Solace Hotel Puerto Varas

... days with some home cooking. Actually, one night when we were cooking Lorraine and I were talking in the kitchen and an American traveller who overheard us didn’t realise we could speak English as she couldn’t understand a word we were saying. Turns out it was just our Scottish brogue and that we were talking so fast that she presumed we weren’t English speakers. We found that very funny! Ended up spending the evening sharing a couple ...

... When I got to the hostel, the owner greeted me in French. Turns out that not only is this hostel French-owned, it's also next door to a chocolaterie. I think I'm in heaven. Puerto Varas is very picturesque and is a popular base for lots of activities and trips in the region. Instead of going on one, however, I opted to take the day off today. I wandered around the town a bit, took a book down to ...

... lovely cabin. I lived and ate meals with a caring and compassionate family, consiting of the cowboy, his wife Tatiana, and their 9 year old son, Andreas. I don´t know if it is the result of living in a very remote farm, but Andreas sang or made some sort of noise every second of every hour of every day. I would normally find that quite annoying, but I loved hearng him hum and play around the house all day when I was sitting on ...

... she caved and by the end of it she loved it! During the tour we went to some beautiful vista points for Glacier grey and the surrounding areas. As it was just the three of us on the tour we could go at our own pace but the horses were a tad lazy, Ujal´s one obviously loved to eat, but Mauritizio made us some customised canes to sort them out! By the time we got back to the campsite restaurant at 7pm we were ready to drop dead, we ...

... a ferry way down south to Puerto Natales, four days and three nights sailing through the fjords and a bit of the open Pacific, which should hold some fantastic scenery. Hopefully the weather will be fine enough to see it all.. Monday 3.11.08 - So far so good, had to check in for the ferry by 12.30, we board at 2.30pm but don't ...

So it took about 3 hours from Valdivia to Puerto Varas (for some strange reason every journey we take in Chile seems to be 3 hours long!) The bus stop was a little bit out of the centre of town but as we walked to the centre we saw Steph who had come to meet us. The pair of them were feeling a little bit worse for wear after the last night together with their tour group, who had now all gone their seperate ways. They showd us the way to their hostel, where we would stay that night ...

From Puerto Natales (Torres del Paine), we quickly bused it down to Punta Arena, the southern most city in Chile, and took an internal flight up north to Puerto Montt, which is at the base of the Lake District. The Lake District is considered one of the most beautiful regions in Chile with 12 great lakes and snowcapped volcanoes. From there we took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride Lago (lake) Llanquihue and Lago Todos los Santos. The ...

... to say farewell to Chile and start our first crossing of the Andes. We set off at 8am for our first bus trip of 2 hours around the southern rim of Lago Llanquihue with a stop for a walk to the spectacular Petrohue Falls in Chile's oldest National Park. The paths were slippery and rough and several older people fell over so we had to be careful! Then our first lake crossing; a 1 hour 40 minutes boat trip across Lago Todos Los ...

... our last night on board we were treated to a party. We had been told since we arrived that this would involve live music so we were imagining some traditional Chilean folk group. Instead we were slightly surprised to see Chris, the senior supervisor, set up his keyboard and bash out classics such as John Lennon´s ´Imagine´ and Pink Floyd´s ´Another Brick in the Wall´ with his strong Chilean accent. Very amusing ...

... from Petrohue we decided to have a go. Although we were limited to how far we were allowed to go, we still managed have some fun going as fast as we could, obstructing many a Chilean driver, popping some wheelies and admiring the views of the lake and volcano. After a few days exploring and with a taste for volcanoes we decided to head on another sleepy village called Villarica, complete with the active volcano Villarica.