Our second day on the Pachamama bus was our longest travel day for this tour. We were covering over 700 kilometers and the kids were not happy. Our first rest break was in a town called Santa Cruz. We visited the Museo de Colchagua. This is Chile's largest private museum and was built by Carlos Cardoen, who made his money dealing weapons. He was once on the top ten most wanted list in the US, but we were told he had negotiated an amnesty.

As far as museums go, this was pretty impressive. The collection was vast and contained fossils, pre-columbian artifiacts, Chilean war memorabilia, jewelry, coins-it even had an exhibit on the 2010 widely publicized Chilean minor rescue.

One of the capsules created to rescue the minors

We left the museum about noon and wouldn't arrive in our final destination for at least 8 more hours. During the ride we had to make an important decision. We were told about the Villarica Volcano and we were given the opportunity to climb it. The company needed to know how many spots to reserve. Maeve was excited about the prospect of climbing the still active volcano, but I'm sure she didn't have a concept of the difficulty of the task. It's 2,847 meters high (9,338 ft.). The crater at the top is 200 meters wide. It is known as the most active volcano in South America and has erupted ten times in the last century (1992 was most recent).

The youngest age allowed to climb is 12. Maeve wanted to go and I was up for the unique challenge, so the two of us signed up. We would be stopping at the agency in Pucón to get our information and equipment. We figured if we didn't like what we saw, we could just back out at the agency.

We had been able to see the volcano miles before the town it's named after. I couldn't believe how much snow was on it. It was definitely intimidating. We asked if we could stop the bus in Villarica so we could take some pictures.

A google pic of a view of the crater from an airplane

Once in Pucón (about 20 minutes past Villarica), we stopped at the agency. We were briefed on the climb. Yikes. In summer months you can take the ski lift up part of the way. This saves two hours of hiking. We were under the understanding that this would be the case. We didn't know it wasn't functioning in the spring....so no ski lift. I was really banking on that boost. Oh, well. Maeve still wanted to go, so we were fitted for boots, pants, jacket, helmets, and sun glasses.

The agency would pick us up at 6:25 a.m. It was after 9 and we hadn't even gotten to our hostel or eaten dinner. Not a good start for such an ambitious endeavor the following day.