sledding down a volcano on your butt? who comes up with stuff like this?

what a weekend. i got back to viña this morning at about 8:00 after a weekend spent down south in the lake district of chile in a small little touristy town called pucón. ISA, my study abroad agency, took all of the students there this weekend to see all the beauty that the area offers and do some fun outdoorsy stuff. we left thursday night at 9:15 and drove 12 hours south. they housed us in these little "cabanas" that were a bunch of little houses all clustered together in what looked like a little jungle. the cabanas were connected by a maze of wooden platforms amid thick almost bamboo looking vegetation and trees. it was like something out of a fairy tail, or fern gully. i really enjoyed being in a little town for a few days where there wasn't tons of traffic. the town looked like many of the mountain towns i've seen in the US in alaska or colorado, if it weren't for the fact that it's super touristy, i would have loved to live there.

friday, we spent the day driving around to many of the beautiful waterfalls that are nestled in the hills and mountains around pucón. while hemmed-in-hollow back in arkansas is quite beautiful, these waterfalls are absolutely incredible. the pictures say more than i can, so i'll leave you to look at those. we finished out the first day with a soak in natural thermal baths and then some pretty good pizza back in pucón.

me at "salto la china" which is this super huge beautiful waterfall. supposedly it got it's name because some cow who's name was china fell off the top of it or something ridiculous like that (i'm not ever kidding). i decided that if i were a cow and i had to die, i'd much rather die falling off this waterfall than at the butcher block!this is "ojos del caburgua" which are these three beautiful waterfalls that run into this crystal clear, blue reservoir.this is "luguna azul" or blue lagune i wonder if this is where they filmed the movie... ok, probably not, but it's pretty beautifulme trying to act like i'm walking on water at lago caburgua, but the guy who took the picture didn't exactly do what i imagined, but it's still a cool pic!

saturday was the big day i was planning on climbing the volcano, but we'd been told that the past four days before they hadn't been able to climb because of poor weather, so we weren't sure if we'd be able to climb after all. we woke early to be ready by 7:30 to meet up with lizette (the program director) to find out if we'd be able to go. we all gathered to hear the bad news that they were calling off the trip b/c the forecast for the day was questionable. very disappointed, we all went back to our cabanas only to have lizette come knocking on our door telling us we may be able to go after all. ten out of the original fifteen decided to take the ride to the volcano to see how things looked from there and make the final decision when we arrived. so our group hurriedly went to the tour agency to get suited up in all of our equipment. we then took the ride to the volcano. as we drove out of town we got our first glimpses of the volcano that had been covered in clouds the day before. little did we know, the entire town of pucón in nestled in mountains, but you just can't tell when the low clouds come in.

the view of the volcano as we were hiking to get onto the chair lift. the volcano is called volcan villarrica.

when we arrived at the volcano, the weather looked good, so we decided to take the risk of possibly having to turn back half way up and lose our money. we rode in a chair lift for the the first 500 vertical meters up the volcano. this greatly helped reduce the time the journey takes and helped our chances of making it to the top before clouds had a chance to roll in and make us turn back. the first stretch of the climb was on loose volcanic soil/rocks. the boots that we were making made the already somewhat difficult hike much more difficult because they were so heavy and cumbersome. as we hiked on, the soil soon turned to snow as we zig zagged our way up the mountain. we stoped after about 30-45 minutes for lunch where i encountered my first incidence of a string of bad luck. as i pulled out my lunch sack, i realized i had grabbed the wrong bag in my rush out of the cabana. so instead of having a yummy turkey and avocado sandwich, i had a bag of uncooked spaghetti and kool-aid mix. luckily my generous friends gave me some of their lunches, so i had plenty to eat, but i still lugged spaghetti all the way up the volcano and back. after eating, we strapped on our clamp-on spikes onto our boots which greatly helped hiking in the snow and but also made the boots even heavier.

this is a view of part of the volcano, you can see the little people hiking down.

after lunch, we had about two more hours of pretty intense hiking before we reached the summit. as we got closer to the top, the wind picked up and the incline got steeper and i began to wonder if i was going to be able to make it all the way to the top. with about an hour left, my legs were beginning to feel like jello and every step was a struggle. the prayer, "Lord, be my strength" became my constant plea as i climbed the volcano literally one step at a time. i had known before i started that the climb would be physically difficult, but i didn't know what a mental battle it would be. i had to convince myself that i could take a couple more steps, that i would be ok if i lost my footing, that i could make it to the top. but the Lord provided all the mental and physical strength i didn't have myself. the journey up wasn't all toiling for nothing though, b/c every time our guide would stop to give us a 30 second breather or so, i'd be blown away by the all the beauty that surrounded me. off the volcano were views of distant mountains jutting up out of the clouds and large lakes and tree covered hills below. if i had gotten nothing else out of climbing the volcano, the views i was able to see would have been worth it.

this is my favorite picture. i don't know what the old structure used to be used for, but it made for a beautiful picture!this is a view off the mountain, you can see the mountains that are even taller than the volcano jutting out of the clouds in the distance. the pictures really don't do the beauty of it justice.

after about 3 hours of hiking up, we finally reached the top and the relief i felt to have made it all the way was incredible. i felt the most amazing sense of accomplishment after working so hard to get to the top. of the 14 of us that started out in our group, there were only 10 that made it all the way to the top. as we crested the top, the reality that we were indeed standing on an active volcano hit us as we breathed in the sulfur fumes spewing out of the giant, rugged crater. a couple people in our group decided to hike a little more through the thick sulfur fumes to try to see some lava, but i could have cared less about lava at that point (plus they didn't end up seeing any lava, so it's all good). we took many victory pictures at the top as we rested and prepared for the decent.

this is the ISA group that made it to the top.
this is me after conquering the volcano!this is me barely catching myself before i slid all the way down the volcano... ok, j/k, but it was fun to pretend.

i was a little bit nervous about the decent b/c the accent had been so difficult and steep, i didn't know what it would be like to hike down. we hiked down the first little bit with not too much difficulty, but i was definitely a little nervous about losing my footing in the snow. we soon stopped and our guide told us to take off our cramp on spikes. we all thought we had misunderstood or that he was going crazy, but he convinced us by telling us that we'd have to walk all the way down if we didn't, so we followed suite (he's been climbing the mountain for 20 years, so i figured he knew what he was talking about). we soon realized that the rumors we'd heard about sliding down the volcano were true. see, the way it works is a guide from another group would go down before everyone else and make a sort of tobaggon track, then all the rest of us would follow after, literally sledding on our butts down the mountain. here i met another bit of bad luck because i didn't have in my pack the extra thing the other members of our group had to strap onto their backsides to help keep their butts dry as they slid down. it ended up being fine, i just got a big wedgie and a cold, wet butt. but anyways, sledding down the mountain was probably one of the funnest things i've ever done (sledding at home will never be quite as cool). their were probably almost 10 different runs down the volcano. we'd slide down and use our ice picks to slow ourselves down when we gathered too much speed (i actually lost my pick on one run, another bit of bad luck, but pepe, our guide got it back). it was really crazy to zoom past all the ground we'd hiked up with so much difficulty just hours before.

our guía (or guide) pepe, who had been climbing this volcano for 20 years. i think he has a pretty sweet job!

the decent took only about 1 hour compared to the 3 it took to get to the top. we slid down probably about 2/3 of the mountain, but the last bit was hiking on the loose volcanic soil down a wide, but somewhat steep path that was easy to walk on compared to all we'd done earlier. at some point on this last leg of the trip i ended up a little behind the people i was walking with because i was a bit slower. here i got a chance to process alot of what had been going on in my head throughout the day and days past. as i climbed the volcano and also in the days earlier, i'd been really missing josh alot and had been thinking about him constantly as i saw all the beautiful mountains and waterfalls and went on these crazy adventures. as i saw all this beauty and did crazy things like sledding down volcanos, all i really wanted was for him to be by my side. to be able to hear his laughter and his exclamations of joy and awe at all of the beauty. of course this is ridiculous, b/c even if josh were alive, he wouldn't have been on that volcano with my, but i wanted so much just to call him or write him a letter, to be able to share that experience with him b/c i knew how much he would have delighted in that, and the reality that i couldn't do any of those things hit me really hard. i cried as i walked down the mountain, grieving the loss of my friend, but i think i needed to let myself grieve. i need to remember. it's ok to be sad. but in the sadness, i still know that as beautiful as that volcano was, and as grand as that adventure was, it's nothing compared to what josh has for eternity in heaven. so i find my solace in that, and i'll live my life following after what he started!

needless to say, after climbing the volcano, i was exhausted, so i showered, at some pizza at a cute little place in pucón and then crashed for the night. sunday morning i woke to rain in time to go white water rafting. rafting was really cold but it was alot of fun. it was a pretty short trip, i think we were barely on the river for an hour, and there were only rapids that went up to class three, but it definitely made me want to do more rafting when i get a chance. at the end of the day, we got back on the bus to make the overnight trip back to viña.

well, i'm sick of writing (i've accidentally deleted large parts of this two different times and had to rewrite it) and this is the longest blog ever, so i'm gonna call it quits for today. i love you all and i'd love to talk to you and know how you life's going (get skype! my name's rachel.dton ). i'll update again soon!

oh p.s. i found out this weekend i'm going to be an RA in yocum next year. whoop whoop!! i'm pretty excited