Los Lagos

After a few relaxing days on Chiloe we decided to spend the last three nights back on the mainland north of Puerto Montt. This region of Chile is called "Los Lagos" for its numerous lakes and fjords. It also features spectacular snow capped volcanoes and National Parks with Valdivian temperate rain forest.

Volcán Osorno and Lake Llanquihue

This time we stayed clear of Puerto Montt and headed straight for Puerto Varas, a smaller town a little further north. Puerto Varas is the tourist hub of the area, with lots of hotels, hostels, tour operators, etc. After a brief stop there - which we utilised to sample one of the first of this season´s water melons - we headed east along the southern shore of Lake Llanquihue to a small village called Ensenada. It really is only a handful of houses along the road, near the base of Volcán Osorno and just outside the boundaries of Chiles' oldest National Park. There we hired a cabin on the lake for a couple of nights.

The two of us and Sandra (a friend from school who has spent a couple of months with us) considered the available activities for the following day. Climbing the volcano certainly was a tempting option but we gave it a miss in favour of the more tame trip across the Todos los Santos Lake. Maybe another time. An 8am start the following morning was meant to get us ahead of the crowds, and indeed we were the first ones on the little stroll to the Petrohué Waterfalls and through the surrounding forest.

The boat was scheduled to leave at 10:30, leaving us with enough time for a brief dip in the clear waters of Lago Todos los Santos. It really was idyllic, despite the swarms of tábanos (horseflies) that descended upon us (...which explains Sandra's flying arms in below photos).

The catamaran trip across the lake takes about 1.5 hours and if the weather is nice it provides beautiful views of the deep green forest, blue to turquoise waters of the lake and white volcanoes surrounding the lake.

The other end of the lake crossing is a bit of a tourist trap. There one can go on overpriced 4x4 tours, guided kayak trips or canopy tours. It mainly caters for a slightly different type of crowd than we would normally mingle with. We chilled for a bit, enjoyed the views and tried not to get eaten alive by those nasty horseflies before catching the boat back a few hours later.

The last day we dropped off Sandra at the Airport in Puerto Montt in the morning as she headed to Punta Arenas for 2 months of surveying humpback whales in the Straight of Magellan (...more on this probably on her blog when she's back in touch with civilisation). The two of us then went on an afternoon of (fairly easy level) canyoning with Puerto Varas based Pachamagua. Loads of fun... no point in trying to describe it in words (better to check out the photos and videos).

More photos of these three days in the Puerto Varas area in below slide show (or this link for higher resolution):