The Lake District

Em and I left the windy and cold summers of southern Chile for the warmer Lake District. We were picked up at the airport and dropped off at our AirB&B, where the proprietor, Sergio, used the Google Translate app in conjunction with my Spanglish to convey how happy he was to have us staying at his home and if we needed anything, then all we had to do was ask.

After we had booked this place to stay, our tour operator said he drove by and that while the place was in a residential neighborhood, he didn't think we should be staying so far from the center of town (we were about 3 km away). After about 10 minutes in the area, I figured the operator probably thought tourists staying in a working class part of the town without the glitz and glamour of the center would scare us or give us a negative impression of the city. We didn't really mind at all and even liked the people as there was a nice chicken restaurant next door where we had a fun conversation about the local Maupuchin people while the girl cut up a portion of roast chicken for us, and bought beer and fresh bread at the local bakery and corner store over the course of our three day stay in the city. After we discovered that you can hail a colectivo (shared taxi) from five feet outside our door and take it to the center for about $0.75, we were even happier.

We had originally booked two tours of sites in the area, but got up sold two additional ones by the tour operator when he picked us up at the airport. One of the extra tours we purchased ended up being our favorite and the other, we decided to cancel in order to make our own plans (this ended up working out much better).

The first two tours we had were both half day tours; one after the other. In the morning we went to visit the Orsono Volcano, and Todos Los Santos Lake (All Saints Lake) and the Petrohue Waterfall (both within the Vincente Perez Rosales National Park). The afternoon tour took us to Llanquihue (means Deep/Hidden Place in the Maupuchin language), Frutillar (the Chilean word for strawberry), and Puerto Octay.

All of these towns and attractions are within the Lake District and mostly ring the Llanquihue Lake (the second largest lake in Chile). This area was heavily settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800s and therefore their history and influence can be seen in the architecture (the oldest wooden structures are found here), the cooking (kuchen is a super yummy cake), and the habits of the locals.

The Lake District of Chile is part of the Ring of Fire and thus surrounded by a series of volcanos. One of these volcanos, Calbuco, actually erupted a year and a half ago and caused many of the residents in some towns to have to be evacuated for six months. After the earthquake here a few days prior to our arrival, it appeared that two other volcanos were venting small plumes of smoke.

The biggest, and most accessible, volcano in the area is the Orsono Volcano, and this was our destination. On the way there we traveled along the Route CH-225 (the scenic lake route), through the Vincente Perez Rosales National Park and stopped at the literal end of the road, where the Emerald Lake (officially known as the All Saints Lake, but aka the Emerald Lake because of its color) was.

Here, everyone else in our group hoped on a short boat ride around the lake while Em and I conversed with Elmer (the German we'd met crossing the border days earlier), whom we were surprised to see, who was waiting for a bigger tour boat to take him out. We also tried to see the small local history museum, but they kept saying it was closed (regardless of it being within opening hours).

After the Lake, we back tracked a little to see the Petrohue (means "Foggy Place" in the Maupuchin language) Waterfall. The Fall is created by water from the snow at the top of the volcanos careening down over millennial cooled lava flows and basalt rock. The site was beautiful and I was sad that due to the hectic pace of the tour, we only had a short amount of time in the park and couldn't even begin to hike any of the trails.

The last, and main, attraction for the morning's excursion was to visit the Orsono Volcano. We drove up a very narrow and twisty road to get to the ski resort, that in summer becomes a zipline/hiking/tourist location. We lucked out as our sunny days continued unabated and we were afforded magnificent views of the entire area. At the top of the volcano, we opted to take the ski lift to the top of the ski run so that we could march through the Mars-like terrain to see the Red Crater. The area is interesting in that the ground is a sand made of black lava rock that was most likely ash that fell during the last eruption. Going up the ski lift and walking on the edge made me feel like I was in a Star Trek episode; I kept expecting someone with phasers to come cresting over the next hill.

Whereas the morning tour felt a little rushed and Em and I didn't particularly like our guide (he was way too "everyone smile and have fun" to the point of coming across as patronizing when trying to gain audience participation), but we thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon tour. This tour headed out along a super scenic road that rung the Lake and our guide, Rodrigo, was wonderful with his melding of Spanish and English to explain about the history of the area and the German influence that was readily apparent.

Our tour glided through Llanquihue, driving through, but not actually stopping, before heading on to Frutillar, where we were allowed to wander a bit. Frutillar is small touristic town where in addition to the foreign travelers, it is a favorite summer destination for other Chileans. We loved the town because of its instantly pleasant and calm atmosphere and the German Museum. The Museum is a compilation of original houses and buildings built by German settlers in 1856 and then donated by their decendents to the city, and subsequently moved and arranged into the semblance of a German town.

We finished the tour with a jaunt through Puerto Octay, which was a main port city in the area until the now defunct railway was built in Puerto Varas in 1912. The city is also known for it's cheese, which is like a Gouda; so of course we had to buy some of it to try. The town has a fun story for how it got its name: there was a German landowner named Ox, who owned the general store. When people needed something, the townsfolk would always say that "Ox has it", which in Spanish would be "Ox Hay". Overtime this was just run together and the town name became Octay.

If you have a car or a lot of time (to take public transportation), I recommend not taking any short city tours in this region, but actually going place to place on your own. The tours are nice in that they pick you up at your hotel, tell you somewhat about the history of each place and make sure you're not stranded anywhere; but they rush you through everything (due to time constraints), try to get you to buy additional excursions on the tour (a boat ride across a lake, a chairlift ride up the ski run that is on the volcano, lunch at a fancier restaurant, etc.), and are mainly there as a form of transport from one place to another.

On our second day in the lake district, we took a tour to visit Chiloe (pronounced Chill-o-way). When we booked the tour, we thought that Chiloe was a city, but it actually is an entire island; the fifth largest in South America and contains over 200,000 inhabitants. The tour that we took, visited four of the cities on the island: Chacao, Castro, Dalcahue, and Ancud. The island can only be arrived at via ferry or plane, although there is talk of creating a bridge to connect it to the mainland (there's much controversy with the bridge because the Islanders are split as to whether they want to be more, or less, separated from the mainland folk).

Chacao is the first city on the island after one leaves the ferry port. It's quaint, and contains for the most part a nice pathway along the shore (with views of the ferry dock), and a small central square with a few residential street radiating off of it. I did get a few nice photographs of the school playground that was in disrepair while we were there. From Chacao, we drove across the island to Castro, the biggest city on Chiloe.

The main reason we set out on this tour was to visit the colorful wooden palafitos (stilt houses). These homes were quite common and originally where the more unfortunates of the city dwelled, but like most things, there was a gentrification and the quaintness of the areas in which the buildings still exists became popular. While some of the homes still appear to be ramshackle and potential death traps, many have been fortified and now house hostels, boutique shops, and restaurants.

The homes are located along the water's edge at the entrance to the city of Castro. Since the tide was low when we had arrived, it was quite easy to see the stilts and admire that these buildings were still standing (especially considering the volcano eruption a few years ago and the the we earthquake a few days prior). The tour stopped at a lookout point for one set of the homes, allowed us to venture down the street and enter a few (we gained permission to go on the back patio of a hostel after one of the boutique shops asked that we buy a coffee in order to look off their patio) in another sector, and just drove along the street outside the third area. Originally, Em had though about trying to book us a night on the island, but as Castro was primarily just a small city with not much in the way of tourism, we're glad we just did the day tour.

From Castro we began our trip back across the island towards the ferry dock. Along the way we stopped for a bit in Dalcahue and then Ancud. Dalcahue was another smaller town with a lovely artisan market selling many wooden and wool products. Ancud was the second largest city on the island and the tour company had a deal with a fancier restaurant where they try to entice you to eat an overpriced meal. Em and I, always ones to be difficult, decided to leave the others and set out on our own for more local fare. We ended up with some piping hot homemade seafood empanadas, which we shared with another couple that had also decided that fancy was not their foray.

While waiting for the others to finish their meal, we and the other couple wandered the remains of the the San Antonio Battery. This was the best preserved of the two forts and four batteries that made up the the colonial Ancud Fort system. All that remains of the area now is the outer seawall, which is lined with canons. Once we met back up with the others, everyone went to the center of town to view a small local museum. The fumes of fresh paint drove almost everyone out almost immediately, but I persevered and spent a few minutes attempting to read the Spanish information panels.

As we were getting ready to get back on the bus, an artist working on his sculpture next door to the museum at the Cultural Center, beckoned Em and I over. The artist was super sweet and kept showing us his latest project and trying to get us to see the rest of his work inside. Since the bus was waiting on us, we begged leave and were rewarded with Basalt worry stones after a quick hug and kiss on the cheek by our new friend.

Our last day in Puerto Varas was our own. We originally had a tour booked, but decided we'd prefer to go without a plan and had it canceled. There was a museum that Em had seen while driving along the waterfront and we decided we wanted to visit it. The museum is a living art piece in that it's the home of Pablo Fierro, who makes a living repurposing old/odd junk into add-ons to his house. The house was once Puerto Varas's water station, but has since been transformed to include a car sticking out the front, a giant coocoo clock, a replica school house, port windows, and numerous other unusual items. Pablo was home working away and allowed us to wander at our leisure through his masterpiece.

After our museum tour, we headed through town and up the hill to take photos of the now derelict train station. The station had once connected Santiago with the Lake District and was an alternative to the ports. The entire rail operation in the Lake District shut down sometime in the last decade, but I'm not sure why. It could have been due to track damage caused by one of the many earthquakes, or maybe a financial thing. Now the station is a place for aspiring street artists to ply their trade and the downtrodden to catch a few Zzs.

As we were taking a circuitous route back along the waterfront to the main town, we stumbled upon a small yacht just getting ready to embark on an hour tour around the bay. We decided to join them. It was a lovely day and Em and I enjoyed sitting on the bow of the boat sipping our supplied Pisco Sours and enjoying the views.

After our boat tour, we hailed a colectivo and ran back to our AirB&B to once again thank Sergio for his hospitality, grab our backpacks, and then catch a minibus to Puerto Mott. While riding to Puerto Mott, we passed a Cruz del Sur bus station at the edge of Puerto Varas, which made me paranoid so I had Em recheck our tickets to make sure we weren't going to the wrong city to catch our overnight bus to Santiago. Five minutes later we found the tickets and saw that they got messed up and we really were supposed to stay in Puerto Varas, but as we still had hours to go and we wanted to see the famed Angelmo Fish and Artist Markets in Puerto Mott, so we continued onwards.

The minibus dropped us off at the main bus terminal in Puerto Mott and we were able to talk to a representative at the Cruz del Sur counter that stated we could catch the same bus there, just a half hour earlier. With this knowledge, we put our giant backpacks in a locker and set out to find the markets.

The Angelmo Fish Market dates it origins back to the 1700's when the inhabitants of Chiloe and the other islands that make up the nearby archipelago decided that this cove was a nice place to make port to sell their wares to the mainlanders. Over time, restaurants popped up to feed the fisherman, and then women arrived to sell a myriad of crafts. Today the market is a colorful place to get fresh seafood, artisanal cheeses, honey, local alcohol, and wool and wood handicrafts.

Em and I wandered through the various stalls and tried some of the local oceanic treats; we had something that may have been abalone or just a giant mollusk of some kind and which started out okay, but ended with a nasty back-end flavor, some local fish and salmon cerviche, and some smoked salmon. We even shared some with the sea puppies (sea lions) and pelicans chilling by the docks. We finished off our sampling with some terrible local chocolate and gummies. I'm largely convinced at this point that neither Argentina nor Chile know how to make chocolate; this stuff is worse than Russell Stover's.

We walked back to the bus station from the market and ran into our own rendition of the scene from Home Alone where the family is valiantly running through the airport to catch their plane before they shut the gangway door. The bus station we were at was huge and had over 20 stalls where buses could arrive. I asked around and was told that our bus would show up near one end and so there we waited...and waited...and waited some more. I even kept bugging the driver of every new bus that pulled and was displaying a destination of Santiago, and they all kept saying "Just wait".

Ten minutes after our bus was supposed to arrive, finally one driver told me to talk to a man in a red shirt that appeared to be in charge. I showed the man in red our tickets and asked about the bus. He shook his head, asked who told us to be at this station, yelled at a woman behind the counter to call the other terminal to hold the bus, found a taxi driver at the kiosk and told him to get us to the other location ASAP, and then told us to run; we had 13 minutes.

We raced with the taxi driver to his car, threw our bags and our bodies in, and the driver peeled out into gridlock. The driver was trying to ask what happened and whether the bus would be waiting for us, and we could only half explain and hope that they really did hold the bus for us. Turns out that the bus was at the other station in Puerto Mott and not all the way back in Puerto Varas, or we never would have made it. We arrived at the alternative Cruz del Sur bus station and ran through it with our taxi driver in the lead shouting out to everyone else "where is the bus to Santiago?" Turns out the bus was the only one there and everyone was waiting on us with fond exasperation. We thanked the taxi driver and the bus employees profusely and clamored on to the bus; causing only a 15 minute delay in departing.

We had booked a cama seat for our 12 hour ride and that was the equivalent of first class. We (and the other 6 or so first classers) had our own closed off section, large comfy seats that reclined a decent distance, a blanket and pillow, and our own bus steward.

Our steward was super friendly, didn't speak a lick of English, and his duties included: serving everyone a terrible dinner consisting of a ham and cheese sandwich and soda, playing a movie for everyone, and then tucking us all into bed. This last part cracked me up. At 9:30 the movie ended, the steward clamored over everyone to shut their window curtains, unfolded our blankets, and physically tucked as all in like children. At 10:30, the steward turned all the lights off (except the reading lights). I didn't not realise that first class came with bedtimes.