In the winter Pucón is a ski resort and when I was there, during the summer, it offered all sorts of adventure activities. It is in the Chilean Lake District which was once a German colony and you could be forgiven for thinking you've been transported to an Alpine ski resort with all the curiously old European style of wooden buildings. I noticed a lot of German tourists and a number of activities were offered with German-speaking guides.

We arrived in Pucón around lunchtime on an overnight bus from Santiago. We stayed at the very cute and comfortable Hostal Donde Germán, run by Germán and his wife María Elena who took very good care of us during the three days we were there. First Germán picked us up from the bus station and then we sat out in their garden while María Elena explained the activities on offer.

In the afternoon I went horse riding in the countryside for a few hours - it was great! We were guided by Alejandra and Cassandra who were very passionate about the horses and very professional. We went off the road through fields and forests, across a stream and alongside a river. There were loads of blackberry bushes, rosehips, hawthorn trees and pine trees - just like home! In parts the horses just walked and other parts we galloped, which was a lot of fun. It was funny how temperamental the horses could be towards one another, even in the short time we were there we could distinguish their personalities. My horse was named Inca and I liked him, he was very responsive, it took a while to get him moving quickly but once I had he was flying and didn't want to stop.

The next day I was up early to climb the snow-capped active volcano, Villarrica. I made a packed lunch and donned the safety gear and snow boots. I took a chair lift for the first section (to skip an extra hour of walking) and then began climbing, guided by Germán and Aike. For the first hour and a half we walked on loose gravel and rocks. It was quite reassuring that I didn't find this hard - compared to the Inca Trail where I really struggled on the uphill, it showed how much difference altitude makes.

We stopped for a break and some snacks and then began walking up the snow/ice section. It was very steep and slippery in parts, we used ice picks as walking poles for support - I had never walked up terrain like that before. At one point we had to walk along the top of a ridge with steep drops on either side and it was very windy so I was scared of falling but after a while I got used to it and relaxed.

After a couple of hours we cleared the snow and ice section and then had about half an hour more on rocky ground to reach the crater of the volcano. We walked around the mouth of the volcano - the views were stunning, over lakes and other volcanoes peeking out above the clouds. Every now and then the volcano made an ominous rumbling noise and spurted out some gas - it smelt bad and made it very hard to breathe.

On the way back down there were lots of channels through the snow that we could slide down on our bums, which was very cold but good fun. We encountered an incident on the way down that highlighted the dangers of the mountain - in another group of climbers one person went off on his own and jumped into what he thought was one of the channels in the snow but was actually a deep crevasse from a crack in the glacier - he got stuck five or six metres down between two walls of ice. We all waited on some rocks nearby while all the guides spent about half an hour trying to get him out. Luckily our guide, Aike, was a firefighter and from his experience he was able to figure out how to harness the guy that was stuck and get him out. He was extremely cold and shaking, he had a cut on his face and had injured one shoulder but he could still walk and was lucky to be alive.

After that we continued down the mountain, some clouds came over and it turned very cold and visibility was poor so everyone became nervous but happily it passed before long. Coming down the rocky section was actually quite easy and fun because a lot of it was deep soft gravel - we could run down it as if it were sand.

Back at the hostel they had cold Cristal beers waiting for us and we sat out in the garden, admiring the view of the Villarrica volcano with a new perspective and celebrating an amazing day.

After two pretty active days we decided to have a lie-in and a lazy Sunday. We were allowed to use the kitchen at the hostel so Helena, Denise and I went to the supermarket in town, bought lots of goodies and spent the afternoon making popcorn and omlettes with peppers, red onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, salami, chorizo and cheese (delicious though not very pretty due to the lack of a non-stick pan!).

In the evening Germán and María Elena made a fantastic barbeque for us - hotdogs, chicken drumsticks, huge steaks, cheesy potatoes and lots of salad washed down with strawberry punch and red wine. We braved the spitting rain in the garden for a while but later moved inside where we stayed up chatting until late.