We left Puerto Montt (regretfully as it was our favorite city. It wasn’t the biggest, the fanciest or the most modern.......it was just our favorite) Friday afternoon the 16th. The night before we had spent in Ancud on the north end of Isla Chiloé. We can already feel it, we are loving where we are at the moment and neither one of us is particularly interested in going home. That doesn’t mean we don’t like where we live.....just means we really like where we’re at right now. The people, the setting and as far as we’ve read we have continued to luck out on the weather the entire trip.  Here's a map of the island and the Puerto Montt area to the north........

Anyway, the next day we were off to Puerto Montt for our last night in southern Chile. We walked (again) to the local bus terminal in Ancud and boarded the bus for Puerto Montt. Back north through Chacao, on to the northbound ferry to the coastal pueblo of Pargua and north along the national highway to Puerto Montt. We had decided to stay in a downtown hotel the week prior to being back to this area. Puerto Montt is modern and old, all at the same time. A few remaining older (prior to 1960) German influenced buildings and more modern nondescript replacement buildings built since the 1960 earthquake. We heard music from the downtown square, the Plaza de Armas, and headed that direction only to hear the final 2 selections from the Philharmonie de Puerto Montt. It seemed like every town we had visited in the area, Castro, Ancud and now Puerto Montt had continuous programs every night in their local Plaza de Armas. Every program well attended by local people. Pure magic for us and we would have loved to have you all with us to enjoy it.
Here are a couple of Puerto Montt pictures by others..........
This one of Orsono Volcano across Lago Llanquilhue.....................

Just another German church.

Here's the Navimag ship prior to leaving for Punta Arenas to the south.  Last jumping off point for Antarctica.

Our in town hotel had a great view of the world class harbor that is Puerto Montt. In the morning there were two huge cruise ships anchored out 1000 meters or so off shore. They had come in during the previous night and we learned that they were the same ships that had left Buenos Aires two weeks earlier for the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and Tierra del Fuego. After Puerto Montt, they were continuing north to end their cruise at Valparaiso, Chile in the next couple of days. We had been to Valparaiso 4 weeks earlier on a tour from Santiago. As everything else in Chile, there is no way to say how beautiful Valparaiso or Vina del Mar are. It's something that you need to see for yourself.

We ate breakfast and watched tenders from the cruise ships bring passengers ashore for a visit. Wish that I could have taken pictures, but the camera was still out of commission.

After breakfast, we took another long walk along the waterfront and met a nice couple from Oklahoma that had arrived aboard one of the cruise ships. We knew that the couple that we had shared dinner with at the Tango Show in Buenos Aires 2 weeks earlier was aboard one of these ships but there was no chance that we would see them. That was a correct assumption.

Our original trip tickets were to fly back to the states the next day direct from Santiago. Puerto Montt is about a 1000 Km. (600+/- Miles) south of Santiago. By now, we were comfortable with local and regional buses and had originally planned on spending the final day of our vacation on a bus from Puerto Montt to Santiago, about a 20 hour ride. We decided to splurge on a plane ticket which gave us an extra day in Puerto Montt which for us was one of the best decisions of the vacation. We spent the day prior to our bus ride wandering around town. We both wish that we could explain what we liked so much about Puerto Montt. Might have been the people, proximity to the water, sense of order in a Latin country, we're not sure. All we know is that we liked the place. For Chris and I, it wasn’t just another town and I have a feeling that we will return.

We were out of Puerto Montt about 4:30 P.M. Friday, and arrived in Santiago 1:50 Minutes later. We had gained an hour or so and then back in the air at 10:00P.M. that night for Lima, Peru. Back on a plane for LAX around 12:30 A.M Saturday Lima time and arrived at LAX 8:30 A.M. Saturday
 
Got an a bus for home and our sweet daughter, Kellie and her son Tysen picked us up in San Luis Obispo that afternoon.
 
Glad to share with you all.    Alan & Chris

Day 26  14 de Enero (Cont.)

The next morning we waited patiently and with intrepidation for our trip to see the penguins. To our relief, we were met by Antonio a young man with a meticulously polished older car and his mother. He took us the 20 miles down dirt roads and through very rural farms to the penguin rookery beach. Antonio spoke no English and he dutifully tried to explain the flora and fauna of the area. The local bus does not run to the beach so locals have to walk the last mile.


Here’s Antonio and his mom. Salt of the earth, nice people.

Another photo from the same bluff top point. The bay is huge, on the same order of magnitude as Santa Cruz Bay without any people. The island breeding area is still a mile or so further south.

We parked the car on the bluff above the beach and followed Antonio and his mom down a path hacked through the blackberry bushes to the beach. His mom peeled off the left to the restaurant overlooking the beach.

Chris is viewing the beautiful sand beach with the rookery on the offshore rocks.

We dropped his mom at work then hiked down to the beach to get the boats out to the penguin islands.

We followed Antonio the rest of the way to the beach and he took our photo perched on a rock. It was low tide and he showed us the various shell fish and seaweed that is harvested..

Here’s the fishing boat we went out in.

At the beach we were met by Elke, a German volunteer who explained the penquins in our language and went with us in the boat This is a picture of Elke and Chris, look similar?

The local fishermen manned a boat in the surf and we were unceremoniously pushed out to the boat in a wheeled cart so we would not get wet. Unfortunately, as we pushed out through the surf, a wave over the bow caught Alan unprepared and the camera died with the moisture. These are the last of our pictures.

Magellan and Humboldt penguins maintain breeding colonies together separately on these island. The males dig burrows and the females select mates based on the burrows. Sea lions lurk in the waters around the islands and kill the penguins after they have fed on fish to feed their babies. They eat the penquin stomachs for the fish and leave the rest of the body in tact. Te seas were strong and it looked dangerous just leaving the island. The islands were pieces of land, which broke off the mainland in the 1960 earthquake. The fishermen pointed out where the local soccer field is now under water. The whole island sank about a meter from the quake.

Anthony returned us to Ancud with some relief as he had as much trouble understanding us as we of him. He directed us to a local eatery, and we again dined on food we had little idea of what we ordered. Alan had the most enormous mountain of beef and French fries we had ever seen! We headed to the local bus terminal and returned to the mainland on the ferry. We hiked along the waterfront to our hotel and then we walked downtown Puerto Montt which has a lot of bars, shops and is the seaport and main commercial center for this area. It is very old and very new for here all at the same time. Again, it dramatically changed with reconstruction following the 1960 earthquake and has been rebuilt without it’s railroad

Click on LOCATION below for a map of the pinguineria


Ciao from Ancud,  Alan & Chris

Day 26 14 de Enero, 2009     Part 1




The next afternoon, we walked from the Castro Hotel to the bus terminal and caught a local bus from Castro to Ancud.

Ancud is the second largest town on Chiloe and sits in a beautiful north facing bay.

When we arrived in Ancud we talked with some young men sitting in a booth at the terminal and asked about seeing the penguins. There was no English spoken, but they eagerly signed us up for a tour the next day and then offered to drive us to our hotel. All they could say was Swartznegger and hasta la vista, baby! We had no idea what we were in for in the morning. We walked around the town and beachfront, checked out a concert in the central park by a youth band and went to the local museum, which had pictures of before and after the 1960 earthquake. This massive earthquake knocked down the local church along with many buildings and the following tsunami took most of the rest of the town. Railroads were abandoned after this event..

According to what we had read, the majority of the residents are a mixture of Indigenous and European ancestry Most people were willing to converse with us in our limited Spanish. Ancud had a Spanish fort, built in the 1770’s and many structures with German architecture.

The police are called the Caribineros de Chile and are federal police. Against Chris’ opinion, I had to get a picture of them. A couple of our guide books suggested offering money to the police if you were in trouble, but local information said NEVER to offer these guys a bribe. Their uniforms certainly are very Germanic and seeing several in dress uniform at once is like being an extra in a World War II movie. Here’s a photo.

Here are a couple of photos at the fort. The first is of one of several turrets and the other is one of the cannons at sundown, about 9:45 P.M. at this latitude.

Click on LOCATION below for map of Ancud

Part 2 to follow

Day 25 13 de Enero, 2009


Chile is broken up into numbered regions rather than states or provinces. The area of Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas lie within Chile’s Region X and also includes the island of Chiloe, an archipelago more than 120 miles long and 40 miles wide. The island was visited by Charles Darwin in 1837 and his journal entries are published in the book Voyage of the Beagle. It lies south of Puerto Montt and is separated from the mainland by a 10 mile +/- channel leading to the Pacific. The island has about 155,000 people with two main towns, Castro and Ancud , a sprinkling of smaller pueblos and a large national park on the portion bordering the Pacific.The only way to get there is by ferry or small airplane. Everything that we read about the island sounded interesting.

Puerto Montt is considered the northern gateway to the Patagonia area. With our limited time, we chose to visit the island of Chiloe and not the mainland. Everything we read said that it was like turning the clock back 25 years and that proved true. It is an unspoiled area with the beginnings of tourism in its quaint, bare bones lifestyle. We had bargained for a guided tour of the area who took us from Puerto Varas through to Castro, the capital of Chiloe. Alphonso, our non English speaking guide, picked us up for the 130 mile or so trip to Castro. We worked hard to ask questions and understand answers as we went through the wet forests and fields of Chiloe .ending in Castro where there are many houses built on stilts and painted bright colors. It is a fishing city that is also involved in transporting of farmed salmon.

Below is a photo of Chris on top of the narrow superstructure of the car ferry. That’s the top of a semi truck next to her. Underneath her is the world’s narrowest snack bar. .

I leaned over the edge to take a picture of the snack bar patrons with their coffee and rolls squished between the side of the truck and the snack bar

I counted 6 other ferrys besides ours going back and forth and they don’t waste any time. We’re third in line to unload behind these two. They zip in to the concrete ramp, drop their loading ramp and everybody takes off. The ferry reloads immediately, the pilot goes to the other end of the pilothouse and the ferry takes off the other way. It’s beautiful.

Castro is a hub of activity for fishing boats with mostly shell fish and salmon boats hauling farm salmon from pens somewhere further south in the islands.
The photo below is of the fishing boats, all of which were made locally of wood. The third photo is of a truck loaded with plastic tanks of harvested salmon headed for the factories in Puerto Montt.

Back at the hotel, here’s Chris emailing in the evening with her Pisco Sour, the national drink of Chile.

The second picture is out the hotel window of the bay at low tide.

This poor photo taken through a window on a rainy day is an unidentified bird that was nesting outside the hotel. I’ll bet Rick Austin would know.

Speaking of tides, we were in Castro a couple of days after the full moon. I checked the local tide tables and the total high to low tide was 6+ meters, about 18 feet. It was unreal to watch. The fisherman use the tide changes for boat repairs. Pull it in to the shallows at high tide, wait a couple of hours, and you’ve got about 4 or 5 hours to get your work done. Here’s a photo of a large fishing boat on it’s side.

Below are 2 photos taken less than an hour apart. The boat sits on it’s side then is refloated an hour later. Every boat that we saw had a strake or runner along the lower part of the hull parallel to the keel. This kept the boats from rolling all the way over when the low tide left them high and dry.

We met a young touring German couple and the four of us split the cost of a harbor tour with a local fisherman. Here’s the rear of the houses all along the waterfront, locally called Palafitos. Built completely on stilts, but the fronts are on the street above. From the street they look like any other house in town.

The next morning it was time to head out for the local bus terminal. About an hour walk after breakfast and Alan caught a siesta in the terminal before that bus arrived. I know, it’s not a pretty site.

Click on the LOCATION link below for a map of Castro



Ciao from Castro, Alan & Chris

Day 24 11 de Enero Puerto Varas


We decided to spend a couple of days with nothing else planned in Puerto Varas. More walking about the downtown and surrounding area. Like most towns in this area, Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt to the south were founded by German Immigrants in the mid 1800’s. Their influence is evident in the architecture and orderliness of the towns. Also the buses also run on time!

Puerto Varas is on the southwest shore of Lago Llanquilhue, which receives Andes runoff and drains into the Pacific Ocean 15 miles to the south near Puerto Montt. Lago Llanquilhue is the largest lake in Chile and is 1400 feet deep. To the northeast of the lake is the dormant volcano, Orsono, which reminded us of Mt Fujiyama with its perfect symmetric shape. We changed Argentine pesos ( $3.40 / U.S.$1.00) for Chilean pesos ($640.00 / U.S. $1.00). and walked away from the money changers office with a wad of Chilean pesos.

Chris is writing another email in our hotel room. That’s Lago Llanquilhue in the background with a local boat tied up to a mooring ball What you cant see because of the low marine layer are the two volcanoes that are in the lake background.

Below is a picture of Puerto Varas from high ground. Still hard to see but the volcano Orsono is in the marine

layer background.

In the afternoon we decided to ride the local bus to Puerto Montt, about a 20 minutes to the south. Puerto Montt is a large city, 200,000 + people , much more commercial than Puerto Varas. We wandered around the downtown. Very clean town with a beautiful huge port area. Most everything down low near the waterfront has been rebuilt in the past 40 years. Puerto Montt and the island of Chiloe to the south were devastated by an earthquake and resulting tsunami in 1960. It seemed like every bit of town history included something about that disaster.

Puerto Montt has it all when it comes to Chilean commerce. #1 is Salmon farming followed by dairy production, potatoes and wood pulp for paper products and chipboard. In the countryside, many native trees have been replaced with large stands of eucalyptus for pulp production.

The Navimag ships leave Puerto Montt and head south for Puerto Natales twice a week.  Puerto Natales is way south just before Port Arenas and Ushuia. Last stop before Antarctica.  The ferry carrys some passengers and cargo and was just leaving when we got to the port. Looks like those lucky enough to be aboard were all on the top deck enjoy the beginning of an exciting voyage.  Not us, not this time at least.

Later in the day, we returned to Puerto Varas for the usual glass of whatever and dinner at 11:00pm. We’re used to late dinner and sleeping in in the morning and will probably have quite an adjustment when we get home.

Click on LOCATION below for an aerial view of Puerto Montt.

Ciao from Puerto Varas,  Alan & Chris

Today’s adventure was one of our best! Cruz de Lago! We went from Bariloche, Argentina to Puerto Varas, Chile, over the Andes in one day. Started on a bus, transferred to a boat. Then a boat trip way up one of the fingers of Nahuel Huapu lake to a remote dock in the Andes,Puerto Blest, where we transferred to a 4 wheel drive bus. The photo below is along the first lake cruise, also a picture of the boat something right out of Buck Rogers.

After a relatively short bus ride we transferred to another boat on Lago Frias lake which had opaque light blue green water, fjord like. Various signs along the way reminded us that this was the same route taken across the Andes by Che Guevara in the early 50’s in his motorcycle tour of S. America shown in the movie “Morotcycle Diaries”. At the end of the boat ride we went thru Argentine customs in a one room cabin so remote there was only one way in and out through the national park and then thru private land. We went over the summit of the Andes, which was only 1000 meters, After stopping for a photo op at the Argentina/Chile border, we continued down some hairpin turns into a valley with a large river. and a working cattle ranch on the shores of Lago Todos Santos.

We stopped here and had all our luggage off loaded to go thru Chilean customs. There was a beautiful inn with white starched table clothes and we had salmon and mariscos for our very upscale lunch about 2pm. Everyone from the trip took a nap in the lounge on couches with a view up the river valley and the huge peaks all around. Stunning and again, so remote! There are no roads into this area, just boats that transport everything across lakes that looked as large as Tahoe. After a two hour lunch stop, Alan and I walked to the pier below the hotel and boarded yet another boat for a long trip across Lago Todos Santos to yet another waiting bus and we drove for several hours with 4 volcanos in view, including Osorno. This volcano exploded in 1960 and dumped lava all over the area including into the river, which now has dramatic waterfalls going over and partly thru the lava. The photos below are of the lava flox in the creek bed and a picture of Osorno.

You can see where the lava flowed up against the old creek bank on the right side of the photo after the last eruption. Since then the creek has cut many new channels through the magma.

\Very impressive and the volcanoes are still active, although it has been awhile since the last eruption.(or since the last “volcanic erection”, as the tour guide told us)

We arrived at our hotel about 9:00 pm and got a room overlooking the last lake which is Lago Llanquilhue. A quick sandwich with a Pisco Sour (Chilean) and Alan’s beer and we were in bed!

Wanted to make note of some observations we have collected over the past several weeks. Firstly, we are relieved to be out of the city even though it was exciting. The noise and bustle became overwhelming. and our schedule was hectic because of having 5 hours of class per day to make up for Christmas and New Year Day being holidays.

All for now, we’re off to check out the island of Chiloe next week.Check out the LOCATION link below for a map of Puerto Varas. Beautiful town on Lago Llanquilhue.



Ciao from Chile, Alan & Chris

Yesterday we left the tropical jungle and flew back to the bustling Buenos Aires. I t was like homecoming to the noise, people, movement and frantic tempo. We transferred by taxi to the main bus terminal with a two hour wait before boarding our doubledecker bus for our 22 hour, 900 mile trip across Argentina. As usual the bus terminal was a seething mass of people all going somewhere. There were some tourists, some well dressed , lots of youth with backpacks and many families either kissing babies goodbye or smothering the babies with hello kisses. Argentines do a lot of cheek kissing, either hello or goodby, and the men do this as much as the women to each other. It is a warm gesture and makes you feel accepted. Below is a photo of Chris in front of the double decker bus

We boarded our bus at 2:30 in the afternoon. The bus had big seats, which laid back almost flat. We opted for the lower deck to minimize swaying and were glad we did! We headed out from Buenos Aires into the pampas with miles and miles of green flat grazing land. Only saw one gaucho, with his sheepskin covered saddle, but it got dark about 10pm and we were still going through the pampas. Pampas photo below.

We were served 2 meals in boxes before our hot dinner at 11pm. This meal was begun with some type of liquor in small glasses- very chique! and then everyone who wasn’t watching the movie went to sleep. PreDinner toast photo

There were several police stops during the night, once when a policewoman entered the bus with a flashlight looking for something. We finally dozed and when it got light in early morning, the terrain had changed to Arizona type landscape; dry, flat with scrub plants. All the passengers had changed as well in an early, early morning stop
About 9am we got breakfast and thelandscape changed to Tahoe/Rocky Mountains type scenery. About 10:00A.M., we pulled into the bus station at Bariloche, we clearly had entered young hiker, biker paradise. The place was filled with semi grunge young people all with the latest hiking paraphernalia and backpacks everywhere. Alan lined up for the bus.

Bariloche is on a huge high mountain lake, Nahuel Huapi, with german architecture everywhere. It is a ski resort in the winter and a hiker paradise in the summer. Town is a mass of younger backpacker types with a blend of high end tourists from around the world, but most from Argentina. Not many from the US, but English is spoken in most restaurants and hotels because all the Europeans speak some English.

The next morning, we relaxed and boarded a midday ride for the port area west of town. We were in time for a half day tour to Victoria Island and Arrelanes Peninsula in the middle of the lake, all part of the Argentine Nation Park System. A photo of the boat and from the stern looking back towards Bariloche. it was built in Holland in 1936 and has been used for touring of transporting passengers on htis lake for its entire life.

Chris with Arrleanes trees, red bark and similar looking to a Manzanita.

We had plenty of company as the boat was full of tourists doing the same thing. All an all a great day and we returned to the port about 7:00 P.M. and rode the bus back to town.

Chris on the island waiting for the boat to pick us up

Ciao from Bariloche, Alan & Chris

We flew from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguaza yesterday with the idea of spending two days visiting the great waterfall where the Parrahna and Iguazu Rivers converge in northern Argentina. Each river is a natural border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Our plan was to visit the Argentine side on the first day and the Brazilian side on the second. But Brazil requires an entry visa for US citizens and a charge of $175.00 per person for US citizens even if you only visit for a few hours on one day. They call it a “reciprocity tax” since we charge their citizens the same entry visa fee since 9/11/2001. We passed on the Brazilian visit.

We hired a driver after our arrival and went to a precious stone mine 60 Km south of Iguazu . The two of us sat in the back seat while our driver barreled along at 120 to 130 Km/Hr, passing buses and cars “con mucho gusto”. Being close to the Paraguay border, we had to pass through an Argentine military check point, they looked inside and waved us through.

The last 5 Km. were down red dirt roads into a small town called Wanda. Named after the mine, not the movie. The mine started out as a small open pit mine, maybe 300 to 400 wide with the discovery of geodes containing quartz, amethyst and citrine. . The mine is on a hill above a smaller river and the top 10 feet or so of topsoil was blown away hydraulically and washed down the river to get at the bedrock. The gems are all found within geodes embedded in solid rock shown below. Alan kneeling at the face of one of the shafts and Chris’s hand in front of one of the geodes for size comparison.

The next photos show the 6 or 7 horizontal mines, none more than a 100’ long. The shafts were dug by hand with cold chisels, pneumatic drills and explosives. Dynamite is very expensive and requires a permit to purchase so they simply make their own. The geodes are freed from the rock, and then cut, polished and tumbled and sold at the gift shop, conveniently located at the only exit for people touring the mine. The largest geodes were more than 7 feet tall. Chris is standing behind several in the photos below.

The following day, Monday, we left with our scheduled tour of the waterfalls or cataratas as they’re called here. The Argentine National Park Service has constructed pasarelas or catwalks that allow a long easy walk from the nearest bank to a lookout right over the top of the largest falls. It’s maybe a half mile walk suspended over the river and when you get within a 1000’ or so you can start to see the spray and hear the roar of the falls. Finally in view, the roar is deafening. Wind and spray from the falls have everybody soaking wet within a few minutes.

Here are some pictures of the upper and lower falls.

At the end of the day we went in a high powered boat up to the base of the falls and got thoroughly wet. Oh, there are coatamundis here- like raccoons. We saw one take a guy’s sandwich and bit his hand in an instant! They are clued into tourists.

The park has been dramatically upgraded since Chris was here 15 year ago- a train to move people and trails with all weather surfaces. There was huge water in 1992 which took out the old walkways..

The tour took all day and we were exhausted when we got back to the hotel. We sat by the pool listening to the night sounds of the jungle with our cold pizza , left over from lunch and downed Alan’s precious 500 cc bottle of Quilmes Lager..



Ciao, Alan & Chris