Puerto Varas… ah… the sound of it. Varas… like… Varitas… In Vino Varitas. The truth is in the wine… or anything that contains enough alcohol. Not as a solution, but to simply bypass any section in the brain that would create unnecessary doubt or fears. Be. Be yourself. Be whatever you’d like to be.
Especially on a rainy day like the day we arrived in this beautiful place with the amazing view across the river into the grey fog with the two volcanos sitting there with all their cone-shaped might — just you can’t see them right now with the tons of rain coming down.
But now back in Chile we didn’t mind the weather. Actually, after the lazy days in Bariloche, we had gathered a lot new energy. That led to really enjoying the live band of three local guitar players having a gig in our hostel. We had prepared a bottle of rum, coke and some limes for Cuba Libres. Just for a change. The hostel was full of funny and sometimes a bit strange people. We enjoyed the music and the great atmosphere.
For all of you who get the impression that this whole trip is just a big pub crawl or constant intoxication with alcohol… well… it’s not the case. For most of the time. Not kidding.
For example, the next day we cruised around the town collecting German names and spelling mistakes. Phew. Really. These proud and strong Germans were not even able to write “Zukunft” correctly or named their hotel “Hotel WeisseR Haus”. “Das Haus die Frau!”, came into my mind. Everywhere you can get “Kuchen”. And there was even a place called “Der Kuchen” which didn’t make any sense to me because there is nothing like THE single prototype of a cake.
We then hiked up a small hill in rather good weather (volcano still invisible). Walking in the woods was indeed a very uplifting experience, and the variety of different trees and flowers were much appreciated. And the musk of wet leaves and such. Really nice.
Then we went on a full day trip sea kayaking in the fjords of the Cochamo valley. That was great as I feared we wouldn’t have the time to go there and see what the hype about this place was. It was totally relaxing and after Axel and I had found out how to steer the double-kayak we were like fish in the water. Well, almost. Although I got the worst sunburn on my head ever (forgot to take my cap and surprisingly, it sometimes wasn’t cloudy at all) as I didn’t put on some sunscreen, not even after the guide offered it to me (that was, agreed, pretty stupid). Lucky as Axel and I were, we even saw a couple of sea lions and dolphins — a really rare event according to our guide.
On our last day in Puerto Varas we got perfect weather. After a 10 minutes discussing with the rafting tour operator about the complicated matter of what we wanted to achieve (use their means of transport, hike and do the rafting in the afternoon), we got onto the morning bus to the Rafting base to be taken to the starting point of our hike near the Osorno Volcano, which for the first time we could fully appreciate it’s impressive sight.
We didn’t quite find the starting point of the El Solitario track, so we just walked up a dried up river bed that had been moving dirt and water downstream just a few days before. We saw toppled down trees as their former ground got erroded and washed away bz the new path of the river. At some point I stepped into some loose mud. You know, the smarter usually gives in, so I lost my shoe in it and had problems getting it back before it was swallowed by the mud. What a fun, really.
At some point we reached the El Solitario amd followed the paths in various directions for some time(some were marked as bike trails — funnily enough the sign at the beginning said clearly that biking was not allowed). However, we decided there was not much to be won. So we had our lunch with the brilliant view of the Osorno volcano in our back. Then we walked back to the road to take the bus to the rafting company (but not without having a mediocre piece of Kuchen).
The rafting was nice, the rapids fast and scary, although it felt a little bit of cheating with the guide sitting in the back on a throne-like seat with two big paddles. No one ever fell into the water involuntarily. The water tasted sweet and clear. On the way back Axel and I had a nice chat with a couple from Puerto Varas. The guy, Louis, had been working in Australia and New Zealand for a while and shared a lot of my opinions about Queenstown. He said that Puerto Varas is like Queenstown was ten years ago and I agreed. Now he tries to get some jet-skis onto the lake to make a business. Let’s see where it is in ten years from now.
Our last dinner in this nice town included a feast of seafood in a very good restaurant (a recommendation by Louis). We were completely stuffed afterwards. I actually liked the octopus, though I like them better floating in the sea. Guess I can’t revert the decision though.
