Hotel Pinacoteca El Greco Puerto Varas

... and filling meal. As we drive I see rolling hills that turn into volcanoes, and many beautiful lakes. The 10th Region of Chile is called Los Lagos which means The Lakes, and that is evident because you cannot drive for more than 5 minutes without seeing a lake or large body of water.

The park was unbelievable; living in a big city I often forget that there are virgin places in the world untouched by commercialism and high rise construction ...

... as it took us 12 hours to get to puerto varas and that' not even that far from santiago relative to the rest of the country! Having taken the cheapest taxi ride of our lives (£1) we ended up at a very (very) wooden b&b in a little german looking town called puerto varas. We didn't really know what we were going to do in puerto varas other than look at the perfectly shaped volcano 'osorno'. Which was just as well really as trudy was ill (bug from easter ...

... of the rooms did not connect, thus you would have to go outside and hike further up the hill to get to the next room. Neruda collected thousands of ¨things¨. He had thousands of glass bottles, sea shells and scores of paintings of watermelons. He collected ...

... GV Tours were both waiting for us on the dock and in short order we were sorted out, Harry Potter style, into our appropriate vans and busses and on our way. The guide in our van was Cailie (a nice young lady from Seattle, Washington who had come to Chile to learn to be a back country guide and was practicing her "hat and cane" skills on our group. Cailie was the magic ingredient that turned our all too short "tour" into a "memory". The lake district of ...

... also farmed in this region, so we stopped for a fresh salmon snack on the way back to the hotel. Villarrica and Pucon The next day we were on the road again to go to Villarrica for two nights. My travel books had said to stay in Villarrica or Pucon, but when we arrived we realized our hotel was pretty much in the middle of no where. However, it grew on us..Hans, the German owner was hilarious and you know I ...

... dinner then went straight back to bed afer dinner and slid around all night as the boat dipped and swayed. At midnight they announced that Obama had won the election which eased the seasickness feelings nicely. Woke up on Wednesday to calm seas which was much better. After breakfast we had our morning briefing and they told us that the waves during the night were 4 meteres high. They also told us about our stop at Puerto Eden, a small ...

... day there we hired a car to enter the national park and we wandered around all the balconies taking pictures. Our first sight of the glacier was on the way into the park and we were all silent for about 10 minutes, which is kinda hard for 3 Irish people... The next day we joined a mini trekking tour which consisted of a boat trip around the glacier, hopped off onto a island near by for a safety lesson before putting on crampons and ...

... neither erupted whilst we were there, although another one - Chaiten - about 150km away did, and we were told that if the weather changer direction, our town would have been completely covered in ash! We're guessing you guys must have seen or heard something on the news. Anyway, we only really had one day to do anything, so 8 of us put our heads (and money) together, and decided to pack a picnic lunch (chicken & cheese rolls ... and vino, of course ...

... the 1000 kms up to Puerto Montt. Although it wasn´t a cruise ship it wasn´t that shabby either, although the room we were sharing with two American women was a bit too cozy for our liking! The next morning we were woken very early by the load speaker telling us that we were passing the narrowest channel of the trip and we should go out on deck and take a look. It was certainly impressive seeing this massive ...

... It was much quieter and was situated on the pretty lake Llanquihue with views of the snow capped Volcano Osorno. It is a former German colony with a huge swiss influence too and is in the heart of the Chilean lake district. Our hostel was a beautiful old house with creaky wooden floorboards and use of a lovely big kitchen, dining room and living room, We felt right at home cooking ourselves dinner and sitting watching a ...