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Published: December 20th 2007
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The Big PDA
forget the big pineapple, I want to see the Giant PDA. Maja annd John do a nice rendition for sizing purposes. Once we arrived in Puerto Montt we headed out to find some tucker and ended up in a fishing village called Angelmo. All these ladies come up to you and try to convince you to eat at their restuarant. So we followed this lady who promised us a traditional Chilean meal of gurante (not sure on the spelling sorry). It has all different meats in it and is cooked in a stew with potatoe and mussels. It was quite delicious and to top it off, the restuarant (which can fit 10 people max) was situated on the waterfront and we got a nice view of the surrounding island and a seal that was just chilling waiting for fish guts YUM! On our adventures afterwards we stumbled upon the Giant PDA (public display of affection). This was not mentioned in any lonely planet or rough guide book, which is sadly disappointing as it is obviously a massive tourist attraction is the highlight of the Puerto Montt for me. (the hiking didn´t occur in Puerto Montt so is seperate)
Afterwards we were convinced by a local fisherman to take us across to the island we had been staring at all lunch. So
Puerto Montt
A view of part of Puerto Montt from a nearby island. we explored the island for a while. There were some awesome views of Puerto Montt and of the surrounding bay.
Our first hiking adventure lead us to Volcan Osorno (2666m). We were able to drive up to the ski resort and hiked about 200m or so up about 1400m. It is the most recently active of the volcanoes in the region, erupting in 1860 (approx). I thought we were going to hike to the summit, but after going that far I was content to have an awesome view of the lake below and of the summit. I actually found out today that there is a memorial for all the tourists who have fallen into hidden crevices on the way to the summit. The Mapuche (indigenous people) believe that there is a spirit that lives up there and apparently likes to feast on people... just as well. On the way down we were able to have a mini snow fight in a patch of snow. It was so cool, for someone who has never seen snow, that thing I expected was to see it in summer, on a volcanoe. (sadly I´m lacking pictures because the others took them)
After
Another view of Puerto Montt
Pretty much the same as before but this time it includes myself, John and Maja. our volcanoe experience we stopped driving halfway down and hiked to the were the lava fields were or were is flowed when it last erupted. Apparently in about 20yrs geologist predictu that it will erupt again.
Todos los Santos Lago (lake) was the next stop on our trip. It was massive and beautifuly crystal clear. At its deepest it is about 350m. It is the origin point for the Petrohué River which then leads to the Petrohué Waterfalls in the Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park. The water all they way along is this beautiful tourquise colour. If we had more time it would have been fun to go rafting as the rapids at times were grade 4 and much more appealing.
The next day we ventured to the biggest island in Chile, Chiloé. It is on the few places that was able to resist a huge spanish influence and is evident it everyday life. They still hold on to their beliefs of myths and legends. The island is quite big so we only visited the town of Ancud, which has penguin colonies and an old spanish fort. The fort wasn´t quite what I expected but it had cannons
Lava fields
When Volcan Osorno last erupted this is apparently were the lava flowed. It is also were the snow melt runs. and a tower so it was cool. Once we decided we wanted to visit the penguin colonies we had to figure a way to get there. We managed to barter with a taxi driver to take us there. So we crammed the 5 of us into a smaller version of a Holden Astra. It was the longest 27km of my life. The roads weren´t much better than what we had been mountain biking on in Alta Gracia, except there was a reasonably constant flow of traffic, which had us worried because the driver spent most of the time on the opposite side of the road.
When we got to the penguin colonies we got our special forces suits on jumped into the boats for a tour. There were two species of penguins: the humble and magallen. The humble penguin is apparently on the verge of extinction and made up maybe 15% of colonies population.
That pretty much concluded our expedition of Puerto Montt and surrounding areas. The next day we boarded our ferry for Puerto Natales.
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Jose
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pda with pigwins
no pda with penguins? no giant pda with penguins? lava and snow. two very cool things. did you see them both at once?