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Published: January 21st 2023
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Wednesday 18th January - Saturday 21st January 2023
After a simple and comfortable night bus, even with a guy snoring softly away (no, it wasn’t Paul), we arrived pretty chirpy into Puerto Varas and were happy to realise our Hostal was just around the corner from where the bus dropped us off and that he would let us check straight in. A small basic room, it was a shame that the conversion (a row of rooms in a long shipping container) was not done very well, with water clearly sitting all underneath the flooring and big mould problems; still, it was only for two nights.
Dumping our stuff, we headed out to wonder the small city on Lake Llanquihue, known for its origins of German settlers creating pretty wooden houses (some still standing boldly in various colours and others rotting away a little) and it’s crystal clear lake with the picture perfect, snow topped, Osorno Volcano standing strong behind it. A very pretty place, we instantly liked it, especially after finding the first decent coffee of Chile since the bakery in the Atacama desert. It is a place full of cafes, quirky markets, many branded outdoor gear shops and
has a free public toilet, with paper and soap! The key attraction has to be the lake itself though, in the bright sun and even in the misty rain of our last morning there, with the magnificent volcano sat silently in view, it was a very calming place to be.
We enjoyed walking around, making it along and up to a viewing point with a huge cross at the top, and along the other way to a quirky museum which was actually an artists house he’s slowly developed, show casing his detailed drawings and also a lot of random things and ‘antiques’; it even had a mini but speedy slide down into the ‘garage’ bit. We also managed to catch a a few buses around some of the lake to get a closer look of the volcano and to visit one of the national park areas with a turquoise glacial river rushing over volcanic rock, saw Petrohue falls, and another area known as the green lagoon; you can see why it’s known as the lakes area and it was a fun day out exploring independently, rather than the pricy tours of the same thing on offer.
Another short
local bus the next day, took us down into Puerto Montt. A larger and much more industrial city, it has an outer area of more run down buildings, a dock, a large (loud and slightly confusing) bus station, a little passenger ferry across to the smaller islands, a nice main centre square, a newly renovated sea front walkway, a rocky sea defence wall, and sea gulls; that familiar home feeling strikes again. We even briefly smelt what we thought was salt and vinegar fish and chips, but were sad to see it was actually just a chicken place with fries.
We visited the tourist info centre and tried to make a plan to see a bit more of the area, but, missing the bus we needed, it ended up being a bit of a odd day wondering around; not doing much but not quite relaxing either. The huge mall was interesting to walk through though, especially as it was definitely unfinished with a lot of blocked off higher levels still just bare pillars and bricks. We did manage to go to the local theatre though, spotting there was a folklore ballet show on that night, and were pleasantly surprised
at how professional it was, really enjoying the well choreographed dances and brilliant instrumental music.
An early start to the airport this morning and, after some minor panic about not being able to book onto a bus transfer soon enough (despite having not done anything yesterday) and our prebooked Uber cancelling on us, we still made it here with plenty of time. So much time I can write a blog! And just a short flight away from being in the deep South of Patagonia, near the end of the world.
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