Kuchen? In Chile??
Up at a remarkably early hour once again, and time for a spot of breakfast before heading off on my tour for the day. And oh, how happy I was - brown bread. Actual, real, honest-to-God brown bread at breakfast time, and even a bit of ham, and not a spot of dolce de leche in sight. Our guide for the day was Mauricio, one half of the couple owning the hostel (I never met Malin, but that's not entirely surprising given they have a 1-year-old daughter), and I have to say he is one of the best-informed, most talkative and helpful guides I've had on a trip in quite some time - certainly the best I've had in South America (although Hugo in Puerto Madryn was pretty good as well). My fellow travellers for the day were Cameron, a Berliner named Bernd who's based in Silicon Valley these days and an American couple whose names I inexplicably never got, but who were travelling up South America after 14 months working at the Amundsen-Scott base in Antarctica (her as a cook, him as a mechanic - apparently the scientists don't generally stay there over the winter). As we left in the morning, the air was grey and misty, and it smelt like a rainstorm on the way. I had sighed and dug out my waterproof, but Mauricio just smiled and said the weather would be fine as soon as we got towards the eastern side of the lake. I was slightly sceptical.
Puerto Varas is at the southern end of Lago Llanquihue, a massive body of water in a valley gouged out by an ancient glacier, on whose terminal moraine the town sits - to give you some idea of the scale of this, it's something like the 3rd biggest lake in South America by area, and gets up to about 370m deep (Lllanquihue apparently means "deep place" in Mapudungun, the Mapuche language). It used to be linked to Lago Todos Los Santos ("All Saints' Lake") to the east, before Volcan Osorno forced its way up between them, where it now sits, a near-perfect cone volcano amongst the surrounding countryside. When we started out, the volcano, normally easily visible from the lakeshore in town, was hidden in the fog, but by the time we'd driven for half an hour or so east, Mauricio's prediction was coming true and the blue sky was showing through the clouds as the fog burnt off. By the time we reached our destination at Lago Todos Los Santos and started our 2-hour hike, the clouds were well and truly gone, and Volcan Osorno stood out in stark splendour against a cobalt sky.
The walk took us through the channels carved in the scrub by either rainwater or snowmelt, the former sometimes forming flash-flood-like torrents while the latter tends to mean streambeds that are dry in the morning are flowing by late afternoon as meltwater comes down off the volcano. The most visible demonstration we got of this was when we crossed one stream by jumping over a low flow, only to recross the empty bed 5 minutes' further downstream and see where the trickles of the leading edge of the meltwater were headed for the lake. We were accompanied in all of this by a local dog, who then also came and sat with us when we had our picnic lunch on our return to the minibus (totally shameless that one, a golden retriever or some cross thereof who just sat there and looked doleful at whoever had what she wanted at that point - firstly the Americans, who had gotten empanadas, then Mauricio and I, who both had meat sandwiches, then Cameron, who had crackers).
After lunch, we headed back down our trail, navigating our way in reverse through the roadworks that seem to be a major feature of southern Chile at the moment, to go and see the Saltos de Petrohué, a set of "river-falls" as the locals put it, caused by water running down the 80m or so height difference between the two lakes through the basalt rock left by the volcano's activities. This produces some very impressive flows through several of the chokepoints, though Mauricio pointed out that due to it being late summer, the flow is much lower than at some other times of year, so some of the falls we saw would be underwater at other times, and the flow would expand to go through some of the side-channels which were basically empty. Having had our fix of water, we then headed up the tightly switchbacking road to the ski centre on Volcan Osorno. It's currently out of season (obviously) but they still have the lifts operating, and by walking around up there (it's above the treeline) you get some amazing views back over the lake towards the city, and onwards to the other volcanoes which form many of the highest peaks in this part of the Andes, including Tronador, which stands sentry right by the border with Argentina.
By now feeling slightly sleepy, despite the invigorating effects of the mountain air, we made one final stop at the Laguna Verde (green lagoon) on the way back - here we saw what Mauricio had thus far skillfully managed to avoid, the coachloads of tourists who often hit the sights aroud here, many of them from cruise ships docked at Puerto Montt, the ocean port just sout of Puerto Varas. A couple of the lads also got some of the local küchen (yep, that's the German influence again), made with indigenous berries known as Ulmo. Finally, it was time to head back into town, now finally escaped from the cloud cover as well (apparently it held on until early afternoon there, so going on the tour was definitely a better way to spend the day!), where I picked up a few micro-brew beers from the Austral brewery (based right down in Punta Arenas) whose wares I had so enjoyed in El Calafate, had another pasta dinner (tours aren't cheap, so I had to dial back the budget a wee bit) and then crashed out.
Puerto Varas is at the southern end of Lago Llanquihue, a massive body of water in a valley gouged out by an ancient glacier, on whose terminal moraine the town sits - to give you some idea of the scale of this, it's something like the 3rd biggest lake in South America by area, and gets up to about 370m deep (Lllanquihue apparently means "deep place" in Mapudungun, the Mapuche language). It used to be linked to Lago Todos Los Santos ("All Saints' Lake") to the east, before Volcan Osorno forced its way up between them, where it now sits, a near-perfect cone volcano amongst the surrounding countryside. When we started out, the volcano, normally easily visible from the lakeshore in town, was hidden in the fog, but by the time we'd driven for half an hour or so east, Mauricio's prediction was coming true and the blue sky was showing through the clouds as the fog burnt off. By the time we reached our destination at Lago Todos Los Santos and started our 2-hour hike, the clouds were well and truly gone, and Volcan Osorno stood out in stark splendour against a cobalt sky.
The walk took us through the channels carved in the scrub by either rainwater or snowmelt, the former sometimes forming flash-flood-like torrents while the latter tends to mean streambeds that are dry in the morning are flowing by late afternoon as meltwater comes down off the volcano. The most visible demonstration we got of this was when we crossed one stream by jumping over a low flow, only to recross the empty bed 5 minutes' further downstream and see where the trickles of the leading edge of the meltwater were headed for the lake. We were accompanied in all of this by a local dog, who then also came and sat with us when we had our picnic lunch on our return to the minibus (totally shameless that one, a golden retriever or some cross thereof who just sat there and looked doleful at whoever had what she wanted at that point - firstly the Americans, who had gotten empanadas, then Mauricio and I, who both had meat sandwiches, then Cameron, who had crackers).
After lunch, we headed back down our trail, navigating our way in reverse through the roadworks that seem to be a major feature of southern Chile at the moment, to go and see the Saltos de Petrohué, a set of "river-falls" as the locals put it, caused by water running down the 80m or so height difference between the two lakes through the basalt rock left by the volcano's activities. This produces some very impressive flows through several of the chokepoints, though Mauricio pointed out that due to it being late summer, the flow is much lower than at some other times of year, so some of the falls we saw would be underwater at other times, and the flow would expand to go through some of the side-channels which were basically empty. Having had our fix of water, we then headed up the tightly switchbacking road to the ski centre on Volcan Osorno. It's currently out of season (obviously) but they still have the lifts operating, and by walking around up there (it's above the treeline) you get some amazing views back over the lake towards the city, and onwards to the other volcanoes which form many of the highest peaks in this part of the Andes, including Tronador, which stands sentry right by the border with Argentina.
By now feeling slightly sleepy, despite the invigorating effects of the mountain air, we made one final stop at the Laguna Verde (green lagoon) on the way back - here we saw what Mauricio had thus far skillfully managed to avoid, the coachloads of tourists who often hit the sights aroud here, many of them from cruise ships docked at Puerto Montt, the ocean port just sout of Puerto Varas. A couple of the lads also got some of the local küchen (yep, that's the German influence again), made with indigenous berries known as Ulmo. Finally, it was time to head back into town, now finally escaped from the cloud cover as well (apparently it held on until early afternoon there, so going on the tour was definitely a better way to spend the day!), where I picked up a few micro-brew beers from the Austral brewery (based right down in Punta Arenas) whose wares I had so enjoyed in El Calafate, had another pasta dinner (tours aren't cheap, so I had to dial back the budget a wee bit) and then crashed out.
posted by Pat at 12:00 pm
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