Home»South America Day 06

Morning found us anchored off Puerto Montt, capital town of the region with a population of some 235,000 living off lumber and its by-products and farm-raised salmon (second only to Norway).

The weather began dry with broken cloud and we met up with Joan & company and headed to shore by tender around 8.30 to pick up our pre-arranged tour with GV Stein Tours.

We six had a mini-van to ourselves with guide Klaus and driver Fernando who took us out along the Pan-American highway first to Puerto Varas, aka ‘city of roses’ thanks to many rose bushes planted along the streets.  The German influence can be seen in the architecture – very Tyrolean at times – along the shore of Lake Llanquihue.  Across the lake is the snow-capped volcano Mt. Osorno, reminiscent of Mt Fuji in Japan because of its perfectly conical shape.  For the moment though, we had to take Klaus` word for it since the volcano was hidden in the clouds.

This is the area to which German immigrants were lured by large land grants in the late 19th century and today is rich in agriculture as we drove through ranches of cattle, llamas and alpacas, and occasional emus.  Generally we had the sense of a temperate climate much like southern England or Europe.

A `highlight` of the tour are the Petrohue falls – a river forcing its way through a narrow passage of black lava rock, and rather like a scaled-down version of the Athabasca Falls in the Rockies.  From the falls it was on to the Emerald Lake – so called because of algae giving it a green colour (wow!).

By now the sun was shining and it was pleasantly warm with a light cooling breeze, and time for lunch in a restaurant set in a sloping field with llamas grazing.  Pisco sour, salad, a generous portion of excellent grilled salmon and a cool glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc...

Back to the city of roses and a drive along the lake shore admiring the now visible Mt. Asorno until we were able to park for a `Kodak moment` (will that phrase survive with Kodak filing for bankruptcy?).

On to Puerto Montt for a view over the town and the short drive down to the port – buy a bottle of wine and on to the tender back to the ship.

Dinner was good except for my NY striploin which, instead of a healthy pink, was a deathly shade of grey with all the flavour of wet cardboard.  I should have had the halibut!!

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