Puerto Varas

You're absolutely right, I've been a bit rubbish over the past few days at posting to my blog. No other reason than I've been a bit rubbish posting to my blog. Since the last post I've stayed in two different locations and now I'm in a third (but this is just for a transit so there won't be a post from here). Rather than combine the two, I'm going to do two separate posts as they were such different places so depending how quickly I write them, you may get both alerts in one day or on consecutive days because of the time difference.

After Valdivia I made my way to Puerto Varas (which for speed I'm going to refer to here as PV from now on). This place was previously been given the dubious label of being the next Pucón for a while. Having lived in Marylebone High Street before it started getting the awards for being the best high street in London this label may not be such a good thing for the place, it certainly wasn't for MHS which totally lost all its character and many of its best independent shops. It would be a similarly bad thing for PV. Don't get me wrong, I liked Pucón a lot, but PV had real character and was a lovely place to stay. It didn't feel overly touristy although it was obviously a destination for holiday makers. It's a delicate balance which they seemed to be managing well. 

I arrived at, yet again, not the bus station I was anticipating to but fortunately was much closer to my hostel than I was expecting. I dropped my stuff off and then couldn't wait to explore. I have to share with you the opening of the Lonely Planet description of PV: 'Two menacing, snowcapped volcanoes, Osorno and Calbuco, stand sentinel over picturesque Puerto Varas and its scenic Lago Llanquihue like soldiers of adventure, allowing only those on a high-octane quest to pass.' And these are they

One is an obvious volcano with again, almost a perfect conical shape, the other is to the right, less well defined, and there is also a third that's less easy to make out in the background between them. Not sure I had a high octane quest though, just a desire to visit!

Lago Llanquihue (kind of pronounced Yan-kee-way) is huge and again, really beautiful.

Originally I had planned to spend a night or two in Frutillar, a town a little bit north of PV on my way there, but in the end decided to do it as a day trip and that's where I went on my first full day. It was such a picturesque location, with a great view across the lake to the volcanoes. In this photo, you see the third one a little more clearly.

Frutillar has a theatre on the edge of the lake and gets some really big performances there. It was a beautiful location.

I stopped for a cafe hellado and a piece of pie de limón in the theatre cafe looking out over the lake.

I nearly forgot to take this picture (yes I'd already taken a bite!) but remembered you at the last minute Jim!

Frutillar had some lovely sculptures related to the theatre and music

and some chocolate box buildings that were really pretty. 

The town itself was really relaxed and I was torn over whether I'd made the right decision or not choosing not to stay there; it was relaxed because there wasn't an awful lot else to do other than wander along the beach so in the end decided that the day trip had been the better choice.

and look at the volcano, which I did a lot, I'm mesmerised by them.

One of the other things I liked were the treble clefs on the bus stops around the town!

The next day, I decided to go to the National Park, Parque Nacional Vincente Pérez Rosales. 

The incredibly helpful girl on the reception desk in my hostel explained to me that I could get a bus there and recommended that I should go to Lagos Todos Los Santos first as then any cloud should have cleared everything by the time I came back to Saltos del Petrohué, the area with waterfalls where the volcano is much closer. And so that's what I did. The lake was just stunning. I took a boat ride around it and couldn't believe the beauty. The water seemed to change colour so many times. 

As I'd been warned, the volcano was wearing a little cloud in the morning but was still beautiful.

I met Karini and her husband on the boat.

Interestingly she worked for Astra Zeneca in their section dealing with providing drugs to non-profit organisations so we had a very interesting chat!

When I got back on land I decided that it would be a good idea to walk back to Saltos del Petrohué because it hadn't seemed all that far from there out to the lake. It was both a good and bad decision. Bad because the road definitely wasn't designed with pedestrians in mind, but good because of the views I got!

I stopped for lunch and sat on this rock, 

And watched the river bimbling along...

After lunch I walked along the road for about another half hour and then decided to give in and catch the bus the rest of the way, which turned out to be about another kilometre! I'd have been there in 15 minutes! Hey ho!

This part of the park was much more developed and there were very well marked areas where you had to go. This means that the number of people rose dramatically and it's hard to get photos without man made structures in them. However, I've tried and here are a selection of them

Saw this amazing creature too!

It was about 10cm long.

As well as the waterfalls, there was a walk to another river that was more my thing as there were far fewer people and it was a 'wilder' walk than elsewhere.

That evening when I got back, I decided to go to a restaurant on the lake for dinner and had a yummy seafood risotto with the obligatory pisco sour! The weather was starting to close in that evening and so it made the view across the lake quite atmospheric. 

The following morning I got up and had my breakfast which was a very good one in the hostel - it had homemade bread and kuchen - yum!! Then I made my way to the Cruz del Sur terminal to get my bus down to Chiloé which will be where my next post covers!