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Published: August 12th 2008
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We hired a car and went to see the Saltos de Petrohue today. It is an amazing set of rapids/waterfalls. We spent quite a bit of time exploring the national park. It was pretty cold and windy at the waters edge but the rapids were amazing to see. I could have spent ages just watching them but it was too cold to hang around. There were lots of little paths through different sections of the park and you had no idea where they would lead. One path that had taken us through the forested area suddenly opened up and we were faced with the view of the white churning river in front of us. It was fantastic to come across the water again and it was great walking through the national park as you would sometimes hear the roar of the water and sometimes would just hear the silence as the trees absorbed the sounds of the water, so you never really knew whether, at the next turn, you would see water or more trees.
Ana and I then wandered off down another little path and again wondered where we would end up. Most of the paths we’d been down
had opened up to some sort of view point of the river or a waterfall after about 5-10 minutes but we hadn’t come across anything. We then noticed a very strange smell which seemed to get worse the further we went. It smelt of very stagnant water and we couldn’t work out what was causing it. We thought sewage may have been dumped there or that the water wasn’t flowing and therefore wasn’t fresh. However, we then came across a very large dead fish - it hadn’t been there that long as it still had some flesh on it. We were surprised that one dead fish could create such a disgusting smell but we turned a corner and saw another one and then another. We saw at least 15 large fish all floating in the stream. Bearing in mind that this was a very small tributary of the larger flowing river we had been looking at earlier and the water was not flowing very quickly. The fish would not be washed away.
We decided to turn back as the smell of rotting flesh was getting pretty unbearable by this point. We (well Ana) had a chat with one of
the guys that worked at the National Park and told him what we’d found. He was aware of the fish and said that it was a completely natural occurrence. The fish were sea trout or salmon (can’t remember which) which swim up stream to lay eggs and then don’t make it back to the ocean and die in the river. It was nice to know it wasn’t due to some horrible disease or something, but it took me a while to forget that horrible smell that had affronted my nostrils.
We then all piled back into the car after avoiding running over quite a few wild cats that had decided to surround us - we’d opened a pot of Pringles and they seemed pretty desperate for food. One of the cats had obviously previously been hit by a car and could only really walk sideways as one of his back legs was completely destroyed. Amazingly he seemed to be coping and it definitely wasn’t a recent accident. It was sad to see but there was nothing we could do about it.
The next stop was Lago Todos los Santos - a stunning lake overlooked by volcanoes. The water
was a deep green colour and I took endless photographs of it. The surrounding volcanoes were peeking through the clouds at us and it was so beautiful that it almost felt like I was on a film set and not standing at the waters edge seeing it with my own eyes.
It was time for lunch so Paul drove the car over the gravely shoreline to a picnic table that we’d spotted by the lake, nearly getting it stuck on a steep bank - but with two girls directing him, he managed to get through without damaging it!
We ate our lunch wearing all our layers including hats, scarves and gloves (when we weren’t eating) - it was pretty cold. Unsurprisingly we gained another couple of friends - yup, you guessed it - more dogs. They tried to entertain u
We drove on to a little town called Frutillar. A Germanic town with wooden buildings of all different colours - one even had little wooden miniatures of two figures on either side of the front door - they looked like they could have been Hansel and Gretel. It was quite a pretty little town but we only
stopped for about 10 minutes just to have a quick look and then headed back to Puerto Varas.
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