While we were waiting...

The perfect cone of the Osorno volcano across lake Llanquihue


Bavarian architecture in the town of Puerto Varas


Impressive falls in the Rio Petrohue.


The island of Margarita in the emerald waters of the All Saints Lake. The island and the house are owned by the founder of Chile´s largest tour operator.


Colourful stilt houses in Castro, the capital of the island of Chiloé

While we were waiting for the Navimag Ferry to be repaired from its encounter with a rock on a previous voyage we have been taking a look around the Southern Lakes district and the island of Chiloé. Tonight we are in Castro (no we are not in Cuba, but isn´t it a great name! Especially for this country that suffered so much from US meddling). The artisans of Chiloé are a bit disappointing after the creativity of the Peruvians. The speciality here is wool and wood and if we wanted to bring you all a wooden spoon as a souvenir we would be set!

After our ferry trip to the South was cancelled, we moved to Puerto Varas on the shores of Lake Llanquihue. The scenery around there is spectacular with lakes (funnily enough), volcanos and the snow capped peaks of the Andes on the border with Argentina. It was also interesting to see the extent of the German influence in the architecture, the language (the locals say ya instead of si), the food and of course the beer! The common brand of beer is Kunstmann (cuidado con la pronunciacion!) which is a very satisfactory lager.

We also visited the amazing lake of All Saints which is deep emerald green in colour and has black volcanic sandy beaches. The locals were all sun baking on it but it just looked dirty compared to Australian sand.

The Navimag people tell us that the ferry is ready to go again on Monday so hopefully our next post will be from way down South.