New country new experiences

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I think a great way to sum up where we are is that I can not compare it to anything I have ever seen before. It's not really that different its just a conglomeration of other things, like what I would imagine big Southern Plantations looking like if they were located in Northern Oregon near the coast that produced immensely dense Sub-Tropic rain forest or something. I mean really it is crazy stuff. We are on a bus from Orsono to Puerto Varas and I can't even explain the terrain. Its like swamp land mixed with forest, next to rolling hills of perfect green grass (so perfect it looks like it isn't even grass at all but some weird sort of moss). It is so weird yet so beautiful. We were told by everyone that getting down here this time of year would be miserable and just rain for days on end. We haven't seen anything but sun light and a patch of rain now again just enough to make a rainbow here and there (we saw our first perfect full rainbow just the other day, never seen one before. We were so close I couldn't even get it into one picture). Yesterday, yes as Randy's blog hinted at, we rented a car. We have never been able to do this before and it is a very exhilarating experience. We drove around the main lake here and saw the two volcano's up close. We tried to get to this lake but our tiny town car got stuck and we spent a good couple of panicky minutes (mainly me, Randy thought it was funny) but either it was Randy's great clutch skills or my crazy powerful pushing that finally got us free. Either way, we couldn't make it, but switched our town car for a truck the next day. When we were finishing our loop around the lake here, we didn't get lost... but decided to take the scenic route and finally managed to get ourselves back to our hostel (driving around a different country is a little tricky I think, the sign's just don't make that much sense). Today we got up early and drove down to the second largest island in Chile, Chiloe'. We had to drive our car onto a ferry to get there which was really exciting I thought, if not a little anti-climatic. Except for the feeling of embarrassment if we were to stall the engine as we were trying to get off the ferry as all the other drivers waited for us. Neither of us did. The island itself gave many beautiful views, and showed some neat sea port towns with colorful houses made on stilts, and I guess the island in known for its many old churches, we saw a couple and they were quite nice, looked quite old as well. The really exciting part was the terrain itself. Like I have already said, very hard to explain. Can't quite compare it to any one thing. Which, as Randy has reminded me of, this means its something completely new, and that is why we travel.

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Photos

Lake District
No lake but right by it

Randy and Orsono
Orsono Volcano that is

Our car and Orsono
Our cute little town car that we take onto crazy dirt roads (the Budget lady said we would be ok)

Randy enhoying his dinner
I made dinner the next night and it was horrible (except for the chicken) which Randy cooked...........