North Patagonia in low season

Chile – April 2019

If you’ve already read the story about the wine tour gone wrong in Mendoza, you know that my parents accompanied me on my trip through South America for 2 weeks. This post is about our stay in southern Chile. The trip together gets off to a bumpy start. My mom gets her cell phone stolen right in the metro in Santiago and I’m having a hard time transitioning from traveling alone to being an intercultural translator. Anyway, we take a night bus from Santiago de Chile to Puerto Montt in northern Patagonia.

As is so often the case, I didn’t really think much about the choice of destination. It’s just a convenient place from where you can then easily get to Bariloche in Argentina by bus. The city itself doesn’t have much to offer. Especially during Semana Santa – Easter week – when most stores in Catholic Latin America are closed and the weather in the southern hemisphere already heralds winter. After a short research – for which my mother once again misses her cell phone – we come across the nearby island of Chiloe. The national park there is best explored with a rental car.

So, after checking into the hotel, we make a first tour of the city and pay a visit to a car rental agency. Unfortunately, most of the companions are already taken and the store is closed on the days during which we want to make an excursion. We give up the dream of stilt houses and penguins and stop at the local brew house. 2 Pisco Sours later, the world already looks less gray than the looming clouds made it seem before. I find the bus schedule to Puerto Varas and we decide to go there the next day.

At the bus station we first buy the tickets for the onward journey to Argentina the following day. Then we locate the local bus to the next town. Next to us, mainly locals on their way to work get on. We enjoy the view of the nature and get off at the sign of the driver in the center of Puerto Varas. At the edge of the big Lago Llanquihue we quickly find the tourist information. I ask the Chilean lady at the counter for tips on activities in the vicinity. She recommends a half-day tour to the Osorno Volcano, which should start in about 30 minutes.

My last hike up an active volcano in Guatemala was a while ago, and my parents have never been closer to one of the fire-breathing mountains. So we immediately agree, pay, and wait in a lakeside park for the rest of the tourists to arrive. Soon, an elderly couple from Taiwan, two Germans, and a father and daughter from Santiago de Chile gather in front of the tourist information office. We join them and shortly thereafter the van arrives. The guide asks us all to get in and we set off for the snow-capped Osorno on the eastern shore of Lago Llanquihue. The one-hour drive with great views flies by.

When we arrive at the cable car station, the driver gives us a few more suggestions for visiting the volcano and then says goodbye to us. Of course, my parents and I want to go as high as possible. So we buy tickets for the chairlift ride up to the top station and back. We change once and enjoy the wonderful view of the surrounding mountains, lakes and up to the sea. If it was still pleasantly warm at the bottom, there is already snow shortly before the summit and the wind is blowing. I am glad that I have my rain jacket and cap with me. My father and I warm up with a little hike.

Normally it is already rather difficult to hike on volcanoes, because the surface consists mainly of loose rock and sand. But when there is a layer of snow on top of that, it doesn’t get any easier. So we soon break off the expedition to the summit. Also because we saw a sign next to the mountain station, which unmistakably depicts a volcanic eruption in pictograms and next to it an arrow pointing down the mountain with the word “Evacuación”. We don’t want to push our luck and join my mother, who takes photos of the view. Shortly after, it’s time to head back to the parking lot.

I take the 2-person lift after my parents and am spontaneously accompanied by an Uruguayan. We talk during the 20-minute completely in Spanish and I am really proud of my progress. Once at the bottom, we head to the minivan that takes us back to Puerto Varas. We say goodbye to our fellow travelers and go for a short walk through the small German colonial town before the bus takes us back to Puerto Montt.

There, at the hotel, we first have to sort out the problem with the heating in our room (it turns out that the plug I unplugged to charge my cell phone belongs to the air conditioner). Then we head to an Italian restaurant, where I eat spaghetti for the first time in a long time. The next day, we pay a quick visit to the local waterfront market before our bus leaves for Argentina. Even though our stay in southern Chile didn’t turn out as I had hoped or imagined, I can’t wait to return one day during summertime.