Chile: Seeing the Lake District and Chiloe

THE FAMOUS LAKE DISTRICT OF CHILE

An area between Puerto Montt and Temuco is the Lake District, and is a popular resort area for Chileans.  We headed for Villarica and Pucon which was as far north as we planned to go.  This again is a temperate rain forest, but an area in which many volcanos stand head and shoulders above the surrounding mountains.  Several are still active. 

It is in this area that the Mapuche Indians repeatedly fought back, attacking settlements founded in 1553 until 1796, when they finally signed a treaty.

Later, in the 19th century, German and Swiss immigrants cleared land, and carved out small dairy farms among the valleys and hills. Now, the countryside is a mixture of temperate forest,  lovely pastures of well-fed red and white dairy cows, and cabanas for rent everywhere, ranging from splendid to pretty marginal! 

Volcanoes loomed in the distance above other mountains.  The red bush/trees and yellow shrubs, that we saw further south, were blooming on the flanks of the forested hillsides.   Homes were abloom with rhododendren, azaleas, purple iris, roses and fruit trees in their yards. It is the full blush of spring here and driving down the country roads are such a treat.

We drove in to Tres Saltos (Three Waterfalls), a very secluded farm off the main road.  The bottom falls was lovely, and Mike hiked up to the upper two falls for his exercise for the day!  There are many hot springs in the area which we checked, but either temperatures are too hot, too cool, the path to get to them was too difficult for me, or the cost was unreasonable for just an hour or so that we would stay.

Business bldg in one tourist town.

Old German farmhouse that was huge!

The next morning we spotted a sign for a bonsai garden.  I had to stop!  The charming gentleman had nearly an acre of hundreds of bonsai that he had been working with for nearly 35 years. He walked around his garden with small snippers in his hand, stopping here and there to snip back stray tips.  A sign out front said this was the home of the Brazilian consul. . we met his friendly wife who spoke English, and assume it must have been she who was the consul.

One of three days it was warm enough for lawn chairs.

The next day — we were in the next valley south (our favorite of the several valleys) and skirted around Siete Lagos (Seven Lakes) as we made our way to Puerto Fuy — nearly at the Argentine border.  As a lark, we took the ferry towards that border on a 4-hour joy ride, at a cost of about a $1 each for the afternoon. 

The lake was long, narrow and twisted around with forested hillsides. On our stopover at the other end, Mike began visiting with the captain and spent a good half hour on the way back visiting with him up in the bridge of the ferry.    Just as the port came in to view at the end of our trip, the clouds lifted and we were blessed with a beautiful view of the nearby  snow-capped volcano, Choseuhuenco.

A company in the local area is building a resort, containing  a luxurious hotel, fancy cabanas, restaurants, a museum, hiking trails, zip line canopy tours, paint ball area, and ticket office for waterfalls.

We first went to the Volcano Museum, not that it was about volcanoes!  It had a huge collection of Mapuche Indian relics and an even larger collection of rocks and polished rock balls of the most incredible variety.  Hundreds of beautiful rock globes in blues, greens, reds, tiger stripes, on and on, sitting on the shelves glistening under the lights. 

This is a mining country and these are rocks that have been found in the mines all around Chile.  The museum itself is still under construction.  It is being built with the idea of showing the big bang theory of creation. 

Photo of Mapuche women resting

The so-called Volcano Museum

We went into Salto del Huilo-Huilo, a 121-foot waterfall, that pours an entire river of about 2000 cfs (think the Arkansas at late June medium water flow) through a 30-foot wide cleft in the rock.  The plume of spray shooting up from the bottom of the falls was perhaps 80 feet into the air.  It was one of the most impressive waterfalls we’ve ever seen!

Further downstream was a only slightly less impressive Puma waterfall.  And on downstream further, the River Fuy crosses under the highway in a half-mile of solid whitewater, with class 4-5 holes the whole way! 

Huilo-Huilo Waterfall, 121 foot high 

Puma Waterfall

We finished up our tour of the Lake District of Chile, by going back south towards Puerto Mott, then east from Osorno.  Lots of hiking in the national parks, but not much to keep Mike and I.  The area here is much less manicured than further north.  As a whole, the Lake District is a tourist area for those wanting to do day hikes, go boating on the lakes, or sit on the beach.  Some pricy hotels and cabanas are found here, as opposed to the nearly exclusively rustic places we saw further south in Patagonia

The southern portion of Chile that we visited, from Temuco to Tierra del Fuego was roughly three widely different areas:  the southern Patagonia around Punta Arenas to Torres del Paine which is remote, dryer, and rough and tumble. 

Then the middle Northern Patagonia Carretera Austral Highway section from somewhat south of Chile Chico to Puerto Mott — tracts of untouched wilderness, beautiful, stunning mountains and glaciers, and fast flowing rivers, with small farms studding the valleys. 

The northernmost lovely Lake District from Puerto Mott to Temeco has the stunning views of lakes, volcanoes and pastoral scenes — a huge tourist area. 

View over one of the Siete Lagos (7 lakes)

Yes, this is a church.

OUR LAST WEEK IN CHILE

As we were passing by Puerto Mott on our way down to the island of Chiloe', we wanted to run by the airport to familiarize ourselves with it.  And, we wanted to reserve a hotel room for the night before we fly out, so we can clean out the camper and pack and have showers.  

We found the airport, but looked in vain for hotels, motels, cabanas, camping spots . . . . nothing.  Until Mike spotted a motel sign.  We stopped, rang the bell and a lady began chattering through the intercom. I finally requested we “hablamos en persona” (speak face to face).  She slid the gate open.

We told her we wanted a room for the night of Nov 28, and she began shaking her head and chattering again.  (Chileans speak so fast!) We indicated we understood nothing.  She got her phone and began to translate.  She showed the translation to Mike:  “Motels are different here!  Three hours.” Mike burst out laughing, and managed to tell me, “The rooms rent for 3 hours here.”  I burst our laughing, as I understood immediately that we had happened upon one of the  “NoTell Motels”, which are prominent in Mexico, but we hadn’t seen any here.  (Divorce was only legalized here in 2017!)

But no amount of talking would convince her to allow us to make a reservation for the whole night.  I admit we chuckled the rest of the day over that encounter.

Language here has been very difficult. Our Mexican Spanish is virtually worthless except when asking for something.  When they talk to us we understand nothing at all— maybe two words out of 50 or more for Mike; none for me. As a result we have not been able to connect as well with the Chileans as we normally have in Mexico. I don’t ask more questions than I have to, nor initiate conversations.  We both have felt a little more isolated.

I have given up smiling at people as they don’t acknowledge you.  Perhaps it’s a European thing, but it’s so different than Mexico.  For example, in a market, if I move out of their way, they don’t so much as look at me, much less murmur “Gracias.”  Or driving down the road, they may look up at us, but they don’t return a smile. Other times they ARE friendly. . . . you just never know.

Showers and laundry have been equally difficult to find here. It’s impossible to ask directions for a laundry — we could never understand them!  A sign outside is all we can hope for.  And showers!  Few and far between, we have to admit.

Groceries.  I buy yogurt, milk, cereal of sorts, crackers, cheese, and not much meat.  Meat is either not appetizing looking, or is too large a piece, or I have no good way to cook or season it.  We eat raw veggies of cucumbers, carrots or red peppers when I can find good quality ones (not wrinkled).  We also eat lots of great fruit; oranges, apples, bananas, wonderful apricots, strawberries and cherries.

Restaurants. We tried to find restaurants but they are so hard to spot.  Rarely a name, most usually a small hand lettered sign on the front:  Comida.  They always look closed, or too run down, or it is the wrong time of day, or we have just eaten in the camper, or we can’t find a place to park.  We’ve only eaten out about 5 times in five weeks.  We never have managed to find breakfast out anywhere.

Safety.  We never feared even one time for our personal safety.  We boondocked, just stopped for the night, anyplace we chose.  No problems and no one ever asked us to move.  The riots in Santiago and the largest cities of Chile affected us only by the cancellation of the ferry that one day.  

ISLA DE CHILOE’

Some of the palafitos (stilt houses) in the town of Castro

Another ferry ride, this one of only about a half hour, brings us south of Puerto Motto to the island of Chiloe’.  We check out Acun; nothing interesting.  We keep on driving south and reach Dalcahue.  A lavenderia!  Eureka!  Then a good supermercado and a fruteria AND —  an ice cream cone!  Wonderful.  Now what?  Well, let’s take the ferry over to that other island. . . what’s it’s name?  Oh yeah, Isla Quinchao.

We drive towards the embarcadaro — and they are loading the ferry right now.  We whip right on there, get parked and say, “Boy, that was fast.”  Then Mike wonders outloud, “Gee, I wonder where this ferry goes!?!?”  We begin laughing, and before we can catch the attendant to ask, we are on our way!  Fortunately, it was only a 10 minute ride to the island to which we intended to go.

Quinchao Island

This island is charming,  more so than the main island, Chiloe’.  It is very hilly with a veritable patchwork of greener pastures, shruby fence rows, wild woods and interesting homes.  The homes in one little town, Achao, were nearly ALL covered in wood shingles with interesting architectural features of bay corner windows, old or new.  

Many have different and interesting designs cut into the edges of their shingles.  And the colors!  Natural aged wood which is now a silvery gray, or stained in reds, or greens, OR painted in brilliant or pastel colors of every color in the rainbow:  red, rust, blue, green, yellow, pink, lavender, blue. . .  Then they add a contrasting trim of another bright color!  Delightful.

And best of all — we found a wonderful, clean hot shower at a gas station at this end-of-the-road town on this tiny island!  We kept exploring different back country roads and follow a double semi-truck down to a dock before turning around.  Later in the day, and many miles away in another town back on the main island, we were sitting at a light waiting to turn, and this same trucker recognizes our camper and gives us a big wave and grin as he flies through the intersection.

Back on the main island at the larger town of Castro, we find some interesting and colorful shoreside houses on stilts and a couple of interesting birds at the seaside. 

We head off to another island, Lemuy.   After another ferry, we go down back roads again.  This time we don’t find much, but spent the night in an old quarry.  In the morning, some farmer’s cows were out.  We were awakened by a bellowing bull courting the heifers across the road, while his own cows were quietly munching grass outside our camper.  

Back across to the main island and to another small settlement of Quemchi at the end of the road.  This one had lovely boats in the harbor, a nice OPEN restaurant and the prettiest, quirkiest church to date.

Pulling back on the main road, I spied a team of oxen hitched to a wagon load of wood.  We stopped and Mike crossed the road to take a picture for me.  Coming back, he glanced down and exclaimed “Oh no!”  

Another flat tire, the third time for that particular tire —and at the same time,  it began raining.  We pulled into a lane to change it, then discovered that the key that locked the cable in place around the spare tire was missing.

I immediately began cleaning out the cab of the pickup to begin packing: We didn’t know if we were going to have to leave the motor home there and take a bus back to Puerto Mott or whether when we called the company, they would come to rescue us.  Mike called from a house across the road, but the company’s only suggestion was to cut the cable, to which Mike replied, I have no way to do that!  End of conversation.

Fortunately the gentleman at the house grabbed some tools. He crawled underneath the camper with  a crowbar and a hammer and pounded and pounded until the cable broke.  By this time, I had gone through our food stuffs and put together a huge grocery bag full of things we would not be using, and we gave this to him as a grateful thanks.  

Two hours after stopping, we were pulling back onto the road.  But something was drastically wrong— the truck sounded AND drove really weird.  We discovered it had been accidentally put into 4-wheel drive.  Relieved, we started again.  But it was still weird!  Thank goodness after a quarter mile it leveled out and was fine. No idea what made it clunk and shimmy so. 

That was our fourth flat tire on this trip.  The company sent the motor home out with poor quality, moderately treaded tires.  They have been absolutely NO support. 

The remaining days until flying out were ones of just marking time.  With no GPS or map, our only way into Puerto Mott was a taxi from the edge of this medium sized city.  We never were able to find a cabana or affordable room for one night.  So we traveled between two gas stations off the interstate — one had good wifi; the other, showers.  And we packed our 4 bags of luggage in the small confines of the camper.  Chaotic, to say the least.

N. PATAGONIA AND LAKE DISTRICT IN RETROSPECT

How would we recommend traveling in the N. Patagonia and Lake District?  We liked the entire area between Chile Chico and Temco, and are not sorry we didn’t go further north.  Regarding mode of transportation, we don’t think renting a car and staying at cabanas would be any more expensive than the motor home.  

Showers and laundry certainly not be a problem with a rental car.  This method would solve some frustrations, but not others.  Food would be an issue, unless one wanted to eat out every meal!  A cooler would work, if one could find ice!  We never saw any for sale.  Granted we never looked, either.

Chile is a sensationally beautiful country. Visiting here was culturally interesting, but frequently frustrating.  As always, traveling is an experience; one of the country, another of the people and culture, and probably most telling - one of learning about oneself!😏 

View on the island.

The street down to the embarcadero.  Note colors.

A lovely trio in one of the town's harbors.

Well, that's all for this trip, folks!