Blogs from Los Lagos, Chile, South America - page 5

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South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island February 7th 2016

Après 18h de bateau, après avoir croisé des dauphins et le pittoresque village de Melinka dans les fjords, pour le ravitaillement hebdomadaire, On arrive bien tard sur l’ile de Chiloé: Pas le choix, on partage avec nos amies Belge le premier Taxis qui nous aborde direction Castro, on y arrive à 3am après 1h de trajet. Il fait nuit, on ne voit pas grand chose, mais le chauffeur se fait un plaisir de nous faire revisiter les tubes des années 80. Ambiance! Le lendemain, on découvre une île splendide, où les moules font la taille de mon avant bras, les paysages fertiles rappellent la normandie, les gens sont d’une tranquillité et d’une quiétude olympique, vivent dans des cabanes de pécheurs de 256 couleurs sur pilotis… On s’y sent vraiment bien, le temps s’arrête! C’est partit: Castro, ... read more
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South America » Chile » Los Lagos January 21st 2016

Geo: -41.256, -73.0065After my tour to La Junta, I went - like promised - to Llanquihue to visit my new friends Rosa, Javier and their son Joachim Vargas. I arrived at the right bus station but unfortunately couldn't remember which street it was, so walked around the streets for half an hour asking everybody if they knew my friends. These people where mostly from Santiago just visiting their family and didn't know anybody in the neighbourhood but one family was really kind and called Rosa and sent her some Whatsapp messages since I had no wifi, but Rosa was no to be reached... At some point I put on my (expensive) internet and sent her a whatsapp that I'm waiting for her at the lagoon. Half an hour later she finally got the message (she had ... read more
Llanquihue
Llanquihue
Llanquihue

South America » Chile » Los Lagos January 15th 2016

Geo: -42.558, -73.9468After a great lunch in Llanquihue, I took a minibus to Puerto Montt and there a bus (Cruz del Sur) to Ancud. My plan originally was to go to Castro and I bought a ticket there, but I had some time in Puerto Montt before my bus left and so I called the travel agency in Castro to see at what time leaves their tour to the Tantauco Park that I wanted to visit. Actually I saw on TV that there were lots of people in Castro this weekend and I was a bit afraid not to get a place in the tour or in a hostel. The hostel was no problem, they had free space, but the travel agency told me that all tours were full this weekend. I was shocked and a ... read more
Ancud
Ancud
Monumento Natural Islotes de Punihuil

South America » Chile » Los Lagos January 12th 2016

Geo: -40.7644, -73.8326At 6 AM on 12th of January I took a bus back to Valdivia. I was so lucky as to have a very nice argentinian woman to have next to me. She told me that the educational system and the universities in Argentina are really bad and we talked about the hitch-hikers in South America. I told her that I prefer to take a bus but that I saw lots of hitch-hikers on "la ruta de los 7 lagos". She told me that there have been some incidents in the last years and that now nobody wants to give hitch-hikers a lift anymore; you just don't know who will enter your car. So it was a good decision to take busses. :-) Our bus-tour arrived 2 hours late even though we gad no problems ... read more
Maicolpue
Maicolpue
Maicolpue

South America » Chile » Los Lagos January 2nd 2016

I had made it to the end of the Carretera Austral. I was very much in one piece, though flashbacks of gravelled, swiss-cheese road with an edge that simply plunged 100+ metres to rageing water torrents had this perhaps more down to chance... My final stop would be the slightly more serene beauty of the Chilean lakes district. If I had any doubts that I had returned to tourist-ville, the street-corner vendor attempting to unload selfie sticks soon disabused me of that idea. I quickly escaped, however, to the Cochomo Valley. I knew nothing more than it was a relatively undiscovered rock-climbing mecca with a heavenly base camp. It contained some unexpected challenges - firstly the walk in (so how did you spend your birthday, Bec? uh trudging 5 hours though calf-deep mud, oh in the ... read more

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island December 12th 2015

After a long day travelling we arrived back to the nearest we've had to home on this trip - The Pink House in Puerto Montt. It was late and Francisca just handed us the key and we went off to bed having confirmed that they’d arranged for us to hire a car the following morning. Karim turned up the next morning to take us to his offices in town where we signed all the papers and drove away in a Renault Samsung....no, I’ve no idea either! I say we, but actually H had agreed to do all the driving – I’m not a big fan of left hand drive cars or crazy Latin American drivers! H had put a GPS map on his phone and iPad for us to use but the iPad one appeared to ... read more
Monument to bomberos, Ancud
Christmas decorations, Ancud
Humboldt penguin

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Frutillar December 2nd 2015

After relaxing in San Pedro for 5 days we had organised ourselves well (we thought) and booked two nights accommodation in Santiago followed by three nights in Pucon, a distance south of the capital. When we arrived, we enquired about the buses between Santiago and Pucon and discovered that the distance was a lot more that I had expected and it took 10 hours to get there, meaning that we needed an overnight bus. So we were very lucky when our Santiago hostel allowed us to cancel the second nights accommodation with no penalty to enable us to maximise our time in the lakes district. Our new arrangement still gave us two days in Santiago and we liked what we saw. It doesn’t resemble Quito or Lima in the slightest, the buildings and roads are well ... read more
On the water
Happy people of Valpo
Pucon's volcano

South America » Chile » Los Lagos November 8th 2015

From H: It was really strange leaving S behind in Buenos Aires, although it didn't sink in at first as I was up at 3:00 for a 5:50 flight to Santiago. We flew low over the Andes and I was rewarded with beautiful views of the snow covered mountains. Once over the Andes all I could see was cloud on the Chilean side - the Andes are like the Pennines on a much larger scale, it's much wetter in Chile (Manchester) to the west than it is in Argentina (Leeds) to the east. I thought I'd have lots of time at Santiago before my flight to Puerto Montt, however as this involved going from international to domestic I had to collect my bags and check them in again which took AGES. First my bag was one ... read more
Lunch stop in Fruitillar
Hotel Haase
Lago Todo Santos

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Chiloé Island » Castro April 6th 2015

March 2 - Monday - Chiloe Island - Castro Looked very threatening today so wrapped our suitcases in shower curtains which we purchased from the supermarket. (Our luggage travels in the back of the open ute.) There was quite a bit of rain as we drove to Puerto Montt, where we caught the ferry to Chiloe Island. The trip took about half to 3/4 hour. We saw many of seals playing in the water as we crossed. We headed off, driving around a portion of the coast - quite different from the lake edges we had been seeing. We were watching out for a picnic spot, but found none, so ate lunch from the back of the ute. The countryside was very beautiful. Drove to Punihuil and did a 1/2 hour trip out to view penguins. ... read more
Chiloe Island
Chiloe Island
Chiloe Island

South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Puerto Varas March 20th 2015

Feb 27 - Friday - Puerto Varas Travelled again through beautiful country side past lakes and through farm land and rain forest. Found our accommodation which is a cabin right on the lake edge. The opposite bank is barely visible. Went into town and bought supplies including blue berries and raspberries which are cheap and sweet! Bought some "black raspberry" (blackberry) ice cream to go with it. Came back and chilled for the afternoon, enjoying the beautiful location and getting super frustrated at the internet! The atmosphere in the town was extremely smokey, but a little better at our cabin. Apparently there are some quite serious fires burning somewhere but we can't work out where. Drove out looking for a place to view sunset on Osono, and got some ok pictures. Feb 28 - Saturday The ... read more
Puerto Varas
Puerto Varas
Puerto Varas




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