Southern Chile

From Bariloche, we crossed the Andes and the border into the final country of my trip, CHILE. The Andes are beautiful and snow capped and apparently Chile is the Volcano capital of the world. Volcanos are everywhere, including two near Puerto Varas, our next stop on the journey.

Puerto Varas is about six hours by bus from Bariloche. On rgw map, it looks like a straight line, but the roads obviously don´t go straight between the two. We did get to experience the PanAmerican Highway in Chile, the first real highway of the trip. I can see that Chile is the most wealthy of all the places I have been and seems to have its act together.

Puerto Varas is a small tourist town on a lake just outside Puerto Montt, which is one of the largest cities in Southern Chile. Puerto Varas is small and quaint and perfect for outdoor activities. We had two nights but only one full day there (MY BIRTHDAY), so we decided to go whitewater rafting in the nearby Petrohue river with class 3 and 4 rapids. The best part of this river is that you have beautiful views of two huge volcanos. One, called Osorno, is the volcano that you dream about. It´s a perfect snow covered cone, beautiful, majestic and most importantly, dormant. The pictures are great.

And this was my first time whitewater rafting. It was very tiring and much more work than I expected but really exciting nonetheless and a great way to spend my 25th birthday. I don´t think I ever would have imagined rafting in Chile as a way to spend my birthday, but it was great.

We then had a nice dinner and night on the town at a place called ´The Garage´. They love their american themed bars down here. And their casinos. Every town seems to have one, but no Hold em that we have found yet and mostly just slot machines.

Thanks for all the b-day wishes. Wednesday we travelled another six hours by bus to Pucon, the tourist capital of Southern Chile. So they day. It´s pretty quiet in the offseason. And I´ll tell you all about Pucon in the next blog in a few days when I´m done with the city.

Southern Chile is really beautiful. The mountains, lakes and volcanos are very nice to look at. But it is very sleepy in the offseason with few gringos around and not much to do besides outdoor activities which aren´t quite at their peak. It isn´t cold enough to snow but too cold to really enjoy the water and other outdoor sports. But I´m still having a great time and can´t believe that the trip is ending so soon.

Go Blackhawks. Beat those Wings.

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Part of trip: Great South American Journey

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