Argentina

November 6-29, 2009

November 21: Vólcan lanín

Today was all about two of the main features of Parque Nacional Lanín: the Lanín volcano and the auracaria trees (a.k.a. Monkey Puzzle trees!). Since we weren't about to do a 2-3 day guided trek up the volcano, we decided instead to do an earthcache that was close to the volcano, with a little hike to get to a lookout and which talked a bit about the volcano. And although we had seen a couple of monkey puzzle trees already on our trip, today we were hoping to find an entire forest of monkey puzzle trees.

By the time we were done all of the planned activities for the day we still had quite a bit of time left in the day and since we were not eager to go back to the hotel, we decided to take another route into the interior park and to see the volcano from the Huechulafquen area to the south of the volcano. There we had fun playing ploumps along a stream and collecting "bubble rocks" - volcanic rocks, presumably from the Vólcan Lanín.

the photos: