Schlagwort-Archive: volcano

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Puerto Varas – more volcanoes

Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

We spent two days in Puerto Varas – one day we did a lot of shopping: Mathijs needed new shoes, I needed a warmer jacket and pants and we both needed to stock up on food and plan our upcoming adventure going South on the Carretera Austral. We also visited the information office for Pumalin national park and enjoyed the pretty views over the lake of Osorno volcano. 

img_0576 (medium)

The other day, we went active again and hopped on a bus to Vicente Perez Rosales national park to go on a hike. Right from the beginning we had amazing views of Osorno volcano. What made it even better were our favourite yellow bushes blooming everywhere. Later on our trip we learned that these are apparently an invasive species… Oops! We still find them very pretty.

What was less nice during this hike were the hundreds of horse flies constantly buzzing around our heads and biting when we stood still for too long. Guess we just had to hike fast then! We soon reached the Mirador, the endpoint of our hike from where we had pretty views over the surrounding mountains and lake while enjoying our lunch.

It was a nice hike to do from Puerto Varas and easy enough as a day trip. After one more night in our hostel camping, we set off for the Carretera Austral next morning…

Chile, World Trip 2018-19

Pucón – in the shadow of the volcano

Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Time for a long bus ride again! After all our relaxing time in Viña del Mar, we were ready for a change in scenery and hopped on a night bus down to Pucón where our Couchsurfing host picked us up at the bus station. We had not slept much that night and the weather was grey and windy, so we got some organizational stuff done, checked out some camping gear (still need to buy a stove etc) and then dropped into bed! (the photo below is from a sunnier day in Pucon)

img_9862 (medium)

Well rested, we were ready for a hike. The sun was shining again and we were looking forward to see Huerquehue national park. It was a 1 h ride on the bus and we realized that we had to hike quite fast in order to make the 14.10 bus back to the city. The bus times are a bit stupid: You arrive at 9.45 to then go on a 5 h hike whereas there’s a bus at 14.10 and the next one only at 17.10. Annoying. Anyways, we decided to give it a go and try to make the 14.10 bus to still have some more time to buy outdoor equipment in the city. So we power-hiked through the forest, through the mud and up many steps. Up, up, up we went. Luckily, the trail wasn’t that interesting until the first two viewpoints – which were super pretty with volcano Villarica being the star of all photos.

img_9788 (medium)

Later on, the path straightened out mostly and we reached the three lakes: Lago Chico, Lago el Toro and Lago Verde. The first two were very pretty and we took so many pictures! Especially Lago el Toro was very picturesque with a snowy mountain in the back. We should have stayed here for lunch, a perfect spot and quiet, since most people went to Laguna Verde first…

…which was also pretty but not as much as Lago el Toro and there were very few spots to sit and have lunch. By that time, we had decided against the 14.10 bus and instead decided to walk a bit around the lakes and enjoy the scenery a bit more, rather than feel rushed the whole day. So after some time in the sun and lots more photos here and there, we hiked back – which actually took longer than expected! So in the end I guess the 14.10 bus would have been unrealistic anyways and we were glad we had decided for the later bus option.

Next day – next national park! This time we were off with all our luggage to Santuario El Cañi – a private reserve which offers camping. We had to stay at the reception camping which was not nice and didn’t have any facilities except a basic and dirty toilet and cold shower. If we had less luggage, we would have preferred one of the campsites higher up the mountain.

So after setting up our tent, we started the hike with our day bags only – which was good, because the trail went up very steeply for quite a while. I enjoyed the hike much more than the day before though: We were in no rush to make some bus at the end of the day, there were much less other people and Mathijs found me a good walking stick. Also, we got a really nice map from the park with little stations, descriptions, time estimates etc. It made the walk as a whole really enjoyable because instead of thinking about the whole trail, we went from one station to the next – some with some nice views over the area. Later, the trail flattened out a bit and we reached a couple of pretty lakes where we took our lunch break when we found a good spot. Learned from the day before!

Re-energized, we made our way up the last steep climb to the mirador. So far, we had missed the WOW factor about this hike… well, once we reached the top not anymore! We were treated with an amazing view in all directions, lakes to our feet and snow-capped volcanoes on the horizon. A total of four volcanoes can be spotted from up here, of which Villarica and Lanin are the most picturesque ones. What added to the views were the cool araucania trees growing everywhere – some of the strangest looking trees I’ve ever seen.

We thoroughly enjoyed the views and then slowly made our way down the mountain, taking our time not to arrive too early at the campsite where there was not much left to do other than have picnic dinner and fight over our food with numerous cats and dogs. Camping life!

Vanuatu, World Trip 2018-19

Tanna – in the eye of the volcano

Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

We came to Tanna to see Vanuatu’s most popular tourist attraction: Mt Yasur, a volcano that erupts regularly every few minutes – a spectacle which can be observed from the crater rim, very close to the action. Unfortunately the whole Yasur tourism area is managed by a kind of mafia organization, asking way too high prices for transportation and entry. We tried to get past these costs as we usually do – but it was pretty much impossible this time. When we landed on our tiny 8 passenger aircraft, there were no other tourists to share a van to Yasur with, and no local trucks either. So we were stuck with chartering a truck for 5.000 Vatu to get us to the accommodation near Yasur.

On our first afternoon we went for a walk around the ashplains which was quite impressive. However our main reason for the walk was to find out if there’s a way we could climb the volcano by ourselves. There would be a spot kind of where the ash goes over into some greener jungly area – but… Weather turned really bad with rain all night and all next day, so we didn’t get a chance to try getting up there. By then, we were running out of time: if our own way up wouldn’t work out for some reason, it might be that we would leave Tanna without seeing Yasur. Also, we heard from a French couple who had gone up that way with an unofficial guide and who first of all didn’t feel too safe there and second, didn’t see the main crater and explosions from over there. We spoke with a lot of people and in the end we figured out that we just had to suck it up and pay the steep 9.750 VT entry fee and go on an official tour… You win some, you lose some.

Mt Yasur in the distance
Mt Yasur close-up
The „road“ across the ashplain

We signed up for the sunset tour since it was our last evening and we didn’t want to risk the sunrise tour not going through for whatever reason. If you can – do the sunrise tour, there’s less people going on these and you’re not forced to watch some cultural dances before (which goes off the time you have on the volcano in the end). So anyways, we ended up watching the dances which at least gave me the chance to snap some photos of people in their traditional outfits, even if no-one wears them anymore like this today.

Then finally we were put on jeeps and shipped up the volcano, almost all the way to the crater rim. The first impressions were good: lots of smoke coming out of the crater, rumbling sounds and every few minutes an eruption which sent a shock wave across the ground. From the first viewpoints we were only able to see some parts of the lava when it was splashing especially high. Luckily we were able to go to better viewpoints further on the left which give you the full view of the spectacle. If you can get to these viewpoints depends on the wind – and actually we had quite some smoke coming our way already, and ash rain after the eruptions… No easy conditions and my camera may have suffered…but IT. WAS. PRETTY. DAMN. AWESOME!!! Honestly, seeing real volcanic eruptions with red lava being thrown high into the air from so close-by, was one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in my life! We ended up paying a guide a little extra to be allowed to stay an extra hour when everyone else had to go down. It was very much worth the extra 1.000 VT given that a 2nd visit to Yasur would still cost 6.500 VT. Plus we got to see some more really big explosions which was awesome!!

All in all, visiting Yasur was certainly a highlight. The high cost gives it a bitter taste though. You really feel like a walking wallet when visiting Tanna as a tourist, which is sad. Also, not much – if any – of this money goes to the locals on Tanna… Sigh. But it is a must see when visiting Vanuatu, so you can’t really get around it. The rest of Tanna doesn’t have too much to offer: one day we walked around some local villages and another day we walked all the way to Port Resolution – a 2 h walk, one way. We walked because again transport would have been too expensive and at least 2 h is a manageable distance. Port Resolution is a nice little village with a large black sand bay and a smaller white sand beach.

After 1 h, we’d seen it and made our way back to Tree Top Lodge, where we were camping. Luckily some locals gave us a ride half way – until we reached some kind of local festival with soccer matches going on, food stalls and music. It was fun to watch for a bit!

Then we wanted to leave Tanna for Port Vila – however there had been an incident (crash landing…!) at Vila airport with an earlier flight from Tanna, so ours got cancelled. After some hours of waiting, Air Vanuatu at least had the decency to put us in a nearby hotel, dinner and breakfast included. Mind you, they were not able to tell us if we’d be able to fly next day and if so, at what time. It took us the whole next morning and many annoying phone calls to Air Vanuatu again to secure our seats, respectively talk them into arranging an extra flight since the regular ones were fully booked. Lol. Definitely not going to miss travelling on Air Vanuatu! And I’m so thankful we were not on the flight that crash-landed. We met an American family who was, and even though no-one got injured, they did think they were going to die for a whole f…n 30 min!! Seriously… this airlines needs to get its shit together.