Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt

We swore off Chilean pastry in Puerto Varas. We'd had the good experience of finding a decent cake in Valdivia, but this was rare. We've had delicious meals at the homes of friends, but restaurant cuisine in general (except for the places my husband calls "working man cafes" that serve up darn good pollo asado and papas fritas), and pastries and sweets in particular, have left us underwhelmed. They are not very sweet, don't have much flavor and are made with an incredible amount of doughy dough. But since we had success with the Valdivian bakery and hoped that the German pastry influence had found it's way down to Puerto Varas, we thought we'd give it a try. We went into a coffee house with a good solid German name and ordered a slice of pie de lemon. Two inches of dough and a sliver of lemon flavor later, we made our resolution.

The picture above is of Lago Llanguihue (pronounced yawn-KEE-way), a huge lake that puts the size of Clear Lake (the lake near our house in . . . duh . . . Lake County, California) to shame. Behind it is Volcan Orsono. If we'd had more time (and if it hadn't started to rain), we would have explored the small towns around the lake or taken one of the all day cruises. The town has a little over 30,000 full time residence but in January and February all of Chile siphons down to it. I would think that the town would be incredibly peaceful and slow-paced the rest of the year.


Puerto Varas is pleasant and pretty. The views are incredible with not only Volcan Orson to see in the distance, but two others volcanos as well: Calbuco and Tronador. The shrine below is just below the Catholic church, very typical of the ones that are all over Chile.



My favorite part, though, was being at the Hostel Compass del Sur, a friendly, very clean old house where we met Shelly, from Vancouver, Canada, a chef who had tried a gig in Buenas Aires and was now traveling until it was time for her next job as a private chef in Hawaii. My husband, who has done a great deal of cheffing, had a lot to talk to her about. We all met in the kitchen, naturally. We'd gone to Puerto Montt for the day. Bill cooked up the salmon filet we'd bought there and we shared our white wine with her.

Later, we shared her red wine as the three of us had a card game with an Anglo-Indian cancer researcher with whom I'd watched the ending to Van Helsing earlier in the day. He talked about how drug companies didn't want to cure diseases because where is the profit in that? Instead, he said, their interest is in maintaining patients for life. The next day he was off on the Navimag to backpack around the Torres del Paines National Park.

Puerto Montt, a bus ride away, is the gateway to Patagonia. We looked into taking the Navimag to Puerto Natales for the experience and perhaps seeing a glacier or two, but it would have cost as much as a trip to the U.S. and back. Someday we may be fool enough to take the thirty hour bus trip to Punta Arena, the largest, and according to Chile, the most southern city in the world. Check out the Youtube videos about the Navimag, if you're interested. For us, getting to Torres del Paines was cost prohibited and our backpacking days are behind us, but if you ever get to go, lucky you!

What I saw of Puerto Montt didn't excite me, but there might be a wonderful city that lies behind the bus route and the port. It is the fastest growing city in Chile and until recently it's economy was churning. The feria at Angelmo along the port is a definite must if you love handicrafts. We saw beautiful carved wood panels for doors for 10,000 pesos, a little less than twenty dollars at today's exchange rate. Don't buy anything in Puerto Varas (one shop did have beautiful knitted and crocheted clothing for children, so if you just have to drop a lot of money, that's where I'd suggest.)



The sweaters,shawls and scarves that you find at Angelmo are often handmade by the women running the shops. I became addicted at looking and touching them, though I ended up not buying any of these things either in Puerto Montt or in Castro, (Isla de Chiloe) where we found the El Dorado of tejidos. I was just too befuddled by the choices.

After our visit to Chiloe (next blog), we came back to Puerto Varas for our last night traveling and stayed at a bed and breakfast near the bus station. We encountered another Chilean mystery. Notice where the handles. The bottom one starts the flow of water, and the top one adjusts it.



Now look at the shower head (and in particular to the wires on top). The contraption is a type of on demand hot water heater and you have to turn it to make it work. Only it didn't. Bill's hot water only lasted a minute. I decided to pass and not risk either a cold shower or electrocution.