Climbing through Pucon

Pucon´s existence hinges on the good graces of Volcano Villarica. The active volcano looms over the town like a lurking shop clerk. Its smokey breath serves as a constant reminder of its potential wrath. Sirens ring out seven times a day, testing Pucon´s alert systems. The prolonged waaang invokes images of students futilely falling under their desks, preparing for nuclear holocaust. Additionally, the sirens inspire you to draw up an exit strategy in the event of an unfortunate eruption. I decided I would flee to the river, rod in tow, and hijack a raft or a dingy. With a volcano erupting recently in Chaiten, Argentina, the merits of having an exit strategy were confirmed.

Practically speaking, Pucon depends on tourism. Its principal streets are cluttered with tour guides peddling once-in-a-lifetime experiences to tourists in the market for meaningful memories. The premier attraction is climbing the volcano. The guided trek fetches a pretty peso- a peso I cannot possibly part with. Artisans line the streets selling all sorts of handcrafted knickknacks. Occasionally, a compact car loosely equipped with exterior speakers sputters down the road advertising Pucon´s two ring circus. The annoying announcement runs on a circuit and sounds strikingly similar to a hopped up used car salesman trying to get some beat up, old Volvo off his lot. The torturous track could be used in hostage negotiations, or to draw out Al Qaeda from Afghan foothills. How someone could voluntarily drive this nightmare on wheels is beyond me. He either really loves the circus, or has a serious drug problem.

Equally disconcerting are the women in Pucon. They are gorgeous. But that is not the problem. The vast majority of these Chilean beauties are linked to grotesque, unfit, untidy, and most of all, undeserving men. This must be a cultural misunderstanding, because I just don´t get it. Unless it is siblings weekend here in Pucon, there is no explanation for such a tragedy.

As is the case with most resort towns, Pucon is expensive. I have been living on nine empanadas a day which costs about the same as a night in a hostel, or three nights in a camp site.

Pucon´s other major attraction is the beach surrounding Largo Villarica. The black sand beach is swamped from early in the day till sunset. Much like everything else in Pucon, the beach is used to turn a profit. Three trendy, open air bars serve drinks to anyone willing to part with their pesos- myself included. All sorts of water crafts are available to rent along the shore. This turns the lake into a dangerous melee of jetskis and kayaks. You can even rent one of those big inflatable orbs that, when inside, allow you walk on water. The beach turns into a ball park with vendors hiking up and down the shoreline calling out a long litany of products for sale. I saw one man employed in the most innovative venture. For a small fee, he dutifully applies sun block or tanning oil on bikini bound babes. Genius! I thought. This guy needs to have a chat with that poor bastard driving the clown car. I wanted to shake the man´s hand, but it was clearly engaged in something far more worthwhile.

The hostel I stayed at, unoriginally named El Refugio, was owned by a Dutch man, Peter. With cropped black hair and sharp, even features, Peter possessed the look of an Amsterdam native. Despite speaking perfect English, an ability he displayed when chatting with some Brits and a Kiwi, he insisted on speaking to me only in Spanish. While I did not mind this as it was good practice, I could not figure out why this was so. I am not usually pinned as an American. My blond hair and blue eyes lead many non-Americans to believe I am Scandinavian. I am never, however, mistaken as a native of some Spanish speaking country. None the less, I continued to converse with Peter in my convoluted, grammatically unsound Spanish.

My first morning there, I sat in the kitchen eating leftovers and picking apart a Bill Bryson book I traded for the night before. Across from me sat an American and two Israeli girls. They were engrossed in a perverse conversation about hostel sex. Reading Bryson´s sorry attempts at humor became futile as my fellow breakfast-goers would mutter some smutty buzz word and inevitably steal my attention. Eventually I introduced myself as a means of ending their inane dialogue. After exchanging the normal pleasantries of travelers- Where are you from? How long are you traveling?- I learned that they were going climbing with an Ecuadorian from the hostel. This immediately peaked my interest, and soon I found myself in the back of a cab with them heading to the climb. I spent most of the time chatting with the Ecuadorian climber, Jose. Noticeably short, Jose had a thick, brown beard that I can only describe as biblical. It was amazing how much easier it was to understand Jose´s Spanish compared to the Argentine and Chilean conversations that I have been accustomed to. This clarity of conversation allowed us to go beyond superficial conversation for the sake of passing time, and into more in depth topics about our lives.

The cab took us as far as it could before the road became impassable. After a four km hike, the rock face came into sight. Just as I had done so many times before years back when I used to competitively climb, I began reading the rock puzzle before me. With my gaze fixed on the stone, my mind plotting moves like Bobby Fischer, I failed to notice a deep hole in the path before me. Of course I fell into the whole. My ankle rolled, sounding like walnuts being crushed together. I sat meekly on the ground, sucking air through the straw of my pursed lips, and swayed back and fourth, hoping the pain would fade. Despite having put myself in many potentially dangerous situations during this trip, all of my injuries occur in the most unimpressive fashions. On my Torres del Paine hike, I sprained my knee after taking a pee up on a hill just outside the camp . In Calafate, I suffered a serious burn on my hand after I sat on an unsound stool and fell into a scalding hot radiator. The pain was exacerbated when I looked up to find two janitors seized in laughter. They set up the faulty stool for that very purpose.

So there I sat, my brand new companions surrounding me in a half-hearted state of sympathy. The swelling was pretty immediate, but I could walk on it. ¨If I can walk, then I can climb¨, I said. Twenty minutes later, I was threading my legs into a harness, and squeezing my feet into climbing shoes. The ritual brought me back to my teenage climbing days. The stale sweaty smell of the shoes, the feeling of digging into a chalk bag- I was in bliss. Checking that my figure eight knot was properly cinched, I approached the rock. Despite having not touched a rock face in years, my body fell right back into its former climbing mode. My heels hooked on ledges, my hips shifted into the stone, and my fingers grasped effortlessly on to little holds. It was a terrific experience.