This past weekend, Ryan and I went to Puerto Montt with Jorge (one of our friends from the pensión). Puerto Montt is a port city about three and a half hours south of Valdivia, just north of where the archipelago of southern Chile begins. While there, we stayed with Yasna, friend of Jorge’s who lived in the pensión for six months before Ryan and I arrived. She and her husband live in Puerto Montt and where kind enough to extend their invitation to Jorge to include Ryan and I.

Puerto Montt itself is not the most attractive of cities, but the area in which it is located is phenomenal! Yasna and her husband Cristian drove us to Parque Nacional Vicente Peréz Rosales, a park surrounded by conical volcanoes (whose summits were unfortunately invisible the entire day on account of the weather) and on the edge of the cordillera of the Andes. Inside the park, we visited the Saltos de Petrohué — a series of cascades and waterfalls flowing through channels in an old lava flow. The water had the beautiful turquoise color created by glacial flour, and the saltos with the sunlight and the mountains in the background were gorgeous. This was the first attraction we have seen in Chile that is supposedly better in the winter than the summer! Apparently the water level in the summer is much lower and the saltos are slightly less spectacular, so our struggles through the cold and wind were not for nothing

After walking around the saltos and the surrounding area for a bit, we headed further down the road to Lago Todos Los Santos where we had some beautiful views of the beginnings of the Andes and what was visible of Volcán Osorno. From this point, it is possible to take the boat up-lake to the border with Argentina.

The next day, we ate a leisurely breakfast with Yasna before catching a bus to Puerto Varas, a nearby town to Puerto Montt that is more tourist-oriented and therefore more attractive. We visited the town to go to a church service and meet up with a friend of Jorge’s.

In the afternoon, we wandered briefly through Puerto Montt’s mall and then headed to Angelmó, Puerto Montt’s fishing district. The area is filled with little stalls selling wool and alpaca products and tiny sea-food restaurants. We met up with Cristian and Yasna for lunch in one of these restaurants before heading to the bus station to catch our ride back to Valdivia. Our bus ride went smoothly for the first hour and a half until we reached the city of Osorno. At the bus station, three people got on who claimed to have our tickets. After reviewing our own tickets, we eventually realized that we had been sold return tickets for the day before, and therefore didn’t have seats. Our options were to stay in Osorno until the next day or pay for our tickets again and go on foot. We opted for the on-foot option, which had us standing for the next two hours back to Valdivia. The standing wasn’t so bad but, as a Dappen, I was a bit put-out about having to pay another $8 for my ride home.

It was a great weekend. Yasna and Cristian were extremely kind and welcoming, and traveling with Chileans makes everything so much easier…resolving problems is so much faster and it’s nice to know that at least one person understands 100% of what’s going on! Feel free to check out the pictures from the trip in my facebook album.