I arrived in this small but very touristy lake town in Chile. My hostal was right next to the bus station (yuck) but it turned out to be a great place for Christmas.
For Christmas eve I was thinking, hoping they are having a big bash. This is actually the norm in SA. You have a big dinner and open all your gifts on the 24th. However since I was in a hostal full of tourists who celebrate on the 25th, the big party was on the 25th.
So what does one do on Christmas eve day in a lake town with an active volcano (Villarrica)? You climb it! I felt like an explorer with my crampons (ice spikes) and ice ax. It was a straight up climb over ice and volcanic rocks. There was a huge cloud covering it that day (started at 4AM) so essesntially you were walking on top of the clouds. As I reached the top of the volcano I started to feel really sick and my mouth had this funny taste in it. I thought o.m.g altitude sickness but no it was the sulphur fumes from the volcano. Smelled like Judds farts, just like home...Merry Christmas to me! You could only stand the fumes for a little bit so taking pictures was a lil´ difficult. The climb up was extemely hard but the ride down was awesome (and I do mean the ride down). You sat on your butt (they gave you heavy duty butt pads) and slid practically all the way down- It was wild! The day ended at 5PM. I was in bed by 8PM. I am no so glad there was nothing going on this day...
Christmas day was spent on the black sand beach (just like Jersey), no clouds in the sky and I found my christmas present which was an australian vogue that was only two months old! Oh what a day...Our big Christmas dinner began with Pisco Sours (YUM) and then of course CARNE CARNE CARNE. It was a feast. The hostal itself was full of Germans (they are everywhere). Thankfully there was a couple of ppl from England and Australia so we talked in Spanish the whole time, NOT.
Next day I was off to Santiago, Valiparasio y Vina del Mar to spend NYE with the wonderful Javier Molina and his family.
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