Volcan Lanin Trek

Junin is the gateway to Parque Nacional Lanin, famous for it's 3700m volcano complete with a perfect snow-capped cone. We decided that we'd trek the 25km up to the snow line and back before we moved on, and it was an amazing walk. It was another early start to catch the bus into the park, early enough to catch the hawks going through the rubbish bags outside our tent. I'd always considered these birds to be the majestic, fearsome scourge of the skies, but here they're just fancy-plumed bums that go through your bins at night.
The walk begins with a sign warning you of some nasty-looking yellow biting flies, saying that they can cause an allergic reaction. We assume that because neither of us are allergic to bees, we'll be fine. As it turned out, we didn't pay enough attention to the photo of the insect, and convinced ourselves that the yellow biting flies that carpeted our skin throughout most of the walk were the fatal kind, and spent a lot of the walk looking like we were at a silent disco. The walk winds through dense old-growth forest, bamboo and wild horses, past rivers and streams, before breaking the tree-line into high pastures and clear glacial streams that you can drink from. Just below the snow-line the ground is littered with pumice stone in oranges and reds, and black volcanic sand. We even walked for a while with a firewoman from Buenos Aires who had the appeal of looking similar to Angelina Jolie, but the unnerving quality of reminding us both of Sarah Connor from the Terminator. She very kindly offered to take us out in Buenos Aiores when we get there; We think her casual military attire, love of motorbikes (and long list of crash stories), and part time job as road-accident photographer for the fire department make her the most interesting prospect yet.


When we got back to Junin at around midnight, we walked straight into a Carnival procession, complete with dancers, floats and clowns. We're not sure what it was celebrating (bumper trout harvest?) but it was an amazing mixture of colour, humour and noise. Think Notting Hill Carnival without the attitude, gangs and stabbings. As ever, it was a family affair with kids and babies out well past 2am, mostly darting into the procession to cover the dancers in silly string. The party carried on long after we went back to the tent, catching a glimpse of guilty beaks as we passed the bins.