Lakes and Volcanos

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On the 7^th, we left San Pedro de Atacama and took the little over an hour drive to the airport in Calama where we caught a flight to Santiago then to Puerto Montt in Northern Patagonia. Once we landed we were picked up for a 30 minute drive to Puerto Varas. We are now in the lake region. There are large lakes everywhere and Puerto Varas is a lake port. The lake is about 100 miles in circumference. There are a couple of massive volcanoes around here too.



We checked in at the boutique hotel cleaned up and then went out to dinner. One of the restaurants we were recommended was just at the end of the block. We had a wonderful dinner and a nice bottle of wine. We had emailed our Chile travel agency earlier in the day and found out the rafting for tomorrow was cold… I decided to can it. Cold water (40s) and cold air (40s) is not my idea of fun. We also figured out the hike on Friday was an all day hike and were able to change it to hiking and riding and visiting different things. Yea.



On the 8^th, Shelly got up earlier as she was going rafting. I logged into to check email and decided to check my email for my granddad’s trip site. The site was down with big letters saying the owner of the site needed to be verified. I am so glad I didn’t go on the rafting as I had to spend a couple of hours communicating with the hosting environment to get it back online. This was especially important since the Model T magazine is printing the article in this month’s magazine. I then took a walk down to the lake.



Shelly returned and said she had a blast but yes the water was cold. All the commands were in Spanish (I would have probably been confused anyway)



Once Shelly got back and showered we decided to walk into town and catch the bus to Frutilla. This is a German based area and Frutilla is even more German. It is also on this large lake and has a huge Opera House on the water. We had a glass of wine and an appetizer. We then walked around town for a bit and then took the bus back to Puerto Varas.



For dinner we walked to Ibis a few blocks away and we had probably one of the best dinners this whole trip.

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Photos

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Lake and Volcano

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On the local bus

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Another volcano

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Photo Shelly took while rafting

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Shelly guiding