Pucon was exactly what I expected it to be, a tourist town, but I loved it nonetheless. The number of residents in Pucon stands at 10,000, but in the high season the population swells to 60,000 as tourists from Chile, as well as Europe and America, swarm the streets and taking advantage of the many cafes, internet shops, tour businesses and bars. This is one of the most volcanically active areas in South Americas. The deep rift in the ocean bed of the Chilean coast causes huge upsurges of lava which reach the surface at the hundreds of volcanoes in this area. Volcan Villarrica is Pucon´s raison d´etre and its imposing cone can be seen from different parts of town as you come out of a coffee shop or laze around in a park.

Two days ago, I climbed the volcanoe. I woke up at 6AM, met my group and was driven to the foot of the volcanoe, equipped with protective clothing, helmet, crampons, ice axe and gloves. I would have felt like an intrepid explorer heading out into the wilds of Patagonia had it not been for the fifty of sixty people who surrounded me, many of them hangers-on from the previous day when poor conditions had forced them to give up. At the beginning of the ascent, we were asked whether we would like to take a chairlift two kilometres up the slope or to walk. They stressed that anyone who was not in peak physical condition should take the chairlife because it was important to conserve your energy. Presented with a challenge like that, I could not refuse, but I was joined by only two other, an American from Orange County, California and a French girl. While the sluggards swung along above us, we trudged up through fine volcanic ash, taking two steps up only to slide back one step. Soon, this gave way to big, light, capricious balsitic rock that lay on a layer of ash and would often give way when you stood on it, creating a small landslide that would cascade down the hillside. The guides would suddenly cry rocas and everyone would stop and look up. After a climb of around two hours, we donned our crampons and stepped out onto the sticky ice, walking as if we were wearing flippers so as not to drag our feet and fall over. We slowly zigzagged across the shiny white surface, digging our ice-axes into the snow above us to give us leverage. Meanwhile, James, the Californian, was explaining what it is like to be a fireman in California. In a house full of smoke, the fireman can see nothing, and on several occasions, while trying to find the inhabitants, he has found that he is stepping all over them. On another occasion, a teenager was doing drugs with a propane torch, set light to his bed, left his bedroom to assure his family that the smoke was coming from outside, went back into the bedroom to recover his stash and died of smoke inhalation.

We passed a steep, rugged escarpment of rock which the ice had approached ina huge, sweeping curve, split into segments by narrow, deep crevasses. The views were already incredible, albeit a little hazy because of the morning mist and the hundreds of garden fires spluttering away. Lago Villarrica and the National Park was spread out before us, the arms of the lake stretching out to the feet of the surrounding mountains, dark green wooded projections that looked almost tropical. Volcanoes could be seen on all sides. There was one which had obviously blown its top, but the most impressive was Volcan Lanin which straddles the border between Chile and Argentina and is taller than Volcan Villarrica, itself around 2,800m. A week ago, the volcanologists recorded unusual activity near this volcanoe and it is expcted to erupt within the next week. Everyone in the surrounding towns and villages has been evacuated and the national park has been closed.

We reached the summit at the same time as several other groups which crowded around the crater, munching down their sandwiches and breathing in the sulphurous fumes. A couple of times I caught a full mouthfull of the noxious gas which burned the back of my throat and provoked a coughing fit. Clouds of the gas billowed from the volcanoe´s chimney and the rocks surrounding the crater´s edge curled with smoke or steam. We couldn´t see the bubbling lava beneath, and the volcanoe seemed strangely artificial to me, little different from the one that splits in two in that Bond film. On the way down, we slid down through the snow as the 22 year old guide hit on the French girl, to no avail. A whining seventeen year old Australian impeded us as he kept sitting down and refusing to go on, until he was all but dragged down by the guide.

The hot baths were the perfect accompaniement to the hard walk. Natural springs well up all over the region and have been dammed in Pozones to created deep pools which vary in temperature from tepid to boiling hot. I spent four hours lounging around in the steaming water, sipping beer and admiring the valley, before catching a bus to Santiago for a beggarly 8,000 pesos (around nine pounds). The city seems smarter than Buenos Aires, but I am yet to see whether it has as much charm. For lunch, I am planning to walk to the market where fish of every conceivable size and shape compete with wriggling shellfish and hunks of meat. At least I won´t go hungry...