Pucón!

I had the most eventful weekend I have had thus far in Chile, and have many adventures to talk about this post!
This weekend, we decided would be a perfect weekend for a mini trip. We dont have classes on Thursdays or Fridays, and it was the first week of class, we didnt have major homework, so we got our Chile books open and decided to go to Pucón, which is a touristy summer town about 1 1/2 hours away from Valdivia. We reserved a room in a hostel, which if you dont know is almost like a dorm room mixed with a hotel, it costed us 15 dollars each to stay there for the night, and we were put in a room with bunk beds that 4 other people were also staying in. They had a community kitchen and living room, and a very helpful owner named Tanja, who organized our adventures in Pucón. We left Valdivia around 10 on Friday morning, and arrived in Pucón at about 12. After we checked into the hostel, Tanja asked us what we were planning to do while we were there. Originally, we had decided that we wanted to go ziplining, white water rafting, and take a trip to the thermal springs. However, when we got there, Tanja inticed us with a once in a life time opportunity- to climb an active volcano. Me and Jake were all for it, but Lena (or Granny Gertrude, as we started calling her this weekend) was a bit skeptical. We finally convinced her that climbing a volcano would be totally not dangerous and completely fun and not too hard and got her to sign up for it. Volcano climbing took place the next day, but on Friday we signed up to go white water rafting. It was all of our first times going, so we didnt really know what to expect. A van picked us up from the hostel and we got to the river with the group. Three chilenas, three frenchies, the three gringos, and a man from the Netherlands and his wife, who was also American. We split into two groups, the english speaking group (which we decided to go to) and the spanish. After getting our wetsuits, life jackets and helmets, and after a brieft training session, we were on the river. We hit about 10 rapids in all, one mini waterfall, and actually had to get out of our rafts at one point and walk until the rapid was over, because we werent experienced enough to go on it. But, in order to get back into our boats, we had to jump down a little cliff, which was probably about 30 feet high. It was awesome! I think that someone had to push Granny down, but we all made it down alive, and all decided that white water rafting was completely worth is and an awesome time.
We went back to the hostel after that and showered, then grabbed some quick dinner and went to bed pretty much right away. We had to leave for the volcano at 7 the next morning, so we wanted to get some sleep. The next morning, which seemed like night because the stars are still out in Chile until around 730 AM, we got in a van and headed for the volcano. We each got a backback with a helmet, ice axe, wind proof pants and jacket, gloves, crampons, boots, and a mini sled (for sliding down the volcano afterwords-yes that really happened) and got to the bottom of the volcano. We had the option of taking a ski lift up about 1000 meters or climbing, and me and Lena agreed the ski lift was for us, while Jake roughed it with some other group members and climbed the whole way up. Today, our group consisted of the three gringos, two groups of Isrealis, an Austrailian and another Frenchie, and by the end of the trip we were all pretty friendly with eachother. Once we got off the ski lift, it was time to start climbing. The first part was the hardest, the ground was soft dirt mixed with rocks, and we climbed for about an hour and finally got a break to drink some water and eat a little bit of food. The group that didnt take the ski lift caught up to us, and Jake said he was about to die, but after a brief rest we kept going. About 2 hours consisted of dirt, and then we got to the snow. The snow was a bit easier to climb and we learned how to use our ice axe to catch ourselves in case we started falling down the mountain. The wind also started to pick up once we got to the snow, we put on our jackets and gloves because it was getting cold. About every 45 minutes of climbing or so we would take a break, and after 6 1/2 hours we were finally at the summit! The view was incredible!! We went on the most gorgeous day, there wasnt a cloud in the sky and it was about 70 degrees, perfect conditions. We were able to see 2 more volcanoes in the distance, 4 lakes and were surrounded by mountains. The volcano was a bit too smoky on our day, but when the conditions are right, you can actually look into the middle of the volcano and see boiling lava. I tried, but got gassed out by the sulfiric fumes and had to step back. We stayed at the summit for probably 30 minutes, and then it was time to go back down. Going down was much easier than going up, thanks to our mini sleds. Once we got to an area where it was all snow, we actually got to sled down the volcano, which was really fun. There were some points where we got to go pretty fast, and everyone had a good time. We ended up leaving the volcano around 330, so we had spent about 8 hours straight climbing, and needless to say I felt like I got hit by a bus the next day. We left that night, after another quick dinner, and then it was back to reality, with homework and school on our minds.
Another interesting thing on Sunday was my lunch, which was a traditional Chilean-German dish called Crudos. I didnt know this before, but the dictionary definition of crudo is raw, uncooked, unripe, or indigestable. I looked at the food on the table and wasnt 100% sure if it was what it looked like..but I decided to try it anyway and be a good sport, and my Crudos meal ended up being raw beef, spread on a piece of white bread, then you add lemon juice, salt and pepper, and a creamy sauce which apparently is yogurt and mayo mixed together. It honestly didnt taste too bad... but I much prefer my Grandmas Sunday steaks (cooked!) to the Chilean crudos... but hey, at least I didnt barf!
Between the rafting, volcano climbing, and raw meat eating, I had an awesome weekend in South America!