Puerto Montt and Volcan Calbuco

Puerto Montt -


Our time spent in Puerto Montt has been quite relaxing, and more and more I've started to open up to the city. The first day Markus and I wandered around town to find, among other things, the ferry docks to inquire about a ticket down to Chaiten. Little did we know that we would have to wait until the following week to get a ticket! However, all was not lost since we have to wait anyway for the hub to come from the United States. As of now, it has left Santiago, hopefully to arrive on Monday.
In our little walkabout, we found the local artisan section of town 3km out from the city center. Markus there was able to get a sweet leather shoulder bag for his SLR digital camera, something he'd been looking for since the trip began. Just past that section was the local fish market, woohoo!! We planned to cook a salmon dinner that night. Imagine, 1kg of salmon filet for $3, can't beat that price! I'm definitely warming up to this town. Just after dinner, we signed up for a hike to the top of Volcano Calbuco. Little did I know what I was getting myself into...

Our guide, Pato, picked us up at 8am the following morning. Juan, an artist who created the copper depiction of a biblical scene found at the top of the cathedral in town, later joined us when we were stocking up on food for the day at the nearby supermarket. The drive out of town was our first experience with the Carretera Austral, not too bad given that it was a paved section. About 45 minutes later, much of it on ripio, we arrived at the base of the climb. I wondered why they needed helipad markings on the main parking lot.

For the most part, I'll let the pictures show what it was like. The roundtrip was 22km, almost all of it a climb or a descent on foot. At times, we hiked through a forest with some trees over 2000 years old. At times, we were scrambling up volcanic rock that was slipping under our feet. At one point, we donned climbing harnesses and ropes to scale one small section. We tried to ski with our shoes alone in the snow that was remaining at the top of the volcano. The meltwater was delicious right from the source. And of course, boys will be boys, we tossed large rocks and small boulders down the cliff and watched them roll down the snow-covered slopes below (there was nobody down there, yes we checked). We were a little behind schedule because of the extended breaks, and so at the end we got caught hiking in the night through the forest. All in all, nobody was hurt, thankfully, and of course it was an incredible experience. I wish I will be in the shape Juan was when I'm 61. Right now, two days after the hike, I'm still nearly limping because my legs are still so sore. The sad part, I don't know what % of Americans would be able to do something like this, but I hope that figure will increase in the coming decades.