Compass del Sur Puerto Varas

After leaving Bariloche, it was time to discover another country, namely Chile. We decided to cross the border and head to the port town of Puerto Montt in the Chilean Lake District, where we could spend the night before heading to the small town of Puerto Varas the following day.

Instead of our usual overnight buses we decided to make the 7hr journey to Puerto Montt during the day as the bus journey through the Andes was meant to be stunning. Glad to say we weren't disappointed, even ...

It's always interesting to see what other people read on their travels. It tends to indicates two things: a bit about the culture and country where you are and the type of person most likely to be travelling there. So in Thailand for example you'd see alot of youngsters looking for Leo in photocopied versions of The Beach or stoners giggling at British drug geezer Howard Marks' Mr Nice. In Africa you find a different type of traveller so maybe Nelson Mandela's autobiography A Long Walk to Fre...

After another relatively painless border crossing we arrived initially in Puerto Montt, possibly the ugliest place we have been so far. It was a industrial town with a harbour and lots of bush fires. That was about it. The bus terminal was chaotic so we headed straight for the little mini-buses that do shuttle runs to nearby Puerto Varas and got the hell out of there!! Only 30 minutes away, Puerto Varas felt like a different world. It was much quieter and was situated on the pretty lake Llanq...

A dramatic change in landscape awaited us on the west side of the Andes as we crossed the boarder into Chile from Bariloche. Suddenly, as soon as we started to decend out of the mountains, a lush green jungle-like forest greeted us. In fact it was reaching out to us, hanging over the road, unruly and wild. We had not realized how dry and barren the Argentinian Patagonia was until we saw the rain forest of the Chilean lake´s district.

Our destination: Puerto Varas. A small vacation tow...

When we were hiking around the Torres, we chatted to a couple who highly recommended Puerto Varas, as a beautiful alternative to port town Puerto Montt. Since they were from Chile we took their advice and were really pleased that we did. Puerto Varas is idyllically set on the shore of an enormous inland lake Llanquihue, with snow-topped volcano Osorno in the far shore. The town itself has German and Swiss influenced architecture which is fairly typical in this part of Chile, but very strange ...

My Navimag ferry left from Puerto Montt on November 3rd, and word on the street was that I should stay 30 minutes up the road in Puerto Varas. Puerto Varas was a cute little town on a gorgeous lake in the shadow of two volcanoes. Nothing much happened, other than an awesome seafood dinner - but there were some kids down by the pier using their mountain bikes like pogo sticks and hopping from rock to rock. The goal was to hop around the pier without touching the ground (or cracking a skull). B...

Zip lining in the forest at Bariloche was excellent fun. We were driven out to the base of the forest and kitted up with our harnesses and then driven by 4x4 up into the forest where we began. There were four of us doing the zip lining and 3 staff - one at each platform to send you off and receive you and this dude taking photos of it. Am pleased to say that there are many photos of me grinning like a monkey flying through the trees. That afternoon I got dropped off at a mirador on the way ba...