4. Chile - The Lakes District

Covering 24 Jan 2019 - 29 Jan 2019      

well this might look like England but it's southern Chile
 - coming in to land at Puerto Montt

After The Torres del Paine National Park we begin to head back northwards.  On a map it doesn’t look far but from Punta Arenas to Puerto Montt in a straight line is 811 miles.  By road the route has to go via Argentina and is 1,347 miles which because of the dearth of roads down here in deepest Patagonia even runs for some way along the Atlantic coast.  We flew.  Well, what would you have done ?

Puerto Montt is a busy port at the southern end of Chile’s Lakes District and we only spent a night stop here before catching a proper local bus to our intended base for a few days, Puerto Varas.  These are not the local buses beloved of travel documentaries with boxes of chickens tied on the roof and piglets running about inside, just friendly local people and a helpful driver for an hour’s trip costing next to nothing.

Puerto Varas is set upon gentle hills sloping down to a beautiful lake and at the lakeside it looks much more like something in France or Italy than Cumbria.  Across the lake and making it look even less like Cumbria and even France or Italy was a perfect cone of snow-covered volcano dominating the view.  They call this area The Lakes District but there isn’t a single mention of Wordworth’s Cottage. 

and this could be Cumbria

or perhaps not - Volcan Osorno across the lake

After a whole morning looking around for a car rental Newt and I gave up.  Then later that day Heather and Bonnie found one apparently with no effort at all and we finally got a small car for the following day so that we could explore at our own pace.  We were going to circumnavigate the lake in our little car and had the usual mix of tarmac and uneven dirt track.  The engine of the car was

Black-faced Ibis

too small really for four of us but it got us around even if in a somewhat laboured fashion.  The volcano seemed to be everywhere we looked as we twisted and turned.  Putting the volcano and the heat to one side, the countryside looked remarkably English with mixed agricultural land dotted with trees, just not much in the way of wonderful hedges.  There were some unidentified trees that looked remarkably like fully grown English Elms, which now of course, thanks to Dutch Elm Disease are only a memory in England.  I don't remember seeing English Elms, by the time I was really interested in wildlife it was too late but do any of you remember them ?

One of the road rules here it seems, is to have lights on when driving and the car we got was a simple little thing with no warning that lights had been left on.  So on the morning we were due to leave Puerto Varas on a coach northwards with tickets already bought, Heather and I strolled out to return the car and found the battery completely flat.  Some workmen tried to push start it for us with no joy.  Fortunately the rental office was only a ten minute walk away and when we explained the problem, the boss was called and appeared within five minutes.  “No problem” he said, “where is it” ?  We were expecting, as we would anywhere else, to be charged a call out or some penalty but no, that was it.  Walking back to the hotel marvelling at how helpful and friendly people often are I came across the boss and the woman from the office trying to push start the car and felt obliged to help.  This is a male dominated society and the overweight boss was in the driving seat while the much smaller woman was womanfully trying to push.  Pushing it was no good and I had to leave them to it because our coach was due to leave in about twenty minutes and it had started to rain.

Newt and Bonnie,
upstairs, luxury coach

The coach mentioned in the previous paragraph was to Valdivia, still in The Lakes Districts and where we were to pick up yet another car.  The rental office was unhelpfully closed every day from midday until three o’ clock and when we did get things sorted the vehicle we had booked wasn’t available.  For the same price we ended up with one of those US styled pick up trucks beloved of Country singers and their ilk.  “Wicked stylin” according to Bonnie.  I haven’t a clue what that’s supposed to mean and it isn’t covered by my Proper English into American English Google Translate.   I suppose the trucks are just the USA version of our ‘Chelsea Tractors’ also driven around mostly by people who don’t need such a vehicle in the slightest.  Anyway, for a change we weren’t staying anywhere that started ‘Puerto’ but in what I thought was an unlikely sounding place in a Spanish speaking country.  It was called Panguipulli.

not a church but an antiques store with cafe

Panguipulli was an out of the way place and just like many other towns appeared to have few European or North American tourists.  As the border is close there were a fair few Argentinian cars around but Spanish speakers could be Chilean or from almost any other country on the continent.  After all in the whole of the mainland Americas there are only four English speaking countries, one each of Dutch, French and Portuguese and the rest all speak Spanish.

Lago Panguipulli

with our Chilean tractor

There is something very calming about views across a lake and at Panguipulli there were also several distant snow-capped volcanoes to be seen.  I like to see snow on a volcano both from an aesthetic viewpoint and for the confirmation that it isn’t getting too hot up there.  It is though a distinctly odd feeling to be driving through a pastoral if hilly landscape which looks European and then turning a corner and finding a lurking volcano.

here's an 'English' bit

and here it isn't - two minutes walk away

the impressive concrete
church at Chillan

Our truck was returned to Valdivia.  We dropped Bonnie and Newt at the bus station went to the rental place and just as they were checking it over I remembered that we hadn’t filled it with fuel as we were supposed to.  We had twenty minutes or so before our bus and I was just agreeing to pay double for the fuel when the Jefe (the Boss) appeared.  He got his vehicle checker man to drive us to a garage where we paid the standard amount for fuel and then he dropped us at the bus station in time.   The driver even refused a tip until I insisted.   As I said earlier, sometimes we marvel at just how friendly and helpful people often are.

where to now ? !