Tupungato Volcano

After our day of skiing and learning about convergent subduction boundaries we spent the night at our hotel and then got up in the morning. We boarded a big Greyhound bus and drove north toward Santiago to visit Tupungato, a massive extinct volcano that rises 3,300 feet above the neighboring peaks and lies at 33 deg 21' 16" S and 69 deg 46' 7" W. We also saw Tupungatito (little Tupungato) which is still active and has had at least 18 eruptions since 1829. It is southwest of Tupungato and also quite massive. These mountains are in Provincial Park and are very difficult to climb. We went on some day hikes in the park and looked all the interesting species of plants and animals. These two volcanoes were created because of the subducting Nazca plate and the Tupungatito' last eruption was in 1986. There was recently a 4.6 earthquake at the summit in 2009 and are often small shocks around the area.


http://images.travelpod.com/users/anaronnie/1.1263206063.tupungato-volcano.jpg

We left the park and drove back to Rancagura so we could spend the rest of the day at our leisure and packed our bags for the next stop in our tour around the world.

- Katherine