The Lake District

We just got back to Santiago after spending nine days in Chile's lake district. We found cheap airfare to Puerto Montt, the hub of the area, which helped us avoid a couple 20+ hour bus trips down there. We arrived on the 18th and spent the weekend in the city. Our hostel was more of a home stay than anything else, which was a bit awkward at first. When we arrived, the owner's husband answered the door without saying a word to us and we noticed that their grandchildren were watching cartoons in the living room with their toys all over the place. We looked at each other with "what did we get our selves into"-looks on our faces, but everything turned out great. We had a comfortable bed and met a few really nice travelers who were also spending the night there. We had dinner together and talked about our plans for the next day. We decided to team up with a German guy named Enno and head to Alerce Andino National Park early the next morning for a short hike.
























On Saturday we woke up early and headed down to the bus station in hopes of catching an 8AM bus to the park. Unfortunately, the first one left at 9:00. We spent most of an hour walking around asking people where the bus was and getting bits of misinformation that led to a lot of confusion. Eventually we found a bus and made it out to the park. When we arrived at the entrance road, we found out that our "short hike" looked like it would include a seven kilometer hike just to get to the trails. Luckily we were able to catch a ride in the back of a truck with another group of hikers. The three of us chose to take a three hour route which included waterfalls, a massive tree, and scenic overlooks. On the way back from the park we caught another ride and were even brought back to Puerto Montt. That evening Enno's friend from Argentina arrived, so we spent the night talking about our travels and experiences over a few empanadas and bottles of beer.

The next day was highlighted by a region-wide power outage until the middle of the afternoon. We were pretty bored, so we decided to grab some warmer clothes at the mall and relax there for the afternoon, as the mall had its own generator.

The next morning we headed to Puerto Varas, a smaller German town near some volcanoes in the area. The city itself was very nice, but the weather did not cooperate with our plans for the next six days. We only had one day of sunny weather the whole time we were there, which discouraged us from doing any of the hiking or excursions that we were hoping to do. We were able to do a couple of smaller hikes and day trips to the surrounding area, but most of our time was spent in coffee shops planning for our time in Argentina. We also caught a few of the big football games over the weekend thanks to my iPad (and Jordan's website suggestion). All in all, it was good to be out of big cities, but we felt like we wasted a lot of time.


















We just got back to Santiago yesterday. We will take a bus to Mendoza tomorrow and begin our month in Argentina. We are very excited about the change in scenery and are getting excited for the holidays.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, and Frutillar