January 29 - Puerto Montt, Chile

We've had no internet for two days so I've been MIA.  Hopefully I can get this uploaded. I don't know if photos will work.

Before I forget, two countries beginning with A but not ending in A are Afghanistan and Azerbaijan.

I’m going to sound repetitive, but I had another fabulous day.  We arrived at Puerto Montt around 9:30 AM and by 10 AM the tenders were overboard to take us ashore. It was foggy and looked overcast, but I think it was really more like the marine layer you see in the mornings in places like San Diego, because as the day wore on the fog disappeared and we had bright sunshine and Carolina blue skies.

This is how the day started, not very auspicious

Later in the day we had this view of Mt. Osorno

My tour today took me to places I’ve visited before, but the scenery is so lovely I wanted to see them again.  Our bus headed inland and we arrived at the city of Puerto Varas, also known as the city of roses, on the shore of Lake Llanquehué, the second largest lake in South America. I should recount a little of the history of this area. When the Spanish conquered most of South America they basically stopped settling south of the city of Valdivia in Chile on the Pacific side of the continent.  Where I am today is about 3° latitude south of Valdivia (I think that’s about 200 miles, but I’m not sure) because the area was considered not worth much and it had many volcanoes. This area is all part of Patagonia and I’ll tell you about that another day.

A little square in Puerto Varas by the lake

Anyway, after Chile gained its independence from Spain around 1850 the Chilean government decided it wanted to settle this area of the country.  It had a German advisor who advised  that the region would be good for cattle and sheep farming and dairy production. He was charged with the task of recruiting German families to be pioneers of a sort to build an economy here.  It took him a couple of years to find families who met specific criteria and were willing to make such a dramatic move.  Not just anyone was accepted to immigrate.

And so the area shows a great deal of German influence. There are buildings with roof structures like those you see in Bavaria; there is a German school.  Many of the people have German names and are fair.  My guide today was Ingrid, a fifth-generation descendant of those settlers.  The area is very lush and green with lots of pastureland.  The area is also very geologically active.  Overlooking the Lake is the Mt. Fuji of Chile, Mt. Osorno.  Nearby is Mt. Calbuco. The former is active but hasn’t erupted for many years, but Calbuco had a major eruption in 2015. The locals call it the Bad Boy of the mountains.

Mt. Calbuco, the Bad Boy mountain which had a major eruption in 2015

We had an early lunch and time to walk around Puerto Varas before traveling to our next stop, the Emerald Lake.  The lake’s formal name is Todos los Santos (All Saints Lake) but because of its beautiful green color the former name seems appropriate.  We took a boat ride so we could see the surrounding mountains and forest.  These are all of course part of the Andes.  Next we took a five-minute bus ride to Petrohué, the name of the river flowing down from the mountains with rapids and waterfalls. The area around both the lake and the river is a national park.  Today was a Sunday and since it’s summer there are school vacations so every place we stopped there were lots of families enjoying the sunny day and the glorious scenery.  The lakes which have very cold water had plenty of people swimming in them.  After about an hour to walk on the trail leading to the river and views of the rapids, it was time to board the bus and head back to Puerto Montt.

Cruising on the Emerald Lake. It doesn't look very green here, but trust me it was.

It was a little after 6 PM by the time we arrived and tendered back to the ship.  I was pooped (I walked over four miles on sometimes very uneven paths) so I ditched my dinner plans and sat on my veranda for a little while before getting cleaned up and having a late light dinner.  Speaking of light, it stays light very late here, 9:30ish).  When we left Puerto Montt we sailed down a sound or bay which is very pretty. On our port side were the magnificent Andes and on our starboard a peninsula and then a series of small islands.  Since we were in protected waters it was smooth sailing.  We don’t have far to go to our next stop, Castro on the island of Chiloé.

So, for now Buenos Noches. 

Ignore the figure in the foreground. I wanted to show the falls in the background.