No hablamos mucho espanol: Rapids, crampons and where's the German?

This part of our travels brought us north from El Bolson to Pucon, the self-proclaimed 'adventure capital of the Lake District'. En route, we passed through the rather drab town of Osorno, where the most fun we had was Susan trying to milk a statue of a cow, very unsuccessfully. From here we pressed on to the bustling coastal town of Valdivia, which hosts a unique and character-filled fish market, which is certainly the highlight of the town. The first half of the pictures show our time there, where we enjoyed fishermen feeding their scraps to the fighting sea lions and justling pelicans. We spent over an hour enjoying the locals and sea life going about their daily life.
After one night in Valdivia, we headed east, along the shores of Lago Calafquen, to Pucon, a fun little village dotted with tour agencies, restaurants, bike shops and bakeries. We stayed in a fantastic little Germanic-styled hostel, Donde German (pronounced Herman, the owner's name, not German, as we thought for the first few days) which felt more like a hotel than a hostel. Best shower on the trip yet! The next 5 days were spent white water rafting, hiking Chile's second most active volcano, Volcan Villarica, a bike trip around the lake and a downhill mountain bike run for Gordon on the volcano. A great 5 days and we'll keep it at that for now and let you enjoy the pictures this time around.

Out of shot is the urn that Susan was hoping to fill.

Locals haggle the fish prices

Look closer and the pelican has his eyes firmly on that fish...

Busy day for this gentleman; opposite the fish market was a nice little veg market

Steve, Roy and Gilbert 'head'-ing out on the Valdivia streets. Get it ;-)

As we were admiring the sealions, this pretty number flew in.

Tyrone awaiting his snack...

These chaps were all over the place. Very entertaining. They had a certain unexpected grace to their flight.

Susan trying to get a tan.

Very funny trying to take a picture of these guys. As you edged closer by one foot, they would edge out by one foot, very cautiously. As you retreated by one step, they would return one step to their original place.

This guy didn't play the one foot game, he just took off.

In case of a volcanic eruption, please follow the green arrows. Comforting that we were going to walk up this very volcano!

Hello!

Susan nervous about volcano, running from the active volcano (20mins to evacuate) or needing the bathroom...you decide.

Uh-oh!

He was looking at something.

Susan ready to raft in our 'you have no choice to wear it' fetching yellow outfits.

Luis and our raft driver. Really nice chicos.

Where we entered the Rio Trancura and the class 4 rapids (pictures on Disc, no disc drive sorry!).

Our team of us and four Brazilians.

Yellow hotpants. Hot. Pants.

Volcan Villarica on a calm day.

Susan, Michaela and German (our guide) at the onset of our trek up the volcano. Great weather for the day, you can see then just to the right of the first pylon.

This is the old chair lift station. It has seen better days. The eruption in the 70's made sure it didn't go into operation again. It made for a very good potty for Susan and Sabrina during our descent of the volcano. Who needs a newspaper or magazine when you have a view from a chairlift station.

Attaching crampons.

Susan ready to attack the glacier.

Pick and crampons at the ready.

One of the crevices on the glacier. Subsequently, German told Gordon that climbing in these was a bad idea and Susan was angry at Gordon...why?...because....