David was up at 5:30am, he was going on the Patagonia Experience's day climb up Volcan Villarrica. Maria had already done it before so she decided to save some money (read 'stay in bed in the morning') and meet up with an old friend from Temuco later in the day.

There were 10 people in the group today, a group of six girls from Santiago, Stuart from Australia plus David, Andy and Carlee. There were going to be three guides and the weather was looking good. After we got into our boots and gators, we packed the rest of our gear in the backpacks and put them on the back of the ute. We all got in the minivan for the short trip up to the base of the volcano at 1,400m above sea level.

The sun was just beginning to rise as we put our backpacks on and started the walk up the volcano. There was patchy snow on the ground but it wasn't too long before we were on the snow proper. It was not too hard and we were able to walk without putting the crampons on. The pace the guides set was perhaps a little slower than some of the other company's groups but David thought it was a good, safe pace. Looking at the other groups, Patagonia Experience seemed to be one of the few who provided quality equipment - some of the others were without helmets, some without gators, others using boots that didn't look suitable for the snow.

The group had its first break 400m higher up the mountain at the top of the chairlift. The chairlift wasn't operational in the shoulder season, but it would have saved an hour's walk for only $10. The walk wasn't so difficult but it might make a difference later in the day when we needed the energy to get us to the summit.

After a 15 minute break to take some photos and eat some breakfast, we were off again in single file zig-zagging up the slope. Two of the Chilean girls were struggling by the time we were half way up the volcano and they were told to turn back with one of the guides.

It wasn't a particularly strenuous climb, but it was mentally quite exhausting. Every step had to be carefully placed to avoid slips and even though we had an ice axe, we didn't want to be practicing fall recovery for the first time on the steep slopes of the volcano. On the last two stages of the climb, the steepness increased quite dramatically and on the last 20 minute stage, the snow was much harder, verging on ice.

We finally made it to the summit of the 2,849m volcano, it had been a 6km long walk, rising nearly 1,449m over 4.5 hours. There was a flattish area where we dumped our bags before walking over to the smoking crater. Volcan Villarrica is still an active volcano and there is plenty of gas constantly rising out the huge crater blocking the views of the smouldering lava below. There were also amazing views of all the surrounding lakes, mountains and volcanoes.

We only spent 30 minutes at the summit before we changed into our "descent" equipment. In addition to pants and jacket, we put on what was affectionately described as a "nappy" - and probably because it so closely resembled one. It's actually quite hard to describe, but essentially it was waterproof materiel that was strapped round your butt on your waist and on each leg. There was also a small personal plastic disk sledge locked onto the waist strap.

The fun was just about to begin - our descent would be by a method, translated from Chilean Spanish into English, known as "**** skiing". In practice this meant that we were going to slide down the volcano on our butt using our ice axe to steer and to brake. The first part of the descent was on a pretty steep section so we just slid on the nappy, on the lower section we used the plastic sledge as well for a bit more speed. The snow was soft and it was kicked up in clumps as we twisted and turned through the hollowed out path of the earlier **** skiers - it was a bit like being on a water slide. We slid down the mountain for nearly 2km in 30 minutes and it was actually more exhausting than the climb up.

Maria, meanwhile, had been for a walk around the town and then went to the beach and sat for a while doing a bit of trip planning in the sun. Early afternoon she went back to the hostel to wait for Alejandra, her friend from Temuco, to arrive. The two of them walked to the Patagonia Experience office to check what time David should be back and decided there would be no time for lunch beforehand so they settled for an ice cream and walk around instead, before heading back to the hostel to wait for David.

David's group were driven back to the equipment office where they dropped all their equipment off and celebrated their achievement with a beer or two.

David returned to the hostel, later than Maria hoped, and quickly showered before heading out to meet the others at lake for sunset which just happened to be fantastic.

We had dinner at the Arabian place which was really nice, and then went to Mamas and Tapas for a drink afterwards. When we got back to the hostel, after midnight, the guys working there were waiting for us because there was a misunderstanding about dates. We still had to pay and they thought we were checking out in the morning, but we had booked another two days. As way of apology, we brought out the chocolate biscuits which were gratefully accepted. We had a cup of coffee to finish off the night and to get some caffeine into Alejandra before she started her 1.5 hour drive back home.