Villa Rica

Hello friends!

I just realized that I never gave a rundown of the trip! So, here goes: Nathan and I are here with my mom April and her husband Pierre for the first three weeks. We have rented a car and are driving through Chile. Tomorrow we get on a ferry that will take us down to the Southern tip of Patagonia. After that we have not totally decided what we will do, but it will probably involve going into Argentina (also by car). They leave on January 14 and then Nathan and I are going to take Spanish somewhere between here and Uruguay for a few weeks. On February first we are meeting up with some missionaries in Punta del Este Uruguay for about ten days. Next on the docket involves exploring Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia (no plans yet) and getting to Cuzco, Peru by March 18 to meet up with our dear friend Linda. We are doing the four day trek up to Machu Piccu with her, followed by some more exploring of Peru. After we part ways with Linda we are going to take on Ecuador and Columbia, with a stop over in Belize to meet up with Nathan´s brother and family, arriving back in Canada on May 23.

So, now that the air is cleared: yesterday we climbed a volcano called Villa Rica and it was INCREDIBLE. Oh my was it gorgeous. It is a climb that takes between 3.5 and 5 hours involving ice axes and lots of fun. We had a few great guides and a generally awesome experience. We got to the top of the cone in about 3.5 hours and were quite exhausted but also impressed by the views. The smoke of the lava knocked the breath right out of us when it blew into our faces. It was ridiculous! And after all of the hard work of climbing up, we got the slide down! Yowzers that was a great time. It was a toboggan ride of almost 4 kilometers, sliding on canvas diaper type things and a plastic disc that was attatched to the diaper thing. The speeds you could reach were quite high, and so the ice axe was always in hand as a brake. We had a complete blast, and are now looking forward to the ferry ride. There have been many warnings about getting sea sick though, so we will see how it goes!

Have a splendid New Years!

Big love,

Chloe (and Nathan)