03.01.08 - To Puerto Varas

In Like a Lamb

The day started not so bright, but early, with a 6:15am bus ride southward to Puerto Varas. The station was dark and the bus was nowhere near as nice as the overnight version taken from Santiago to Pucon.



I am finding, in Chile, that if a bus originates at your destination, it will leave on time. But, arrival schedules are a different matter all together. There are many stops along the way and each comes with a “time price tag”. Local vendors storm the bus, selling everything from sweets to coffee, from a huge tin holding tank strapped to the chest. The good thing is that we really weren’t in any hurry.



Puerto Varas is billed as a quaint, tidy, town of German heritage. This may have been true in the past, but what remains is a well worn burg of very mixed expression.



Old hand crafted houses lay in want, as their hand carved entrances languish in the drying sun.



Roses are mixed with broken cement…



… and the dominant feature of most blocks was not the architecture but the overhead wiring.



Our legs were itching for a stretch, after several days of relative inactivity. So we wandered from the center of town about 5 kilometers to a neighboring beach settlement and found a culinary “gold mine”. It was the classic case of empty restaurants all around and a single establishment packed with locals. We joined the gathering and were treated to and incredible salmon lunch.



Similarly to Pucon, Puerto Varas is famous for its volcanoes. We hunted the skyline but could only find a vague peak in the clouded distance.



The day was too far spent to venture out of town, so we hunted for a “canyoning” trip for the next morning. This would involve climbing, rappelling, and jumping from 18 meter waterfalls, which would sate our adrenaline deprived bodies and psyches.

With our day booked for tomorrow, there was nothing else to do but hang out on the beach, swap stories, drink a few beers and wait for the volcano to shed its cloud cover. Our patience paid off in a clear evening vista.



Still stuffed from lunch, we opted for a snacking dinner of cold cuts, cheeses, apples, avocado, tomatoes and some form of mystery meat pate. After dinner, we were “amped” for tomorrow’s adventure.