"Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans"

At this point we were not exactly thinking much about Christmas, other than we decided to find a nice spot to relax over the holidays. That place was Pucón. Although it is a bit touristy, it is an extremely lovely place and it was not as touristy as it was when I last visited (the season was just about to start). It has a lot to offer in the form of tours, spectacular scenery, treks, hot springs, adventure sports, water sports and a lake where you can lie on the beach and jump in the water if you feel like it. The lake lies in the front of the village and behind it rises the constantly smoking, 2847m high volcán Villarica. Since 1558 there have been recorded 61 eruptions and the last on was in 1985. According to the locals a new big one is due any minute. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending how much of a volcano fan you are) nothing happened while we were there. One morning (boxing day) Kathleen went up to the top. I had been there before (see blog: January 2006) and as it was very expensive (not to mention pretty hard) I had a sleep in while she got up at 4 in the morning climbed up to the 200m wide crater at the top and slid back down in the snow. (see Kathleen's blog with photos HERE.) She was back around 13:00 where I met her with a rose to congratulate her on her achievement, a mayor achievement if I may say so. Well done Kathleen! :)

The Chilean people celebrate Christmas differently than us. Maybe it would be accurate to say: less obviously. While we decorate everything short of the family cat, they are more modest. If you were travelling on your own with no-one to remind you of Christmas it might actually pass you by unnoticed. The Chileans go to church though; not like us just at Christmas, maybe Easter and special occasions but all the time and, they being Catholic like most of south America, their churches are very spectacular. Many places before Christmas you see the very common nativity scene (baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, an angel, shepards and the three wise men in the stable.) You do however not see Jesus in the crib until the 25. of December, simply because he isn't born yet. This we found out in Puerto Varas and thought maybe someone had stolen it or it had fallen out of the crib.

Apart from Kathleen climbing the Volcano and us taking it easy for the most of the holidays, we went to a hot spring one night. It was nice enough but for me they were more like the "luke warm springs". We did though have a great view of a sunset over the volcano. The funniest thing for me was taking a shower afterwards as there was no hot water in the showers!! In this area there are about 7 or 8 hot springs around the volcano but the water in the showers is cold...weird if you ask me.

On our last night a strange thing happened: Every day at 12 noon there was a test of the warning system a siren that would tell everybody to evacuate in case of an eruption. (it was funny to be downtown at noon and watch all the tourist who had just arrived looking with great concern up towards the volcano) Anyway, on our last night, about 11:15 the siren sounded!..I must admit that something like that has the tendency to send shivers down your spine. I of course rushed out and looked up but there was nothing unusual. Then it stopped. The locals did not seem to be too concerned. So I went back to the room hoping that it was just a technical failure and it probably happened all the time...but I hardly slept a wink that night...believe you me.