Edmund who?

Gebs, I have been in Chile since the beginning of March, I am on exchange here for semester 1.

Anyway to more informed readers, hope you all had a good easter. As you'll be aware from my last post I spent the weekend in Pucon with the German couple whom live with me in the flat in Santiago. Friday we hired a pair of motorcycles, without having to present a driving license of any discription and bearing in mind that I had never riden a motorcycle before. Despite almost causing an accident on my first attempt, I soon picked it up and we tore up the local roads all day, the only problem coming when a pack of dogs (suprise, suprise) chased us.

Saturday was our biggest day, we got up at 6am to climb Volcan Villarrica, which is an active volcano just outside of Pucon. It took about 4-5 hours climbing up the glacier through snow to reach the summit, where you can stand and watch whilst the volcano spits and bubbles lava, really quite amazing to think that you can climb it then stand as close as that to the lava- if there were anything like that in oz then the government wouldn't allow you within 10 kms of the damn thing. I think I really looked the part, with huge boots and crampons, an ice pick and huge backpack; the whole way up there Lenz refered to me as Edmund- alluding to Edmund Hillary (the first man to climb Everest, for those of you as badly as informed as Gebs). Coming down was a bit quicker as there are slides carved into the glacier, and you simply slide down the side of this mountain at quite a frightening pace- its a bit like going on a bobsled, but without the bobsled. However you then come back down to the snow line, where the glacier and snow stop and have to walk the rest of the way down.

Saturday evening we went to some thermal spas, which were nice but since they were in the middle of bloddy nowhere we spent most of the time on the bus. On sunday we went horseriding, which seems a bit tame compared to motorcycling or climbing a volcano, but it was another first for me and I had some horse named Ginder (meaning "sweet cherry") with a temperament somewhere between dementure and al-qaeda; the thing was insane. However I managed to stay on and by the end of the ride had a certain degree of control.

I am now back to uni, struggling still. By the way Chile drew 1-1 with Uruguay and this Wednesday play Paraguay. Be in touch soon.