Puerto Varas and Frutillar: Kuchen in the Chilean Lake District

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Day 175: Arriving in the Chilean Lake district

Although not raining when I got up this morning, the dark grey clouds outside didn't look too promising. I had initially thought that I'd stay a bit longer in Castro and visit the national park of Chiloe, but what with the weather, and the fact that there don't seem to be too many tourists around at this time of year, I've since had second thoughts. I'm all for going walking in some of the less well-known national parks, but to be the only person there who's not a hunter, else living in one of the settlements there, might be a bit creepy. The subsequent decision has been to remove myself from relative isolation and head up to Puerto Varas in the Chilean Lake District for a couple of nights.

I went down to breakfast, where I was naturally the only person occupying one of the many tables in the dining room (amidst decor that would have been state-of-the-art in the 1970s), before packing up my belongings and leaving the flowery tablecloths and orange/brown colour scheme to find a bus that would take me back to the mainland.

After four hours on bus and ferry, I finally made it back to Puerto Montt, and from there it was just half an hour by minibus to Puerto Varas, a town in the Chilean Lake district. On arrival, I checked into a hostel, where with just four other guests (in couples), I managed to get a dorm to myself. I went for a walk around town, but despite the advertisments for various tourist activities like canyoning and rafting, being off-season, everything was fairly quiet. The weather was pretty much the same as it had been on the Chiloe islands, and so although I managed a short walk around the town, past some germanic looking buildings and along the shores of Lake Llanquihue, it wasn't long before I was seeking refuge in one of the town's cafes for coffee and kuchen. After a quick stop to stock up on food and wine at the big supermarket in the town centre, I headed back to the hostel to cook dinner and have a lovely hot shower. From one extreme to another, the hostel had fires in the lounge and upstairs and was absolutely roasting, but given that I had had to wear two jumpers just to go to bed a couple of nights ago, I certainly wasn't about to start complaining.


Day 176: Frutillar

I wasn't sure what to do today, but with town looking pretty quiet, and not really feeling like putting on a wetsuit for rafting or canyoning (which, in the absence of too many other tourists around, might not have been an option anyway), I thought I'd take a daytrip to one of the nearby germanic villages, and a short while later, I was on a bus to Frutillar, half an hour away on the shores of Lake Llanquihue. Germans had arrived there in the mid-nineteenth century and had been given land to farm by the Chilean government. Looking around some of the buildings, including the old Lutheran Church, and seeing the names of some of the inhabitants, a German influence was still very evident. I didn't come across too many tourists braving the rain as I walked along the black sandy beach of the lake, although there was a small group of people gathered at the end of the pier sailing miniature boats in the water around them, this was pretty much the only sign of life in the village, with all the cafes selling bratwurst and pickled vegetables, open, but devoid of customers.

I stopped at a cafe for coffee and strudel, before visiting the town's German museum. With several reconstructed German buildings, including a country house, blacksmith and mill, set in large gardens, I had a pleasant walk round, exploring the houses and the numerous photos and various historical German relics inside them; before taking the shuttle bus back to Puerto Varas, where I was soon back in the hostel drying off, making homemade vegetable soup, and watching a couple of terrible, cheesy American films with the other guests.

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