Two days before we arrived in Puerto Varas, Chiloe (Chill-o-way) Island - 100 kms away, suffered a 7.6 earthquake. One of the roads between Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas upended and 2 houses fell down. We asked people why it seemed like no one cared - they all were just living their lives - and we were told that Chile is a special place and always changing. The volcano nearby exploded in 2014, they live on numerous earthquake faults, and during the winters there are avalanches. So a "tiny" earthquake that didn't kill anyone, it just keeps the Chileans on their toes. And if the earthquake didn't knock down the decrepided houses, then I guess they might still be safe to live in.
Our first tour of the region took us to the edge of All Saints Lake, a.k.a. Emerald Lake (because of the color of the water), where everyone on our tour decided to go on a boat ride, except Robby and I. We randomly found Elmer, our wheelchair friend from the Chile Chico border crossing, and decided to spend our half hour off the bus talking with him. He had managed to go kayaking twice and semi scale a mini glacier in his wheelchair. He's pretty amazing.
Our tour people came back to land as Elmer set off on his boat excursion around the lake. We wished him well on the rest of his adventures as we headed to our next stop at the Petrohue Waterfalls. Lots of rushing water flowed over old volcano magma with the Osorno Volcano towering in the distance. The water had a pretty green color to it, adding beauty to the flowing water. After our allotted 25 minutes at the falls (the only sucky thing about tours is you have to rush from place to place and never have enough time to truly explore the place you are in it's entirety because the tours are meant to just show you the highlights and are mostly for older people that don't like walking so much), we hopped back on the bus and drove a very windy road 80kms to the base of the Osorno Volcano.
During the winter, the active volcano is a ski resort, but during the summer, the lower ski lift takes visitors to the red crater at the point where the volcanic dirt meets the snow on the mountain. The ski lift's view didn't seem that impressive going up the mountain, but after we got off, walked 5 minutes to see a unimpresive hole in the ground (a.k.a shitty crater), the ride down the mountain was relaxing and gave Robby and I a great view of Llanguihue Lake, the towns peppered along its shores, and the four volcanos that surround the Lake; including Calbuco Volcano - the volcano that exploded two years ago and covered the area in grey ash for 4 months.
Once we were back in Puerto Varas, we had an hour to find lunch before leaving for our next tour. In that hour we discovered a little bit of heaven - a food truck street with an espresso cart that made real, and delicious, coffee. It was heaven. We also bought fresh cherries off a street cart. Puerto Varas is an adorable lake front town with the town square a block from the beach. Chileans come here during the summer to swim in the 50 degree water. They think it's warm. Lots of cute tourist cafes, bars, and clothing shops jet out from the square and spread up the hill to the residential/local part of the city.
Our 2nd tour of the day/region lead us along the back roads to small towns that definitely still had the German houses standing. We drove through what looked like Vermont with the green field and mountains, but had massive farm houses in the old fashion country style. We 1st stopped in Frutillar -which means Strawberry, but only in this region of the country. Every other Spanish speaking place calls strawberries, "fresa". Since the area gets rained on 200+ days out of the year, most fruits couldn't grow except strawberries. The area was covered in strawberry fields during the 1800 and 1900's.
Today, the town is a small beachside community that welcomes swimmers and sunbathers and has a German Colonial Museum. Robby and I explored the museum, which was an old German family's 3 acre farm including their home, an old blacksmith shop, a rose garden, and 2 other buildings. There were replicas of the furniture, blacksmith equipment, a wheel well, and other things used to work the farm and complete the home.
Next stop was Puerto Octay. It's name is funny for Chileans because it's the only one of its kind. There used to be just one general store in the region, owned by Christo Ochs, and he sold everything. When settlers would arrive in the port (any town with "puerto" in front was a port town as puerto means port), they would ask the locals where to get something and everyone would always say, "donde Ochs hay" which means "you'll get it at Ochs". So Ochs and Hay became "Octay".
It's now a sleepy town of 3000 people with some of the oldest, 130+ years old, still standing German houses. Many have been turned into stores and a very large mansion one is a college. Robby and I had fun taking pictures and buying local cheese and dried salmon from the market.
We ended our backcountry tour at our airbnb, where we walked into the chicken restaurant next door and somehow walked out with a roasted half chicken they took off a spit in the back. We ate like heathens in the apartment, with no plates, and washed it down with beer we bought after walking in and out of five mini marts.
The next morning we headed to Chiloe Island. We got to ride on another car ferry, but since it was extremely foggy, we couldn't see any birds or seals. The island is 1.5 hours from Puerto Varas and most know for wooden churches built by the Jesuits in the 1700 and 1800's as well as multicolored houses on stilts. We came for the iconic stilt houses of Castor, the main town on the island. The houses were originally built by the poor because the government wouldn't give them land, so the waterfront was free territory and up went their community. But, like most gentrifications, poor areas become nice areas and the stilt houses were no exception. In the last few years contractors have been scooping them up and turning them into adorable boutique hotels and mini shops. Some of the original owners still live in their homes, so the community is a mix bag.
We happened upon the houses at low tide, so we mostly saw the stilts lodged in the mud. But the colors were pretty and once we convinced a hotel to let us onto their back patio, we realized that the houses were fairly sturdy and offered a great view of the water.
We continued on to Dalcahue, a very small town that had a cute artist market and was right on the water. We went in search of some purple corn bread our guide told us about, but all the vendors didn't understand what we were asking for and kept trying to sell us fried bread with meat inside. I guess only the people in the know can find the purple bread.
Our last stop of the tour was in Ancud, where the tour ticket seller forgot to mention that the tour would be stopping at a very fancy tourist restaurant for lunch, leaving us very little option but to eat there or starve. Luckily, most tourist restaurants take forever to serve people and since Robby and I don't mind walking, we headed into the nearby town center for cheaper eats. We found delicious seafood empanadas and a shrimp and cheese one that was like fondu in a warm bread casing.
Two other people from our tour had the same idea and we caught up with them on the walk back to the fancy restaurant. Since we figured the rest of the tour people would still be eating, we decided to visit the old San Antonio Fort on the hill. All that remained of the once mighty fort (because all forts were mighty) was a red brick perimeter wall and a bunch of canons - most likely replicas of the real ones. The fort sat on the cliff and looked out onto the South Pacific.
Our last half day in Puerto Varas was spent meandering the town. We stopped in Museo Pablo Fierro - a house with added on sections, including a car through the side of the building and numerous floors covered in thank you letters from children as well as the artist's sketches of the buildings in town. An eclectic mix of junk and interesting architectural decisions.
We happened upon a lake boat cruise that was leaving 5 mins after we showed up and offered an included Pisco sour- the sort of official drink of the country (but it is also Peru's drink of choice, so there is some debate as to which country is the founder of the semi sour liquor. A Chilean that we met said most Chilean's prefer sweet stuff and since Pisco Sours are not sweet, maybe it is the drink of Peru. Useless stuff to ponder). Robby and I sat at the bow of the boat, leaning against the cantina's front window and admiring the calm of the lake while the sun turned us into lobsters. It was a very relaxing hour journey, even though we got quite sunburnt.
We said goodbye to Puerto Varas and hopped on the local bus to Puerto Montt. There are official bus stops, but the drivers mainly lurch to a stop if they see anyone put their hands out for a ride. We weren't sure if the 20 minute ride was going to take us an hour because our driver slammed on the brakes every 100 yards. But 30 minutes later we ended up at the main bus terminal in Puerto Montt. We were catching a 12 hour night bus to Santiago three hours later and wanted to make sure we were at the right station. The bus company said yes, and that are bus left at 7pm, leaving us 3 hours to explore the local fish market.
The fish market was very small, but offered fresh ceviche consisting of white fish and salmon. There were other kinds including octopus and some mucus type sea creature that grossed Robby and I out. We ate some normal ceviche while watching gigantic sea lions fight each other for the fish remains the shop owners tossed into the bay. If it wasn't for the viciousness in which they hit each other trying to get the food, the sea lions looked like cute little sea puppies - even going so far as to have "puppy eyes" when looking up at us. I tossed them the remains of my ceviche, but it did not appease them.
At 6:45pm, Robby and I stood in the packed bus station asking every bus that came in if it was our bus. At 6:55pm, we got slightly worried we were at the wrong station, but numerous bus drivers told us the Santiago bus would be arriving in one of the far stalls. 7:10pm panic set in. All the other buses seemed to have been leaving on time and yet our bus was late? Robby finally asked a station attendant what was up and he just told us to follow him, shaking his head. He lead us to the bus counter where they said the bus was at the main terminal for the company, not there. Um, 3 hours previous we had confirmed we were at the right place, but apparently the lady we talked to was a moron.
The station agent shoved us into a cab and said good luck. We had no idea where the driver was taking us - we were thinking Puerto Varas, and as it was 7:16pm at rush hour, there was no way we were making the 7:30pm bus, if that was the case. The taxi driver started asking us why we're at the wrong station, did we call the bus terminal at the right station to hold the bus, etc. We just says, "No Se".
Apparently we were not headed back to Puerto Varas as 10 minutes up the hill we arrived at Cruz de Sur's main bus terminal in Puerto Montt. The taxi driver leapt out of his cab, thrusts our backpacks into our hands, and sprinted for the entrance. We did a mini remake of Home Alone, racing through the terminal to a bus with 3 attendants all standing out front smiling at us. The previous station agent had called ahead and told the bus to wait for us.
By the skin of our teeth we were tucked into the semi private lower level of the double decker bus with seats that mostly reclined, blankets, and a cold soda. The best part was at 9:45pm the driver felt it was bedtime, so he dimmed all the lights and the bus attendant came through, leaning over us to shut the curtains and tucked the blankets around us. Apparently it was nighty-night time.
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