Weakened State --> Weekend State

Hello again!

I just got the pictures of this and it's too cute not to share.  A few weeks ago I brought my trombone to all the preschool classes.  It was a big hit.  I started off by having them guess what was in the case.  Guesses ranged from a mouse to a naughty student.  I put the horn together (amazing to them in itself) and played some loud notes, soft notes, and had some fun with the slide.  Then I played all their favorite songs--Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, Happy and You Know it--classics.

Next I asked them if they wanted to move the slide.  You'd think Christmas had come early.  They especially loved to move it all the way out to last position, but would get scared if it came off the end as if they broke it.

It was a lot of fun.

Only my youngest students, because there wasn't time in my older classes, had the chance to play.  It was tough for them to buzz their lips correctly but boy did it ever make for some cute pictures.

Seriously, I have like 50 of these and they're all adorable.

Fast forward two weeks, to Tuesday the 5th of November.  We had a 4-day weekend coming up and Ryan and I had been planning our trip to Pucón in the 9th region (Lakes Region) of Chile.  I got hit with some pretty nasty food poisoning.  I missed school on Wednesday, but recovered and caught the late-night bus to Pucón.  Mom reminded me that I was in a weakened state--NOT a weekend state--so I should take it easy.  Thankfully by Thursday afternoon I was back to 100% and was able to enjoy our vacation.

Pucón is a nice little tourist town.  Its main attractions are the lake to the West and the volcano to the South.  There are several other volcanoes around but Villarrica is the closest and most picturesque--and it's active.  Check it out in the background here.  You can see it from all over town.  People come here from all over the world to climb it, an attainable feat for any moderately fit person.

The first two days in Pucón were wonderful.  We went rafting on Thursday and took a drive around with a friend who lives in the area on Friday to see the surrounding lakes and towns.  Unfortunately my SD card was acting up and in order to document the volcano (definitely most photo-worthy) I had to format it on Saturday morning.

Here's the route up to the crater.  The red lines at the bottom are ski lifts for the ski resort that operates in the winter.

After driving to the base, one of the first things you see are other volcanoes off in the distance.  These things are everywhere.  It depends on who you ask, but there are up to 500 volcanoes in Chile with 123 active.

Elaine and Laura met Cristian on their trip to Pucón last summer and he came up to Santiago to ski with us in August.  We got in touch with him and he offered to take us up the volcano.  He's a skier and encouraged me to bring my board.  The upper cone got a huge fresh snowfall two days before we climbed so conditions were perfect.  I was excited, this was the first serious climb I did with my board.

This time of year, the hike is almost entirely on the snow.  There are around 300 people that do the climb every day, generally in groups of 15-20.  We were lucky, we only had 5, so we were able to take pretty much whatever path we wanted.

Cristian and Ryan at the beginning of the trek.

This cloud was awesome.  It rapidly changed shape and was in front of the sun almost the entire hike which kept temperatures down and sun exposure to a minimum.

The Lakes Region of Chile is beautiful.  We saw maybe 4 or 5 lakes from the volcano all surrounded by mountains.  Clouds hovered around the cone all day but you could easily see past them.

Towards the top the it gets quite steep and crampons are definitely required.  I used my snowboard boots the whole way up and I think we found the only pair of crampons in Pucón that would fit them.

We were really moving and made it to the top in something like 2-3 hours.  We were the first ones up that day!  It offered some great picture opportunities.  Here's the smoking crater.

The smoke was very sulfurous.  At one point we got covered in the stuff and breathing it in was not pleasant.

Board on my back, pick axe in the ground, checking out the crater.

Ryan and me at the top.

The descent was a blast.  This was definitely the most unique natural feature I've been able to snowboard on.  Cristian had his GoPro camera with him and had me film on the way down.  It gives a really cool perspective.

I had eyed this huge cliff on the way up and was glad I could sneak over to it on the way down.  It was a little nerve-racking riding out there with the camera but it was worth it.

Here's the video of the traverse out to the point.

If you squint you can see a little black dot out on the tip of the cliff.  That's me.  Credit to Ryan for the photo.

 Here's the video of the descent from the cliff.  The landscape is so beautiful, I loved riding above the clouds.

After the hike we went to a pub for a couple local beers, appropriately named crater.

And here's the crew eating a hard-earned dinner.  Alexis, me, Ryan, Tomas and Cristian.  What a great day!

We came back on the overnight bus, arriving Sunday morning.  One full week of teaching, then this past weekend Dan and I took a trip to Mendoza, Argentina.  Watch for a post soon--this one won't take so long, I promise!