After enjoying a couple of days in and around Bariloche, we decided to head further West over to Chile. We left the bikes at a hostel and took a bus to Puerto Varas. This is another beautiful lakeside town, overlooking the huge Osorno Volcano. We hiked to some rapids and eventually took a little detour on our own trail following the dried up previous lava flow to the base of the volcano. Sitting on a dried chunk of lava, Adam proposed that we go north to the active volcano, Villarica and take an excursion tour to the top.
After another bus ride to Pucon, we found a place to stay, found a tour group that would take us up the next day, and set out to find a cheap pair of sunglasses for the hike and some more salami and cheese sandwiches. Unfortunately, the crater was leaking toxic gas when we arrived the next morning and the strong winds were blowing it into our ascent path. We didn't have another day to wait to try the next day like most of the other climbers, so we decided to give it a try. After about 4 hours of intense climbing into the wind and blowing sleet, we came to the 2nd shelter house and had to call it quits. From there, we tried sliding down the slope, using our ice axes to steer. At the bottom of the hill, we had to make the long way back to Bariloche and eventually figure out how to get the scooters back to Buenos Aires.
