Osorno volcano: Breathtaking views and a little drama
Our destination: the imposing Osorno volcano. The route took us to the valley station of the lift, and what initially looked like a perfect excursion turned into a real adventure with breathtaking views, warm encounters and an unexpected technical glitch.
Arrival at Osorno volcano - One cloud too many
The view from below was spectacular: the snow-covered cone of the Osorno volcano rose majestically above a perfectly positioned cloud bank. A sight straight out of a picture book.
But we had no idea: This cloud was right at the level of the valley station of the lift – and so we were suddenly standing in thick fog. Visibility? Zero.
We looked for a nice parking space to take in the scenery. But when the fog finally lifted, we realized that we had parked in the middle of a hiking trail. So the first thing we had to do was re-park.
Monika's hike to the crater - experience the power of nature up close
While Christoph chatted with the other Overlanders at the volcano, Monika decided to go on a hike to one of the craters. The whole hike took about 1.5 hours, but if you’re sporty you’ll certainly manage it much faster.
It’s impressive to see the power of nature so directly in front of your eyes.
Three days at the volcano: community, cake and sunsets
One of the best things about being an overlander is the encounters along the way. Here at the Osorno volcano, we met some other travelers – including Irene and Edwin, with whom we spontaneously celebrated a special occasion: Edwin’s 75th birthday!
Monika didn’t take long to ask and baked a cake – and because celebrations need to be celebrated, Edwin got a colorful star decoration on top. Monika’s opinion: „You’re never too old for a slightly kitschy birthday cake!“ So Edwin had to live with the decorations.
We spent three wonderful days at the volcano, enjoying spectacular sunsets, great conversations with other overlanders and the incredible views.
The drama: A cable breaks and Monika's nerves are on edge
But while we were enjoying the volcano, a little drama was brewing in the background: The charging cable for our accounting laptop broke!
Anyone who knows Monika knows that bookkeeping is not exactly her favorite subject – but if it has to be done, then please do it without technical complications. The mood was correspondingly low.
Fortunately, Irene and Edwin immediately tried to help:
- Edwin measured the defective cable and checked whether it could still be saved.
- Irene searched through her equipment for a possible replacement.
Unfortunately without success. So we had to spontaneously change our plans – instead of continuing towards Argentina, we decided to drive to the city of Osorno on Sunday evening so that we could look for a suitable replacement on Monday morning.
Mission cable search in Osorno
Finding a suitable replacement wasn’t that easy. When you have to rely on your laptop on the road, you realize how much you depend on little things like that. It would be so easy if the authentication stick for our accounting program also ran on Apple – but it doesn’t.
After some searching, we found what we were looking for: A new cable including an adapter for our European socket. Because – how could it be otherwise – the plug naturally didn’t fit into our setup in the Unimog.
For Monika’s nerves, we then had a reconciliation cake in the town. We then drove back to the petrol station, where we met Barbara and Johannes again. We had already met them at the volcano and it was nice to catch up again.
The scenery? A perfect sunset between the trucks with the humming of the surrounding engines.