South American Adventure

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Hi everyone
To continue our travels in Chile - we flew from Santiago to Puerto Montt on the way to Puerto Varas. This is a lovely little lakeside place (Lake Llanquihue). Beyond the lake was a beautiful snow covered volcano (Osorno) - so pictuesque. The beach was crowded, but the black volcanic sand was not to our liking. The water was crystal clear. Puerto Varas is known as the city of roses - they are everywhere. Many Germans settled here in the late 1800´s, and their influence can be seen in the buildings and the food. We cannot believe how many roses we have seen in S A. We heard some wonderful musicians here - another surprise. There was a fabulous concert in the street, where we heard all sorts of music including a very nice choir singing the Slaves Chorus from "Nabucco". This is one of our favourite pieces of music, so they must have done it just for us. We had several trips to surrounding areas from here. In Frutillar (which means strawberry) there was a sculpture of a grand piano on the beach. So I had to play a tune on that! On the way back we had lunch on a farm, and you´ll never guess what we saw in the paddock with the llamas, goats, sheep and cattle - an emu! We went to the volcano the next day and Gordon went up to see the snow in a chair lift. (I couldn´t go up because I had to stay on the ground to take photos of him. That´s my story anyway - I hate chairlifts!)
The next day we had such a surprise in store for us. This part of our trip was planned in Santiago with two Chilean friends and a Chilean travel agent. So with their broken English and our broken Spanish, we didn´t quite follow what was being planned. On the way, our driver told us that we were going to a very nice place. What an understatement! We didn´t know it, but we were heading for a thermal spa resort at Puyehue. A "puye" is a small native fish and "hue" means place of, so that is what the name means.
We could not believe where we were. This 5 star hotel was enormous, so opulent, and EVERYTHING was included. We swam in a beautiful thermal pool, with the most wonderful, relaxing music playing, and have never felt so relaxed in our lives. We could sip cocktails, dine in the French, Italian and Winter Garden restaurant all inclusive. We had a wonderful 3 days here and really didn´t want to leave. After this we began the journey to Argentina. From Puerto Varas we took a bus to Lago Esmeralda (Emerald Lake) and then sailed across it in a catamaran, arriving at Puella. From here Gordon took a helicopter ride over the lakes, glaciers and volcanoes of the Andes, even flying into the crater of a volcano. Puella is a village of 120 people in the middle of nowhere, but with a lovely hotel for the tourists.
Next day we crossed the border into Argentina and went by bus, boat, bus, boat and bus. We had lunch at Puerto Blest, and when we came out of the restaurant we were greeted by an array of bean bags outside the door, containing sleeping Argentinians, having their siesta. It really was a funny sight. This was a really lovely trip. The lakes were different colors due to the minerals in the water. In the afternoon we arrived at Bariloche, also a very picturesque city on the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi. We passed many beautiful houses and hotels along the lake. We took a cable car to Cerro Otto and had lunch in revolving restaurant atop the mountain - beautiful views once again. We saw many things on a bus trip that afternoon including the magnificen Liao Lioa hotel. It is named after the liao liao, which is a mushroom which grows on trees and actually kills the tree. Bariloche is noted for its chocolate which really is lovely - every bit as good as Swiss chocolate. Gordon took a chairlift to Cerro Campanario, the views from which have been declared to be one of the best 10 in the world.
Next day we took a bus trip to San Martin over the most dreadful and dangerous gravel road. But like everything else - we survived it. Work commenced on this road in 1960 and only about 12 kilometres has been sealed after all these years. Corruption at work again!
El Calafarte to see the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia was the next port of call. The landscape around El Calafarte was so dry and barren and very desolate. There were no trees, just thousands of plastic bags scattered across the landscape, and it was very unappealing. However, we had a wonderful hotel with wonderful service once again, and the experience at the glacier made it all worth while. No pictures can do this justice. The glacier rises 50 metres above the water and extends for 100 metres below. Large chunks of ice are continually crashing into the water from the face of the glacier, and it makes a sound like gunfire. The ice at the front of the glacier is 300 years old - hard to get one´s head around things like this. Perito Moreno is special because it is one of the few glaciers which is not diminishing in size, because the replenishment at the top is the same as the loss of ice at the face. The calafarte is a small berry used for jams and sauces and gives the name to the town.
It was extremely windy at the airport, difficult to walk up the steps onto the plane. We flew to Buenos Aires that day, but unfortunatley had a shortened stay because our flight out was re-scheduled again. This has happened more than once and is most disconcerting. When you have paid for flights and excursions and hotels and have to re-arrange all your plans mid tour, it is unfortunate. We saw very little of B A, but liked a lot of what we saw. There are many beautiful buildings, trees and statues, but we could not believe our eyes when we saw the huge piles of rubbish at street corners, even in the hotel and restaurant areas. Huge bags of rubbish were brought out of the buildings in the evenings (I don´t know how anyone could accumulate so much rubbish every day). Then people would tear open the bags and go through the rubbish, but it would all be gone by morning. We loved the bottle trees, known as drunken trees with their masses of lovely pink flowers, but they had large thorns on the trunks. We had a trip to La Boca, where the buildings are a mish mash of corrugated iron in many different colours. They were painted originally by Italians who were short of money and used any left over paint they could get their hands on. This was a fascinating place with lots of art work and sculptures. Tango dancers were everywhere and we have some lovely!! shots of ourselves doing the tango. In the afternoon we went for a trip to El Tigre in the delta of the River Plate. That night we went to a tango show, where we were entertained by wonderful singers, dancers and instrumentalists, including a lovely performance of "Don´t Cry for Me Argentina". The show was fabulous, but the dinner not so. The steak was so tough that Gordon was wishing he had taken a chain saw with him. The people at the next table sent their meals back three times, and ended up not eating anything. However the previous night we had dinner at "El Establo" where Gordon declared it was the best steak he had ever eaten. It was so thick, but so tender, and they served the best Sangria we have ever had also.
Next time we´ll take you to Paraguay and some more surprises.
Love to all
Mary and Gordon

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