My last blog from South America! I can't believe the time has gone so fast... What a trip!

We arrived in Pucon, the adventure capital of Chile's Lake District, in the pouring rain. Not ideal. We checked into Hostel Mayra, near the main street, a nice and cheap hostel overflowing with Israelis! We have come across a lot of Israelis on our travels in Chile but never had quite so many in one hostel.

Our main reason for travelling to Pucon was to climb Volcan Villarica, but the first few days were too cloudy and no tours were running. We occupied ourselves with some gentle cycling, sitting on the beach and some more horse riding! Yay, Olly on a horse again! We had a slightly more speedy ride, with some trotting involved, and even a short canter, much to Olly's dismay! Hehe. We rode to an impressive waterfall, where one very brave member of our group went swimming! Crazy guy, it was freezing! When we walked back to where the horses were waiting, the guide took us to 2 look out points over the source of the waterfall. It was beautiful but terrifying! He took us one at a time, pointed to an overhanging branch and held on as we leant out to peer down the 84 metres to the pool below. Phew!

We waited until Monday for our trip to the volcano, when the weather had cleared completely and the views were perfect, crystal clear for miles and miles. The volcano is a 2800m snow capped beast, surrounded by 7 other volcanoes and numerous lakes. We got to the tour agency at 7am to get kitted out in our snow gear - water proof jacket and trousers, gloves, scarves, enormous snow boots and an ice pick! Awesome. The bus drove us to the snow line at 1400m where we began the 5 hour uphill trek. Wow it was tough! Thankfully we had booked with a small group-4 of us with 2 guides. The other 2 were very fast and left us behind very early on. Olly kindly slowed down to my pace and we had our own guide, a lovely guy called Oscar who climbs he volcano virtually every day from November to March! Amazing.

We completed the climb in about 6 stages, stopping regularly for water, sandwiches and chocolate. It was quite hot in the sun, despite walking on snow. The ice picks were used to keep our balance and to hook into the ice in case we fell, which thankfully neither of us did! The slopes were quite steep and there were a few hairy moments for me: looking down did not help. Mind you, neither did looking up as it was demoralisingly slow progress! The top just never got any closer!! Hehe we made it in the end though. I was exhausted but very proud of myself. The crater was incredible-huge and very scary. It was smouldering impressively but thankfully wasn't too sulphurous. The view from the top was absolutely spectactular, lakes and volcanoes in every direction.

The best bit, however, was getting back down by sliding on our bums! 5 hours up and only 1 and a half down. We tied on a small sheet of waterproof shiny material, used our ice picks as rudders and brakes, and off we went! Some of the slopes were really steep and we could get up to an impressive speed. It was amazing! So much fun.

We headed back to Pucon and had a celebratory drink with the guides and our group. We had a shower back at the hostel, went for dinner then caught the night bus to Santiago. So tired! We managed a decent kip as we had splashed out on the bed bus but were still knackered when we arrived back at Rebecca's flat. We spent our last few days resting and doing a bit of souvenir shopping. I also finally got my ipod back! Hurrah! Though I did have to pay Chilean customs £85 for the privelage.. Not impressed with that. I am over the moon to have my music back, however.

I am heading to New Zealand on Friday and Olly to London. It has been an absolutely amazing trip and I will definitely be back to South America soon...