You would think by now that we would be used to taking night buses. Well that's we thought until we took this 10 hour journey to Pucon. It wasn't the most uncomfortable of buses but the driver kindly played his music all night and from the early hours decided to start randomly picking up people and dropping them off (to earn extra money of course). However beneficial to him, this resulted in little sleep for us.

On our arrival, the place looked like a ski resort with wooden chalets, but without the snow. Instead we had typical british weather, freezing and raining. It didn't matter though because we were told we were staying at a new hostel. This was so not true, the only source of heat was in the communal area and our rooms were just as cold as outside! We had the opportunity to go rafting that afternoon, but I couldn't think of anything worse than going in cold water at that point, the better alternative was definitly huddling around the wood stove playing cards.

An activity that did appeal to us was skiing, even though it was at the very end of the season we were keen to give it a go. So we went and got our gear prepared that evening before going out for Conor's birthday meal. This turned out to be a mexican restaurant and mexican food never disappoints. True to form, the food was amazing (well nothing on Mexico but still top notch for a tex-mex) and to Sara's delight it was topped off by a chocolate birthday cake!

We woke up full of excitement the next day only to be told that there was uncertainty over whether the slopes would open due to the wind. We were perplexed since the skies were blue and it even snowed the day before (well over the volcano) - perfect skiing conditions. Gladly this bad news was a false alarm and we made it to the slopes. Although a little slow starting (attempting to teach 3 people to ski was a good challenge), it was a lot of fun. The only shame was not all pistes were open due to it being the last weekend of the season, but how many people can say they have ski'ed down a volcano! On returning to the car park it was weird because when we left there it was full of snow, but now it had all melted! In true apres ski fashion we cracked open our first bottle of rum on the return journey. This set the spirit for the rest of the night and we continued the party back at the hostel to cap off an awesome day.

On the final day all the group were climbing to the peak of the same volcano (Volcan Villarrica) we ski'ed down. Unfortunately our pennies didn't stretch this far even though we both wanted to do it. In hindsight this was a great decision. Firstly because it was cloudy around the summit so it was not possible to go all the way, and secondly the sledge back down the volcano resulted in one woman face planting the snow and another taking a tumble and breaking her leg (I'm not going to make a sexist comment that it was only women who had these accidents!) Anyway I am sure this will give us a good basis for plenty of 'break a leg' jokes.

Instead of enduring the blizzard conditions up the volcano we took the more cheaper route and explored this small mountain town which is surrounded by lakes. We started out walking across the main plaza which has wooden hut christmassy type stalls on it, although not many are open in low season. Then we continued towards a lake called Largo Villarrica which has a small beach overlooking it. You can normally go out on a pedalo here but at this time of year there was noone to be seen. From here we headed towards La Poza, another lake, passing an outdoor church which is kind of unique in a good way. This lake has a black sand beach and it felt a little eerie given it was an overcast day and we were always in isolation. Nonetheless I prefer this to the hustle and bustle that a big city brings.

Xx