Chilly in the Chilean lake district

The next step of my journey saw me leave beautiful bariloche and head into Chile. The bus journey through the snow covered wilderness of the Argentine and Chilean lake districts was stunning. We drove past cute little towns and everything was perfectly covered with a dusting of snow, much like a scene for a christmas card.

The Chilean border crossing is notoriously one of the hardest in all of South America. At this crossing we actually had to take all of our stuff off the bus and put it through scanners, there was even sniffer dogs! Thankfully we passed through the border with little fuss.

As soon as we got past the border crossing the landscape and scenery immediately changed, despite being just a few metres out of Argentina, you could immediately tell that we were in a different country. The snow dispersed and we were surrounded by lush green landscape. It is not really surprising how green Chile is considering the amount of rain they have yearly. Puerto Varas the first town we stayed in has around 220 days of rain a year, which is probably more than Cardiff, which is saying something!

Puerto Varas was a cute little town on the shores of the third biggest lake in South America. The town was had a Germanic feel due to the immigration that took place, the people who live there are now 5th generations so they do not really speak German any more, but the architecture and feel of the town reflected the German influence.

The hostal was incredibly cold and was lit by these paraffin heaters which seemed like a bit of a death trap. Infact there was a news story on the tv the final day about carbon monoxide intoxication and I am pretty sure it had those exact same heaters!

This is South Americas coldest winter for over 50 years. It has pretty much affected the whole continent, and has claimed the lives of many vulnerable people in many different countries. We were pretty far south during this cold snap so felt the full force of it, and not having a warm hostel to go back to sucked.

We walked around the town to try and get a better view of the Osorno volcano which towers over the clouds in the distance. We walked up to to the top of a hill where there was some metallic cross, it was highly un-impressive, like a Chilean angel of the north. Trying to find how to get up there was also an issue, when told to follow the train sleepers we ended up absolutely nowhere feeling more like the kids from stand by me.

Puerto Varas is home to one of the best restaurants in Chile, Las Brasas. Apparently one of the best because it does "great" seafood and meat. I asked the waiter what I could have that did not contain fish or meat and he gave me a list which contained either/or, clearly that was lost in translation somewhere. Anyway he eventually got it, and they made me a delicious vegetable crepe. We even got free desserts to share, a crepe stuffed with delicious pistachio ice-cream. I am not an ice cream fan, but the one exception I will make is pistachio, it is so good.

The local nightlife was quiet to say the least. We went into one bar which reminded us of From Dusk till Dawn. There was nobody in there, except for four guys who I assume worked there, who were laying around playing on the playstation. Thankfully we made it out of that bar alive though.

There is a pretty good little tour you can take of Puerto Varas´ main sights. A short hike through the forest lands you upon some pretty impressive waterfalls and rapids. The water here is so clear, it is beautiful. The emerald lake (which was obviously green!) was also another pretty sight. The highlight of the day for more reasons than one was the volcano Osorno.

Driving up to the volcano in the most beautiful conditions, we were completely unaware of what it held in store for us later. We drove up to the half way point of the Volcano, this affords great views of the lakes and the surroundings. The chairlift takes you higher up the volcano, so we decided to take this, a decision regretted immediately. It was absolutely freezing. I can honestly say I have never been so cold in my entire life. Guestimation´s were around minus 20 degrees celsius. I stayed at the top for maybe a minute, was too cold to even take pictures and immediately headed down. The slow chairlift ride down was like torture, my fingers and toes actually hurt it was that cold. We finally got off and ran into the nearby restaurant. I had to have 2 chocoñac (hot chocolate with cognac) to warm up and eventually got feeling back in my hands. After a short wait we decided to head back down, or so we thought.

As soon as we stepped outside the conditions had gone downhill and in a pretty severe way. The road was covered in snow, and extremely treacherous and the crosswind was creating a huge snowstorm which descended into almost a complete white out. The cars in front of us were stuck, one even did a 360 degrees turn because the conditions were so bad, so we could not go anyway. Our driver seemed eager to go but the Brazilians in front of us would not move anywhere, and I did not blame them. A snow plow finally came and scraped the road a bit, then the car in front of us evacuated the women and children into the snow plow, something which amused us as much as it was terryfying. After about an hour and with conditions worsening we gradually made our way down. I have to say it was a scary experience, I do not like mountain roads at the best of times so going down them in these conditions was not fun. About 100m down the volcano the conditions were completely different and we safely made our way down, not before warning off the unsuspecting visitors who were on their way up. It was a clear showing of man´s insignificance against nature, and how quickly conditions can change in situations like that.

The storm we were caught in hit the town later, and our hostel barely survived judging by the sounds allnight, it sounded like the roof was going to blow off at any second.

After Puerto Varas we headed on the bus to Pucon, it was supposed to be seven hours but in fact only took around 5. We arrived in pretty damp and miserable conditions and were told that the climbing the Villarica volcano was pretty unlikely which dampened spirits somewhat.

The town even has a volcano alert traffic light system. Thankfully there were no problems when we were there. Though there was an amusing moment when a siren like an air raid warning went off when we were in the cafe. Immediate reaction was Shit the volcano is erupting, but the lack of panic from the locals did not justify this. In fact we found out that the siren goes off everyday to signal midday. Hilarious now but not so funny at the time.

We stayed in a cute little log cabin in Pucon, however we again had issues with the heaters. This time it was a gas one, but we managed to fall asleep with it on, which explained why nobody woke up until around 11.30 the next day and we we all felt a bit funny.

Thankfully we woke up to better conditions and we all decided to go to the adventure canopy and do ziplining. It was a lot of fun, there was probably about 10 platforms in total, the highest of 25 metres. It was probably more scary being on the platforms than on the ziplines in fact. I was pretty nervous as to using your hand as a break, but soon got into the swing of it, and really enjoyed it. The guides were pretty good and they had a pretty well organized and efficient system. It was definitely something I would do again, and the free hot chocolate we got out of it was delicious.

Pucon is host to one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Chile, Ecole (which despite the name sounding like e-coli was absolutely delicious). There was so much choice and it was nice to go somewhere with healthy, fresh food, and to have an abundance of choice. I went for the vegetable omelette which was delicious, and we shared some tasty nachos aswell, it was a bit of a feast and we did not really eat for the rest of the day.

Pucon has some of the best outdoor activities, but this was affected somewhat by the weather. We did rent mountain bikes though, and it was a lot harder than I anticipated. We thought that we were making a loop back to town, but infact we got so far and we could not go any further so we had to go back over the same route we came.  This is pretty demoralising when you realise that the terrain is pretty tough, less road and more just piles of rocks and quite a few uphills. It was tough and I was absolutely knackered at the end, my body just ached, but it was good to do something pretty active for a change. We saw a fair bit of Pucon´s countryside and even a bit of the local sunday league football which was hilarious because the age group must of been around 5 to 17, there were tiny little kids up against these giants! Probably biked around 15km in total and my body definitely felt it the next day.

Thankfully Pucon is home to some amazing thermal baths. So after getting rid of our bikes we decided to head to them. Unlike Salto these were natural hot springs, in the most beautiful setting. It was what you think of when you imagine thermal baths. Getting in was hellish because it was so cold but once you got in it was lovely and warm. After a hard bike ride it made me incredibly sleepy and I just wanted to curl up. The springs were really good fun, we even had a beer in one of the pools, breaking one of their main rules, not that there was anybody in sight to regulate them! Getting out was equally as bad as getting in, as by this time it was dark, raining heavily, and getting cold. After a quick change we headed back to the hostel. I was absolutely shattered, after making a bowl of packet soup (do not make in the microwave! It will be an epic fail) which we salvaged from the brink of disaster, I was ready for bed.

Pucon was a really pretty town in beautiful surroundings, I was dissappointed not to be able to do the volcano climb, but I guess that is just one of those things. I nearly ended up with half my laundry missing and not making the trip to Santiago, but we finally located all of our items in the disorganised chaos that was the laundrette. I am moving to Santiago tonight, and hopefully into some slightly warmer conditions further up north.