Santiago, Puerto Varas, & Bariloche

In Santiago, we learned that Chileans take Easter very seriously, and the whole city basically shut down for a three day weekend. We spent our time at the mall and hanging out in a park with the locals.

After a whole weekend in the city, we decided we were ready for some nature and German architecture, so we hopped a flight to Puerto Varas in the lake district of southern Chile.

Puerto Varas is a small town centered around hiking, rafting, skiing… pretty much any activity that people can do on the surrounding lakes, rivers, and volcanos. As the weather was too cold for rafting and too warm for skiing, we did none of the above activities, but we did a lot of walking and admiring the views.

Because the Chileans were continuing their Easter celebrations, we decided to take a long day trip to Chiloe island, the second largest island in South America. We saw 2 of the island’s 16 Unesco-listed churches, famous for their woodwork:

After the second church, our guide gave us two options: see more churches, or do anything else at all. Without hesitation, we chose option B: “there must be something else on this island besides churches, right?” It turns out that the island is also famous for palafitos, which are wooden houses built directly on the shore so that boats can dock on their back patios. We saw the houses at low tide but you get the idea:

After the palafitos, we took a long and bumpy ride to a place called “penguin land”, 

which is a beautiful beach that is covered in, you guessed it, seaweed! Apparently all the penguins chose option A: “14 more churches”, because we did not see a single penguin. Our guide had some elaborate story about seasons and migrations, as if penguins are birds or something, whatever. The beach was beautiful, at least.

 Finally, it was time to say “Au Revoir” to Chile (our Spanish continues to improve!) and cross the Andes to the town of San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina. It is a pretty straightforward crossing: We left Puerto Varas at 8:00 and arrived in Bariloche at 8:30. We did it with a guide, but if you want to follow the path yourself, simply take the bus to Petrohue, then the boat to Peulla, followed by the bus to the border crossing at Puerto Frias, jumping on the boat to Puerto Alegre, which leaves you at the bus to Puerto Blest, where you hop on a boat to Puerto Panuelo, no more than an hour’s drive from San Carlos de Bariloche. Yep, we left at 8AM and arrived at 8:30PM. Our first photo stop was at the rapids in Petrohue:

 The morning clouds were still lifting off the Andes as we crossed Lago Todo los Santos:

We had a few hours for lunch in Peulla, so we took yet another boat ride on Rio Negro, 

 and visited a farm where we got to feed goats,

 and see some local farm animals:

 After crossing into Argentina, we learned about glacier runoff and how it can dramatically change the color of lakes and rivers:

Finally, we reached Bariloche, where we were greeted with chocolates, steak, wine, and giant doggies with tiny barrels on their collars: 

 The sun is rising on our time in Argentina,

but we don’t want to forget the friends we made in Chile. 

– Phil & Jessie

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