Day 10-12: Puerto Varas, Ancud

Sun 20 Nov-Tues 22 Nov

We rolled out of Pucon on a quiet Sunday, leaving behind more cloud and fog. We left without ever really seeing the volcano in its entirety from the town centre. I suppose you can’t have good luck with both views and hikes.

The ride to Puerto Varas, known as the gateway to Patagonia, was 5.5 hours and almost entirely through rain. We arrived and headed toward our hostel, Casa Azul, a long blue (azul) house in a quiet residential area about 250m from Lago (lake) Llanquihue. On clear days, Puerto Varas offers stunning views of Osorno volcano and provides a comfortable base camp for accessing the nearby national parks and trails. About 60km from Puerto Varas sits Petrohué, a small town that was the start of Che Guerva’s teenage motorcycle journey through the Andes to Bariloche, Argentina. The route is now a popular tourist route and takes travelers across lakes, rivers and mountain highways. The first lake crossing begins at Petrohué, onto Lago Todos los Santos (“All Saints Lake”), known for its crystalline turquoise waters. Lago Llanquihue and Lago Todo los Santos used to be one lake, but lava flows from long-ago volcanic eruptions divided the two. Crossing Lago Todos los Santos offers views of the three surrounding volcanos (Osorno, Puntiagudo, and Tronador).

This all sounds lovely- when you can see it…and unfortunately it was pouring rain for most of our stay in Puerto Varas and we could see nothing more than a cloudy horizon.

On Monday we wandered town before catching a local minibus toward Petrohué to visit Los Saltos Petrohué, a set of waterfalls about 6km outside of Petrohué that offer an incredible vantage point of Volcano Osorno. Here’s a photo of this view on a clear day, courtesy of google images.

Here's what Ally and I saw:

Despite missing out of the view, we had a nice time on the minibus practicing our spanish with the driver. Ally said he reminded her of Postman Pat, a British children’s storybook character that knows the whole town and is all chipper and friendly. Our bus driver was the Chilean equivalent, exchanging hugs and kisses with many of the passengers as they got on and off along the way.

We were warned that Chilean spanish would only become more difficult do understand the further south we traveled, and this was also the case with “Pat” the bus driver. He was keen to point out various things along the way, narrating the drive. He often finished sentences with what seemed to be questions… I can only imagine, “Did you see that?” “Do you have that in Canada?” and “What did you think of those?” … I resorted to nodding and smiling, numerous “si’s,” and then just giving thumbs up.

Ally had spotted some llamas out the window and the driver was kind enough to open the door to allow for a better view. Thanks Pat.

We were back in town by 6:30pm and ran a few more errands before heading back to the hostel to cook dinner. It turns out that Uncle Rob and Aunt Cindy would be in Puerto Varas as part of a tour group in the next few days, staying at a hotel not 200m from our hostel. Unfortunately Ally and I were booked to head further south the following morning, so we would be missing them. I put together a little ‘bienvenidos’ package and left it at their hotel overlooking the lake.

Our hostel was one of the more…shall we say…formal of the places we have stayed thus far. It is run by a German-Chilean family and has imported the German inclination for rule making and systems and structure. This included a request that men pee sitting down, with diagram mounted above the toilet and all.

Casa Azul had a lovely wood- furnished interior and large open kitchen with soothing massage music (think waterfalls, Chinese chimes etc) playing softly in the background. The place was decked out with copper too; from the radiant heaters to toilet roll holders to clothing racks and shower curtain rods. The kitchen and common area lighting system was an electrified loop of copper with individual LED (or halogen?) bulbs connected to spiralled copper, hooked and hanging directly from the main line. With the value of copper these days, it all seemed quite lavish and was certainly a unique feature. Ally and I were given la cueva, which we think translates to “the attic.” It was a large space and we enjoyed the luxury of two double beds- but the tin roof took some adjusting given the endless rain.

Ally, coming up the hatch into la cueva, our attic space in Puerto Varas.

This morning I went for a quick run along the lake, the clouds and fog still hiding the supposed volcano. Ally was in town and picked up some postcards showing the view we have missed out on. We packed up and caught our bus heading south to the town of Ancud on the island of Chiloé which is known for it’s quirky culture and spectacular scenery. Lonely Planet 2009 listed Chiloé as one of the top ten destinations (in the world), so we’re anxious to see what it has to offer!

Chiloé welcomed us with more rain, this time paired with blustering winds.

We wandered through town and visited the local folk/history museum. The people of Chiloé are known for their Chilote mythology, which was featured as an exhibit in this museum.

A mural in the town of Ancud illustrating some of the Chilote mythology

While the museum was in spanish, Ally and I were able to work out the gist of most of the little placards. I read aloud the description of one of the mythical creatures to Ally:

"A man who lives in a cueva and eats horses and children that are sick." I went on, "A cueva! He must have lived in an attic as well?" I asked Ally, referring back to the name of our room at the previous hostel.

"I guess so...?" she replied.

While uploading this post I was curious and googled the definition of cueva and learned that cueva does not mean attic.

A cueva is a cave. We were delegated the "cave" room at the hostel.

Hardley endearing. But it certainly makes for a better fit with the description of a mythical man who eats children.

Our fingers are crossed that tomorrow will bring sun- or even just less wind and rain- and we can make a trip over to the penguin colony. Tomorrow  (Wednesday) evening we head even further south on the island of Chiloé, where the culture and Chilote mythology are said to be even more prevalent.- to the town of Castro.