Blogs from Puerto Varas, Los Lagos, Chile, South America - page 10

Day 37 - Saturday 11th March The Facts: To Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, Cochamo Valley and Campo Aventura Jo Service station bowser The Longer Version: A Taxi took us in darkness back to Punta Arenas airport for our flight north. At Puerto Montt we decided that as we were in no hurry, we would try to catch the public buses to Puerto Varas where we planned to spend the next day. This proved to be no drama, just a bit of chaos at the Puerto Montt Bus Station which had a million buses going a million different directions. We got to Puerto Varas and found accommodation at a small hostel recommended by some Australians we had met on our travels. No sooner than we booked in, we went to the travel agencies to sort out ... read more

After a four hour bus trip we arrived in Puerto Montt just as all the shops were shutting and the skies above were opening. Managed to get to Navimag just as they were closing their doors and find out that our tickets are confirmed coming back up in January, but Naviteria Austral were closed so we'll have to turn up on Monday and hope we can get a ferry down to Chaiten. Lan Chile picked today to close their offices for refurbishment. Yay us. We sheltered in McDonalds for a while to get out of the rain, then hit the stores and managed to find ourselves two reasonable backpacks for about $A100 each. We figured that as we'd have to hire backpacks for the Patagonian Trek for $US50 it made more sense to buy some for ... read more

There are allegedly many things to fear in South America; spiders, diseases, strange people, mugging, falling off mountains etc. But the only thing we have come to fear is the magic hammer; “el martillo magico”. Unlike Thors hammer, which I believe was used to protect the common good, the magic hammer is eeeeevvil. It is a time-tested fact that however comfortable your accommodation and cozy your bed, however tired you are from the night before, however far you are from civilization, the magic hammer will find you at 8am in the morning. Pucon was no exception. Day two and it found us - waking us with a jolt at 8am to the sound of a pneumatic drill outside the window. The move to Landhaus foxed it for a couple of days - ha we thought, but ... read more