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Lake District from the plane one week prior
After our Patagonia trip, we flew to Puerto Montt Airport
and drove to Puerto Varas, in Chile’s Lake District, where we stayed four
nights. We had flown over this area on our trip south the previous week and we
were very impressed with the snowcapped volcanic mountains and beautiful blue
lakes. However, the weather changed and now the skies remained cloudy, blocking
the view of the surrounding peaks.
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| Petrohue Waterfalls |
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| Chilla Fox |
The Petrohue Falls were a big attraction in the area. I
wasn’t impressed with the pictures of it, but I figured it was worth a visit. There
is something about waterfalls that just can’t be captured in a picture, and
that was certainly true of the power of these falls. I left impressed. After
doing a few hikes in the Vicente Perez Rosales NP, we drove up the Osorno
Volcano. We were in the clouds when we arrived at the top, but the clouds were
starting to lift. On the way back down, we saw a couple of Chilla foxes (Zorro
Chilla).
The next day we decided to take it easy. We dropped off our laundry
and toured around Puerto Varas and the German town, Fruitillar. We quickly got
frustrated by major attractions not being open during posted hours. Our
solution was to head out to another NP.
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| Salto Rio Chaica |
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| Black faced Ibis |
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Alerce Milenario Tree
The Alerce Andino NP was established to protect the legendary
alerce (larch) trees, some of the oldest on the planet. This is a roadless
park. Near the entrance, you park and explore the rest of the 39,000 hectares on
foot. We hiked in and saw a couple of waterfalls. Pat climbed a series of staircases
to see the Alerce Milenario tree, estimated to be 5,000 yrs old! |
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| Humboldt Penguins |
We checked out of our B&B and took a ferry to the Island
of Chiloe. We drove to Punihuil on the Pacific Coast and took a boat trip to the
offshore islands. This is the only place in the world where Magellanic and
near-extinct Humboldt penguins nest side by side. We went out in fishing boats.
Since there were no docks in the area, all the visitors were loaded into a large,
elevated cart that was pushed out to the boats so that you could enter the
boats without walking through the surf. In addition to the penguins, we saw sea
birds, a sea lion, and illegal fishermen, who were chased away from the nature preserve by our boat driver.
Side Chapel in UNESCO Church
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| Castro's Estuary |
In Ancud, we visited a museum on Chiloe’s UNESCO-listed
churches. These 16 churches are famous for their intricate interior woodwork. We
checked into our hotel in Castro for three nights. Our room was built on stilts
on the edge of a bird filled estuary.
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| Brown hooded Gull |
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| Black-necked Swans |
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| Dog Orchids |
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| Wooden Church in Castro |
From here we traveled to Chiloe NP and did some hiking. The
next day we drove around the island, visiting 5 of the UNESCO churches, and the
180 ft Tocoihue Waterfall. We had to return to Puerto Montt to catch our flight
to Santiago, Dallas/Ft Worth and BWI.
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| Pat at Tocoihue Falls |
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Fisherman's Grave
Overall, it was a good trip. We had better than expected
weather during the first week, after the first day. We had a good group of
travelers, some of whom we knew from previous trips, and excellent guides. We were surprised that we could drink tap
water during our trip. From our experience, I would say November is a good time
to go to southern Chile (peak season is Dec & Jan). But there are no
guarantees on the weather - just after we left Chile, a major blizzard with 125
MPH winds hit the Torres Del Paine NP and 5 backpackers on ice covered trails, got
lost in the whiteout conditions and died from exposure. They did not have a
guide.
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| Skies clear on last day- Osorno Volcano |
