Rolling, Rolling Rolling

Sorry it´s been a while. We haven´t been anywhere with the internet in a couple weeks. So we´re just going to do a quick recap to get up to date.

Jan. 2
We had our meeting with Dragoman in the morning an met a few of the people we would be traveling with. After moving into a different hostel we headed off for the Funicular (train like thing) and Teleferico (cable car) with Sara, a Scottish girl on our trip. The Teleferico went to the top of a hill in Santiago and had nice views of the city. We took a break at the biergarten on top of the hill before heading back down. We then proceeded to get lost for about 2 hours, because no taxi knew where the road was that our hostel was on. Finally after buying a map, we made it back and went out to dinner with most of the group...at a viking themed restaurant. It was definitely interesting.

Jan. 3
Today was our frist day on the truck "Mamasita"...she´s a beast. We stopped during the day at the Belduzzi Vineyard for a wine tasting. Where we got try a Carmenere, which is apparently the Chilean specialty. And also where Moss (Australian lady) told Lawrence (pretentious British guy) that she was going to "gangster slap" him if he didn´t stop having such a bad attitude. Ha ha, it was hilarious! We ended our day camping by a river with a huge waterfall. A few of us went swimming in the river, but it was a bit chilly since we didn´t make it in until after 8pm.

Jan. 4
Today we arrived in Pucón, a cute town that is definitely tourist oriented. The weather was really nice so we wandered around town and had some ice cream. And that´s about it...

Jan. 5
Today was the first day of poor weather we´ve had. So we ran some errands to find an adapter and an alarm clock. We finally found one alarm clock in the entire town and it worked exactly one time before breaking. We ate some more ice cream and had an afternoon beer before heading back to the campsite to have a BBQ.

Jan. 6
We got up bright and early to climb Villaricca Volcano, which was just outside of town. We headed to the tour agency to get geared up with ice picks and crampons. We then headed to the bottom of the volcano where the weather was fairly iffy. We started up the mountain in the fog, gale force winds and cold. After about 4 hours we were about 150m from the top when the guides decided to stop because of the weather. Every once in a while the clouds would clear and we´d get a nice view of the lake and town below. Heading down was definitely the best part. There were snow chutes made from people sliding down the volcano. So we clipped some tarp like material on, kind of like a diapper, and sat in these chutes and slide down the volcano. You were supposed to use you ice pick as a brake, but that usually didn´t really work. Once we made it to the bottom with frozen bums, the guide gave a Pisco Sour for our hard work. That night we went out to dinner at "El Rincón de la Carne" that´s Volcano of Meat, for you non Spanish speakers.

Jan. 7
Drove to Puerto Montt, where we got lost and drove around town for a while. Camped by a playground, and drank wine while swinging. Callie had been sick for the last few days and spent the night in the truck because she wasn´t feeling well. However, unknown to Callie one of the girls that had already been on the truck 2 months had started a "relationship" with our guide/truck driver (who never showers...ever, seriously...ewww!) and they sleep on top of the truck. Callie was wondering what he was doing up there to cause the truck to rock so much! Double eww!