Puerto Montt is the gateway to Chile's "Lake District". As the name implies, this area is a tourism mecca full of lakes, trees, rivers, etc. When the Andes Mountains are added to the scenery, you have the Chilean edition of "Beautiful British Columbia"! The main attraction for us though, would be Mount Orsorno, an active volcano that reportedly looks very similar to Mount Fuji in Japan.
This is Fuji . . .
and this is Ororno!
First though, we would have to get off the ship and to do that, we would need a smaller craft called a "tender". Puerto Montt is not equipped to handle such large ships so we had to drop the anchor off shore.
Each tender will hold over 100 passengers and there are normally 3 or 4 making the trip back and forth to the ship.
So . . . once ashore, and after a quick look at Puerto Montt's main drag, we caught a bus to a tourist town called Puerto Varas where a great view of Orsorno could be had, and it was only about 20 kms away.
Puerto Varas is on the shore of Lago Llanquihue, the fourth largest lake in Chile. (50 kms across at its widest point and covering 400 square kms)
One of the reasons that this area is so popular is the "breathtaking view" of the volcano. Sadly, due to low cloud and smoke from a forest fire, we were unable to see what we had set out to see!
Disappointing, but c'est la vie . . . Oh well . . . there were the ever-present craft markets to poke around in to fill some time. Intricate macrame jewelry seems very popular in Chile and often has polished stones integrated into the design.
Puerto Varas is also known as the "City of Roses" because the streets and boulevards are lined with various varieties of roses.
German immigration in the latter half of the 19th century, has heavily influenced this area of Chile and evidence of that can be seen in the background of the next shot.
This church was built mostly in Germany and shipped to Puerto Varas for assembly in the early 1900's.
We also noticed that the area was more green than Valparaiso. This area, and most of southern Chile, receives a lot of rainfall. We found the city (population 26,000) to be a mix of German architecture with the feel of a typical tourist town (Jasper comes to mind). There were many hotels, hostels, craft markets, restaurants, and shops offering adventure tourism (white water rafting etc).
With no volcano to see, (and one of the worst lunches ever!) we headed back to Puerto Montt . . . and after a look through the Angelmo market, it was time to head back to the ship. First though, we stopped for a photo op with a new friend. The good looking one in the middle also has a smile on his face but you may have to enlarge to photo to see it!
Just one more stop before boarding the tender! This call centre allowed us to make a quick call home for about a buck!
If you look closely, more tenders are suspended from the upper deck. As you can see, the cloud cover hung around all day but we managed to avoid any significant rainfall. The literature surrounding this particular cruise suggested that we come with good, cool weather, rain gear. We hadn't planned on that when we packed for our Chilean adventure but we will see if what we have will get us through!
We will spend the night at sea before heading inland through the fjords of southern Chile to have a look at the Amalia Glacier, and then into the Strait of Magellan.
As always . . .
Hasta luego,
Amor,
Norm and Charlene
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