Across the Andes by Ferry Boat

Today we are going to cross the Andes to Chile. It will be a 12-hour odyssey, involving 4 buses and 3 boats. We start from the hotel with a 35 km bus trip to a catamaran dock on Nahuel Huapi lake. We board a large catamaran, along with several hundred vacationing teenagers, for the 15 mile (1.5 hour) cruise west along a narrow branch of the lake to Puerto Blest. We pass a little island where Sr. Moreno, who created this national park for Argentina, is buried. The boat sounds a salute on its horn as we all dutifully photograph the memorial. It is getting colder. We break out the scarves and wool caps or hoods.

The boat cruises at 10.5 kts and, according to the GPS, the lake is 2450 ft. above sea level.

The next lake is Lago Frias, after a 3km bus trip over a rough gravel road. Silvia comments:, "you didn't expect us to pave the Andes for you?" We are passing through a rain forest with old trees of the Sequoia family, bamboo and a forest floor of peat. Steve told us that Charles Darwin found this route during his voyage of exploration aboard the Beagle. The trip across Lago Frios lasts just 25 minutes. The lake is an opaque green color caused by "glacial flour," (ground up granite carried to the lake by the nearby glacier). Today, the glacier is obscured by clouds as are the condors, the birders among us had been hoping to see.

We exited Argentina at the boat landing and boarded a tiny bus for a guided trip up over the continental divide (3000ft.) and down to the Chilean side where we had to go through pass control and customs. We were asked to open the duffel and then set out for Chilean civilization and a nice lunch. After eating we climbed 400M to view a disappointing "cascade." Given their recent 15 month draught, the water in the cascade was reduced to a mere trickle. By 4PM we were aboard another catamaran ferry to cross Lago Todos Los Santos to Petrohue where we are met by yet another bus for the last leg of the trip to Puerto Varas on Lago Llanquihue, near the Pacific Ocean.

We stopped for a half hour in Vicente Perez Rosalesto national park to view the spectacular rapids that drain the lake. The view of snow-capped Volcano Osorno cleared at that moment and we all got spectacular pictures. Leaving the park, we drove alongside lake Llanquihue, the largest in Chile, with a surface of 350 sq. miles. We were able to see llamas along the way (actually, they're guanaco).

Our hotel, Cabanas del Lago, in Puerto Varas, overlooks the lake in a beautiful setting. We all agreed that it would have been nice to have had a little more time here. As it was, we downed some Pisco sours while our luggage was manhandled up to our rooms and, 45 minutes later, re-convened for dinner. Salmon.

18% of the land area of Chile is devoted to national parks. This information, imparted by our guide, included the fact that Chile has 8% of the world's volcanoes; some 5000, both active and dormant. Puerto Montt is the end of the Pan American highway, the capital of the Chilean lake district and basically, the southern terminus of the Chilean land mass. South of here are many islands and fjords stretching south to Punta Arenas. There is poor land routing (a slow train or unpaved roads). Hence our flight, tomorrow.

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