Sneaking up Volcan Villarica

"Would you be looking for accommodation for tonight?" asks the rather well-dressed man on a bicycle as he rides past, with a Welsh accent. I've already thanked him and politely turned down the offer when the contradiction sinks in: I'm sitting on a pile of bags where the bus from Santiago dropped us, in the town of Pucon in southern Chile.

Iris soon arrives back from ferrying the first load of bags to the campsite a few blocks away; by the time we've pitched our tent the overcast morning has cleared to let in the beautiful slanting sunlight, and Volcan Villarica is poking through the clouds.

We walk into town up the main street, called Av. O'Higgins like most main streets in Chile, to find out about climbing the volcano. The man in the first tour-guide's office starts out by asking us our language preference, which clearly isn't Spanish: "Hebrew? English?" We choose English, which we can both speak, and he proceeds to do his $50 best to scare us off trying by ourselves. It can't be that hard if they herd tourists up it, right? But the lack of public transport might be a problem. The next office is more helpful, there might be icy patches so we should take our crampons, but it doesn't sound too bad.

What nobody is quite clear on is whether we can go without a guide, so while we try to get a Mountain Club card faxed through (apparently this sometimes convinces park warders to waive the need for a guide) we decide to take a day off and hire bicycles tomorrow. The friendly man at the very cheapest rental shop will let us take the bikes tonight, and has a recommended route to Lago Caburgua and back, complete with sketch map.

It takes us about an hour and a half the next morning to reach Lago Caburgua, following the tar road in beautiful cool sunny weather. We pass through the empty town, a crowd of brightly coloured deserted ice-cream shops, and down across the soft sand to the lake itself. The beach feels like a still scene from a film, bathed in soft sunlight and eerily devoid of wind, waves, heat or any smell. We swim and then lie in the sun without getting hot, before deciding it's time to go.

The recommended scenic route back to Pucon branches off the tar to follow the Rio Liucura which drains Lago Caburgua. We skip the waterfall marked on the map due to a rather steep entrance fee, but stop at a little restaurant where we decide we can afford a jam pancake each, the cheapest item on the menu. Well worth it though. To frustrate further temptation, which was being encouraged by a large American family group with children enjoying a chocolate fondue, we wander down to the river to sit and watch the rapids for a while.

At some point the 15km or so still to go forces us to brave our saddle soreness and get back onto the corrugated roads. The canopy of trees soon opens out into rolling farmland, after re-crossing what is now a broad slow river on a wooden suspension bridge we rejoin the tar road not far from Pucon.

There's nobody to charge us our entrance fee at the little empty ski resort at the base of Villarica - in fact we have to look hard to find anyone at all! When we do, he doesn't seem concerned about us having no guide, and is happy to point out the route: 1st blue hut, 2nd blue hut, summit.

We start up at a leisurely pace, stopping for lunch in one of the huge erosion ditches running down the mountain, out of the sun and the wind for a while. The spray of ski lift cables converge on little blue huts, the ground around them littered with construction leftovers. Further up the first commercial group pass us on their way down, and the discomfort of wearing sandals on loose scree is amply paid off by their bemused looks at me wearing strops and carrying crampons! I catch up with Iris at the snowline, have a snack and change into my plastic boots.

The first section of snow is the steepest, but has big footholds which make it easy going. We step off the path for a guide bringing down a terrified client: he has to put each foot into the next hole by hand, then coax his client to make the step. Repeat a few hundred times...

Once over the lip we can see the summit, but it's getting late. The guides of various parties are concerned about us having to walk down in the dark, we start estimating whether we have enough time, checking the altimeter every 15min - we should reach the summit at about 6pm, which leaves just enough daylight to get down.

The snow gives way to scree as we near the crater rim, but instead of the ordinary relatively stable scree we had before, this is light, aerated volcanic rock, loosely stacked and very hard to walk on. We reach the crater rim at 6:30, and stay only long enough to snap a few pictures because of the dense sulphur fumes - so that's why they carry gas masks! The true peak is around the other side of the rim, but we decide we can live without it, and start down.

As soon as we can breath easily again we stop to eat our last bar of crunchy-hard nougat, then walk, ski and tumble our way down back onto the snow. The high traffic on these slopes has worn what must have started as glissade tracks into toboggan runs, with smooth ice walls. A few minutes and a very well chilled backside later (as I wasn't wearing waterproof pants!) we're making our way down the lower slopes.

We reach the car park at 8:45 with daylight to spare, but another problem instead: the last car left 10 minutes ago, and it's 20 or 30km back to town. We hitched in this morning, and hadn't been planning to get down so late. So we started walking... We leave the lowest ski slopes behind, the vivid orange fades from the sky, the stars come out, we rest at the side of the road, we pass one or two houses but no cars. At around 11:30 we see a pair of headlamps pull out ahead of us, just too far to catch but we run anyway, and find the owner busy closing a 3-pole gate when we get there. We hop in with great appreciation, reach the campsite at 10 to midnight, and fall asleep to the sound of New Year's fireworks.

Previous: on Aconcagua
Next: Refugio Frey