Puerta Varas

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So goodbye Pucon and our hostel family there (it was hugs and kisses all round when we left) off on a 5 hour trip to Puerto Varas. More bad Spanish and we arrived an hour later than we thought we would, the tour office we were supposed to visit was closed and we managed to trek the 15mins to our hostel to be shown to a room with a snuggling couple in a double bed in the middle (awkward). Thinking we had missed our tour and would have to reschedule we chilled in the morning only to be greeted by a smiling American ready to pick us up to go off trekking the local volcano -whoops! What a day though navigating a dodgy trail over lava thousands of years old and getting within 2 hours of the peak – the best part however was sliding back down on our asses through the snow!! The bonus of the day though had to be the pod of dolphins we saw on the way back (don’t you just love it climb a volcano and then see dolphins!!).



Up early and off for a run along the lakefront – day 2 Puerto Varas amazing and like homeward bound everywhere we go we are followed by uno, dos o tres perro (dogs) we are naming them all stinky, Fred, jack etc, etc. A bit more of a quiet day we headed to nearby German settlement Frutilla for a wander and some cake – amazing cake but the best part of this little excursion was our awesome conversation with the bus driver on the way back Nos Hablas espangol!! We managed a full conversation.



Our tour guide the day before had recommended Donde el Cordito (translates to the fat man) it was visited by international food critic as part of his show. It was small, and tucked away in a side court but the food was amazing we had Salmon and a dish with fish and pork sausage so then we pretty much rolled ourselves to the bus for a 14 hour bus ride.



Now if we are honest it is the small things that entertain and please us and I’m sure since we left we haven’t been as excited as we were when we got on our bus for our journey back to Santiago. We decided to pay a little extra and travel ‘La Premiere’ AMAZING chairs that recline into full on beds and a mattress put on top of them, we even got ‘tucked’ in by the bus steward! So the children that we are enjoyed the first class section to ourselves for the first portion of our trip by taking pictures, drinking a four pack of Chilean wine we bought and giggling like school girls…….we did not belong here but were very disappointed when we were later joined by 4 other passengers.

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