I arrived in Puerto Varas the same way I had been travelling for the last 7 days: under a heavy rain. But despite the weather, and even the landscape, didn't changed much, the place was completely different from what I had seen before.
After croosing through the poorly looking metal houses along the Carretera Austral and the modest wood buildings, the old German mansions, the modern look and the commercial activity in Puerto Varas made me feel as if I was in a complete different country. More exactly, I felt I was in southern Germany, which made a lot of sense since this city was founded by German settlers. And even people looked and dressed different there. More similar to Argentinians.
I visited Frutillar, a beautiful but touristry little town on the north west side of Lago Llanquihué (same lake where Puerto Varas is located) where, after a lot of rain, I could enjoy a very nice afternoon. It almost looked as a ghost town, as the rain had kept most visitors away or at their homes, so it was a great experience to have the town all for myself.
The next day I visited Lago the Todos los Santos, near the Argentinian border, stopping at Ensenada to visit a small green lagoon. Lago de Todos los Santos is claimed to be the most beautiful lake in Chile, and it's the one you can cross by boat to get to Bariloche on a boat + bus trip. But the weather was terrible (heavy rain) and the trip very expensive, so I decided to do a half-day walk near the lake and underneath the Osorno volcano (supposed to be spectacular, if you get to see it) with a girl from New Hampshire I had met hitch-hiking. Funny enough, I had not had any luck before meeting her, but we were picked up by the first car afterwards. And girls still claim they have not any advantages... :)
Anyway, I discovered that trekking under heavy rain is certainly not something I enjoy. Not only did we get completely wet, but we also couldn't enjoy the view. The clouds were covering the volcano and at one point it was raining so hard, that we couldn't even see the lake! And we were not too far from it! We had a good time, but I promised myself never to walk again under those conditions (the only good thing was that my cheap shoes proved to be absolutely water-proved, something I was not really counting on)
And keeping up with coincidences, one night I went out with Andrea, the Austrian girl I had met in Chiloé, and some guys from her hostel. Well, as it turned out, one of them was one of the Canadians that were bicycling along South America that I had met on the ferry to Puerto Montt one week earlier.
Anyway, since the weather was terrible and the forecast was even worse, I decided to head for Bariloche, and the Argentinian Lake Region (where I am as I write this, so that means I'm finally catching up!)
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