up was typical of a grandmothers living room, with floral couches and vases of gorgeous hydrangeas, picked from the huge bushes growing in the front garden. They had a kitchen which was fully stocked and at our disposal so we enjoyed cooking for ourselves and others for the three nights we were there. We arrived in Pucon blind, we had done zero research and had no idea what the town had to offer. We knew from the hordes of tourists and chaotic traffic that there must be something hiding there and on Pablo’s recommendation we set out the next day to find a tour to climb Volcan Villarrica.

At breakfast that morning we sat at the communal table and met the delightful Irish Neil and German/French Manon! We struck up conversation very easily and actually ending up spending close to the next week with them. Unfortunately due to the high season, we were all unable to get onto the same tour, so Adam and I set out the following morning with eight others to conquer Volcan Villarrica. We were kitted out with specialist hiking shoes, gaiters, crampons, water proof pants and jackets, helmets, gas masks and most excitingly, ice picks! As Volcan Villarrica is one of Chile's most active volcanoes, on arrival we were given an in depth safety brief and were instructed on how to best use our equipment.

The first decision we had to make was to walk the full distance up the volcano or to skip the first hour of the walk and take the chair lift. We decided that we would feel we had cheated ourselves if we caught the lift, so we trudged up the first ascent with only two others from our group and one guide. The initial path was quite steep and very rocky. When we stopped to catch our breath, there were panoramic views of the blue lake, town and mountains below. We continued to climb for the next four hours, about half way up stopping to put on our crampons. I actually felt really uncomfortable with the crampons on. We were being led across steep volcano faces that were covered in thick icy snow, relying completely on the crampons to keep us upright and stuck to the hill! Adam was loving it and as per usual I was encouraging myself to take deep breaths! Finally, with gas masks in hand, we reached the crater, stood at 2860 meters, stared into the giant smoking hole and asked ourselves “What on earth are we doing?”. I don’t know what we expected but it was surreal. Looking around we could see rocky red walls with patches of green and white, smoking areas and a giant gaping hole that we could have easily fallen into. No lava, but we were content, seriously amazed. Due to government health regulations, we were only supposed to stay on the crater for 10 minutes but we couldn't help ourselves, we stretched it out for as long as we possibly could. After all, when were we ever going to stare down the crater of an active volcano again?

We stopped for lunch a little way down and then the real fun began. We had also been given a round shaped plastic board, which attached to our belt, went between our legs and sat under our bum. One by one, we slid down the volcano, through bob sled like channels, in some areas flying at rapid speeds and others going at snails pace. We were instructed to use our ice picks to dig into the snow to slow us down, but sometimes it wasn’t that easy and we went flying out of the channels and across the face of the volcano, into others or whatever would stop us. I couldn’t get the smile off my face, I had no idea you could have this much fun in the snow! What took us five hours to climb, took us less than two to descend.

As part of a promotion with the tour group, we had been offered free transport and admission to the local hot springs that evening. Manon and Neil had been and highly encouraged we go. Exhausted after our early morning and epic hike, we should have thought more carefully about the assigned departure time of 9 pm, however we were reassured we would be there for two hours so back in town before midnight. With all the South American experiences we had had, why we chose to believe this I have no idea. At 9 pm, we were at the departure point waiting and there was no bus. Thirty minutes later the bus arrived and we crawled in traffic, all the way to the pools, finally arriving at 11 pm. As the whole tour bus had been promised two hours at the pools, we were instructed to return to the bus at 1 am to go back to town. Practically asleep already, hearing this news was slightly devastating! We tried to put on our big boy pants and take on the ‘when in Chile’ attitude but we were exhausted. We couldn’t believe how many people were at the pools at that hour. There were families with tiny children, swimming as if it was the middle of the day. Eventually 1 am came around and we were the first on the bus and I'm sure the first to fall asleep in transit!

Aside from the volcano and a delicious French sourdough bakery, Pucon had little else for us but it will remain unforgettable.