Ring of Fire

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
Two years ago today most of the people reading this were shaking their money maker on the dance floor at our wedding. 2 years!!! And my hubby and I are on different continents :(
Sad, but true. We plan to postpone this year´s anniversary to November 12 when Dave arrives in Punta Arenas.
So, yesterday was the highlight of the trip so far. I climbed Volcan Villarrica. It was awesome. The top is literally a crater with lava churning and spouting down in it. From one point on the outside of the crater you can actually look down and see the inside of the earth. It was fantastico! It took forever to get to the top because I went with the guiding company that my roommate at the hostel chose. It consisted of us and a group of American exchange students. They had some major difficulties and didn´t know what they were in for. My new friend and I kicked all of their young butts and made it to the top easily while almost a third of them abandoned the mission. This is the trouble with tv and video games apparently. We were definitely the last group to the top due to these slow 19-year-olds and a late start. The climb was about 3800 feet up and not technical or dangerous at all. It was all on snow and parts were steep, so we used crampons and ice axes. Then to come down we slid down using the ice axe as a controlling and breaking mechanism. It was so great! I definitely won´t splurge on many more things like this, but I couldn´t pass this up. The volcanoe is just staring at you from outside of town asking to be climbed. In hindsight I should have paid the extra to ski up and back down but I wasn´t sure what the snow conditions would be like - or the ski equipment for that matter. The guides made us wear these terrible plastic boots to fit the crampons because they didn´t have the kind that fit over regular hiking boots. Blisters were a serious problem. Imagine spending a day in plastic, used, larger versions of bowling shoes with other people´s sweat in them.
The hostel doesn´t have the volunteer forest restoration program I thought it did... oh well. I did start my spanish lessons today with a great local woman.
Some other info on Chile:
In Santiago, a cafe is sometimes a coffee shop and sometimes a skin show. You often can easily tell the difference, but the rule of thumb is to determine if you can see inside the cafe from the street or not.
I can´t wait to show everyone the lava pics! So cool!