Puerto Varas is a nice tourist town on lake Llanquihue with the Osorno volcano looking down on it. This area is within the Pacific Ring of Fire and has many volcanos. A lot of them are active but they do not spew lava, they throw up ash. Like a cloud. And the ash rains down on everything.
The highlight of our stay in Puerto Varas were Petrohué falls at the Vicente Perez Rosales national park. Chile has 46 national parks covering over 32 million acres. Vicente Perez Rosales was the first national park to be established in the 1930’s. Just to compare, the USA has 63 national parks that cover about 50 million acres. To put it in perspective, Chile is 292 thousand square miles, whereas the USA is 3.8 million. My math isn’t the greatest but it can give you an idea of the percentage of total land dedicated to parks. Anyway, the falls were beautiful.
We spent the evening at the home of a local family. The mother was a geriatric physical therapist and the father owned his own landscape design business. They had two teenage daughters and had built their house out of four very large shipping containers. Interesting people.
The next day it was back on the bus to catch the ferry to Chiloé Island. The main city of Castro was founded in 1567, but the island has been inhabited for over 7000 years. The island was originally called New Galicia by the Spanish settlers but soon reverted to Chiloé – land of the seagulls. The Jesuits arrived in the 17th century and started building churches. There are about 150 wooden churches on the island and some are designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Chiloé is also known for its houses built on stilts.
On our way off the island we stopped at the Puñihuil Wildlife Reserve. We donned life vests and were pushed in carts out to boats in the Pacific Ocean. From there we boated around three islands. These were uninhabited islands where mostly birds are protected. We saw penguins, seagulls, ducks, other birds, and a sea lion.
Unfortunately I don’t have a telephoto lens.
Next time Punta Arenas and the south.