Monday, March 17, 2014...Happy St. Patrick's Day Puerto Montt, Chile

We took a tender boat into the shore around 9:00am. What a nice smooth ride! The tide was way out...boats lay on their side on the shore where the low tide had left them. We climbed a high arched gangway to the marina where our bags were checked for ...items that were not suppose to be brought on shore....fruits. meats, cheeses and who knows. This was the first port to do this.


Once outside the marine terminal we were immediately approached by several tour and taxi drivers, but we worked our way through the masses. One gentleman who stood a few blocks outside the area spoke to Larry about taking us to Petrohu Falls....our destination for the day. He and Larry talked for a while and finally settled on a $85.00 deal.....The ship trip to the same place was $299.00. Our driver, Carlos, spoke excellent English and took us by his house to tell his wife where he would be for the next 5 hours.

                                                             Carlos and my man!

We stopped at an Alpaca Farm...so much fun to watch these friendly critters.

He drove us through Puerto Montt pointing out the town center, the government buildings, the shopping area, the mall, and took us up a big hill on the edge of the town to take a picture of the harbor and our cruise ship.

He drove us through the countryside where we were able to see nice German styled homes and farms with cows and sheep. Carlos played some great Chilean music while we traveled. Not far out of the city, a police road block stopped us and Carlos had to get into his car trunk to provide papers that proved who he was. On we went coming to Lake Llanquihue...the 4th largest lake in South America....30 miles across at its its widest point and covering 350 square miles. Just beyond this sparkling lake, we spotted the Osorno Volcano, snow capped and Fujiyama-shaped; it peeked out from a billow of clouds.

We followed the lake's edge along a two lane highway that was being converted to three lanes. Holiday cottages edged the lake while farms and orchards dotted the rolling hills on the opposite side of the road. Huge Eucaliptus trees dotted the lake sides of the road.

We passed through the little town of Ensenada that had a few restaurants and hotels. We continued on to the National Park Vicente Perez Rosales around 12:30pm. Here we came to the Petrohue Waterfall.

Larry and I hiked around the falls for about a half and hour. The water was a greenish color rushing wildly from the melting snow capped volcano.

  

We returned to our taxi where Carlos drove for about 45 minutes to Puerto Varas known as the City of Roses. We found this to be a lovely resort town with dozens of hotels, inns, restaurants, coffe shops and upscale shopping as well as a casino.

The streets were lined with roses. It was a beautiful area with scenic views of the lake, volcano, and a black sandy beach. After strolling the street for a while, Carlos drove us back to Puerto Montt arriving around 4:00pm. Here we tried calling home . It was a highlight of our day to reach Kristy and talk with her for a little while after a month of no phone service.

Larry and I just got back to the dock just in time for the last tender boat at 5:00pm. We headed to the back of the boat to watch the ship pull out of the harbor at 6:30. We had a wonderful sail away from Puerto Montt having the top deck to capture three volcanos at once in the horizon. The clouds had finally dispersed from Osomo Volcano, but were still hanging around Calbuco Volcano...and the third volcano we had no identity for.

A first for us...sighting three volcanos at the same time.The temperatures cooled as the sun sunk so we went to the Horizon Cafe and had a delishous meal....Salmon, Roasted potatos, Brocolli, Mushroom Soup, and Egg & Rice Custard.

During the evening we watched a movie called "Taken 2" starring Lliam Nielsen. WHAT A FABULOUS DAY!