Changes Suddenly

Don't think I'm crapping out just because I'm not writing. Just the opposite, I've been very busy. After Valparaiso, I hopped over the High Andes pass to Mendoza, the most bizarrely European city I've ever seen (and I've been to Europe). Wide tree-lined avenues, limitless cafes, blah blah. Kinda boring really.

What sustained me was a proclivity for adventurous and stupid shit. I started Mendoza by paragliding (insisting on extra spins and flips, of course), and devolved into drunk biking. Mendoza is famous for its wineries, and biking between them while ever-increasingly sloshed is a regional pastime. Martin, Bart and I only managed to hit 2 before we got loose and goofy, getting lost on the return and requiring police escort back to town.

However, Mendoza just wasn't that exciting. I decided to up the ante by visiting Pucon, the alleged adventure capitol of Chile. Well, the trip there wasn't exciting, unless you count 4 hours stuck in customs as a thrillride. And the first day wasn't that exciting, as whitewater kayaking was booked and I had to settle on an unseaworthy plastic craft on the placid (but pretty) lake. I followed it the next day with a visit to the neigh-unpronounceable Huerquehue National Park. Nothing stops the heart more than 3 hours of running uphill because the shit bus schedule only gives you 4 hours in a giant park. I did see cool Monkeypuzzle trees though (google it).

However, this was all a warm-up. What I really came for was the perfect triangular snowcone of Villarrica Volcano. The monster smoulders over Pucon, threatening it regularly with death-by-mudslide, or worse. The town square actually has a volcanic traffic light system, where green means 'fine', yellow means 'get the fuck out', and red means 'if you are seeing this, your flesh is melting'. Handy system. The town also has evacuation route signs posted everywhere, pointing panicked people people towards the peninsula jutting out into the town's lake. Another clever system, as everybody knows the best place to be during an eruption is pinned between a pyroclastic flow and a large body of water.

Well, that's all well and good for the townspeople, but something like an active volcano is a beacon for me, a red lava flag encouraging me to charge. I booked with my hostel to climb the next day, barring of course foul weather. Weather.com said tomorrow was going to be sunny. Accuweather called for a clouds and a slight chance of rain. Weatherbug prophecized storms. Welcome to the Great Austral, ya?

I woke up at 6, ungodly early for me, and clawed my way to the window. Only the slightest whisp of mare's tail clouds hung in the air, perfect climbing weather. I threw on my clothes, tossed a few cookies down my gullet (breakfast of champions), and ran to the tour agency. They gave us a bag with snowpants, a windbreaker, hiking boots, crampons, a helmet, icepick strapped to the side, and a mysterious piece of synthetic fabric whose purpose I'd only learn about later. We were crammed in a bus, and before we were even woke up, off we went.

We were given an option. The real men could slog up the steep muddy side, through the thick slush of melting snow, and across the ankle-bending softpack to reach the start of the ice. Or we could pay a little extra and opt to take the skilift part of the way up the mountain. We unanimously voted to take the lift.

It was broken. We walked.

Distances are deceptive. What looked like a 20 minute trek just to the end of the chairlift became an hour and a half, and that's only a short way up the mountain. Looking back, it looked like we'd never moved at all. Then suddenly we looked back, and Pucon was just a tiny circle of prime real estate, the overpriced resorts and summer houses merely a blur against an otherwise unmarred landscape. We were high up. Tiny marshmellow cloudpuffs had started to form, but the view remained clear from here over the High Andes pass, over more postcard volcanos, well into Argentina.

Tony grabbed for his little videocam and started filming. I met him on this climb, a young man in the film industry, working as a cameraman for an indie Canadian documentary on Chile. Apparently he's also a music video producer, and occasional movieman. The resume he spouted off sounded improbable at best for a boy my age, but even if he were lying, the ease, complexity, and extravagence of his story (and business cards) would've placed him as a Hollywood man (or the Canadian equivilent) anyway.

We struck up a surprisingly easy friendship for two people so far apart in life. We do have something in common though, my amateur photography gives me a creative streak he could relate to. Believe it or not, my photos are good, and you should be looking at them (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155265&id=3108199&l=568d870c69). Tony agreed, and wants to use my photos in the documentary. Stay tuned to discover if I make a sudden career choice to filmmaker.

Anyway. As we continued climbing, the view got increasingly less picturesque. Marshmellows made way for overcast, and soon enough we had no view at all. Ascending higher, we climbed into the overcast, and could barely see more than a few feet in front of our faces. Our icepicks functioned both as walking stick and white cane. A light snow starting falling, and a heavy wind started blowing. In these conditions, climbing could be dangerous. The guides had the option of turning us around, but decided since we were so close (more than an hour) from the top, we should just keep climbing, so we did.

The guides, it seemed, had a sixth sense for these things. As we finally mounted the final push, the clouds started clearing. We were treated at the top to a broken, but beautiful, view of the valley below, atleast 260° degrees in most directions. A touch of snow still came down, but something odd was mixed in...

"Wait," you might be thinking. "Why only 260°?" Well, a cookie for anyone who guessed correctly: There was a crater blocking our view. Our position, in hindsight, was a bit precarious. One side was a steep decent way, way down. The other side was a poison-spewing hole in the earth.

I of course chose the poison hole. Edging closer and closer towards the sharp drop in, I could just begin to make out the actual vent, the glowing gullet that leads deep underground and into the boiling magma beneath Pucon's feet. It belched and spat sulfurous smoke and carbon monoxide in our faces. We all coughed and gagged, slowly choking to death to get one more slightly-closer photograph. You should've been there.

Unfortunately, our time at the top was limited, partially by our slow uncomfortable asphixiations, but also because the weather was starting to turn again. The clouds were returning with a vengence. Now we learned what the mysterious piece of cloth was for. A vaguely-square piece with straps to wrap tight around our waist and legs -it was, for lack of a better term, a soft toboggan. We were meant to slide out way back down the mountain.

And that's exactly what we did. I took a running start, and kicked my feet out from under me. I landed hard on my back, squashing my backpack, slamming my helmet into my bed, feeling the wind slapped out of me. Then I started sliding. Faster. Faster. Vaguely out of control... and a stop. Into a snowbank.

We got up laughing and ran to the next slope. "Hey Tony, a race!" Dozens of sledders before us had carved tracks into the ice, and we each picked one and jumped. His was smoother, so he expected to go faster. Mine was full of cruel bumps the whole way down. I hit the first one and went flying into the air, crashing back at an awkward angle, momentum not slowed the slightest. Seconds later I hit the next one, then another. My body flopped around like a ragdoll, nearly turning me around head-first. Snow shot up my pants, down my shirt, into my face and filling my nose. I couldn't see where I was or where I was going or how fast I was doing it. All I know is that when I finally came to a stop, I was far, far lower down the mountain than I was before, and I'd won the race. The two of us were both soaked to the bone, but Tony later had to go to the hospital for severe frostbite. I won twice.

After this point, the mountain started to flatten out too much for sledding, try as we might, using our ice picks like canoe paddles. Doesn't work. We tried walking out, but when you try walking sideways on a slope through slush while gravity pulls you down in a different direction, you just end up stumbling like a drunk, threatening your ankles every step. Our legs and joints were starting to get very angry at us, and the sky replied in kind, getting darker by the minute, nearly black. A clear gust front developed, and the hard wind threatened to toss us over the side.

It wasn't long before the rain started, and the rain quickly turned to sleet. Then the sleet started becoming harder... no, this wasn't sleet. Hail was pouring down, getting bigger every minute. The hail itself wasn't too big, pea-sized at worst, but highway speed winds turned them into missles, pummeling our heads, necks, and arms. We started running. Helmets started sprouting from bags, but our necks were left vulnerable. I tried covering mine with my hand, but it only made my hand hurt. Instead, I found myself crouching, like a turtle into my own body, hoping my helmet could protect me everywhere. I hunched over and turned inward and suddenly wished I was somewhere else. Then the lightning came.

We'd been hearing rumbles in the distance, rumbles which evolved into sharp cracks. But this wasnt a crack. This was sub-audible, a shove, a slap. Something terrifying. The thunder wasn't near us, but above us, the sound was the shockwave strafing our heads. The lightning had hit the top of a skilift pole, mere meters from where I was standing. I instinctively huddled up, involuntarily releasing from my mouth some sad hybrid of a yell and a moan. I stopped running then, my survival instinct robbed from me. I just started walking, slowly, swinging my metal icepick near the ground. Lightning continued to strike ground around us, once even throwing half a dozen people to the ground with its force. I kept walking. Running was useless now, and all I could do is play the numbers game and hope lightning hit one of the dozens of others and not me.

As some of you might know, I have a history with lightning. I've been nearly hit more than my share of times (thanks Kyra). Lightning is a raw power that makes me feel my mortality more than anything else on Earth, more than standing on the precipice of a live volcano. Here I think I came closer to being hit than ever before.

But the lightning, somehow, never hit any of us. We made it back to the vans and headed back to town. By the time we arrived, the sun was shining again. The people in town had barely seen rain, and not a hint of hail. I was still shivering, soaked in icewater, but still unhinged. I was cold. And wet. Hurt. Scared. And damn did I feel alive.