In terms of places we think we could live, we usually conclude that we could live just about anywhere if we had to do so. Meaning we’d find ways to make different locales work for us. That’s not to say that everywhere we go, we find ideal. Puerto Varas comes close. We’ve just spent four days in this lakeside town of around 40,000 people. Other than the significant amount of rain it gets through the year, we could easily live in this town. We had never heard of it before, but we found its scenery, pace, food scene, and surrounding areas very appealing.
On Thursday, we got up and did a four-mile run along the waterfront. It worked out great – a light rain started just as we finished. After cereal at our apartment, we drove 30 minutes north to another cool town on Lake Llanquihue that is called Frutillar. Like in other parts of Chile, there is a strong German influence in this area (Frutillar and Puerto Varas). These towns were settled (by Europeans) in the early 1900s by German immigrants. We walked the main street in Frutillar along the lake. Lots of roses in bloom and they have a beautiful theater on the lake. No performances are happening while we are in the area, but it is a beautiful venue. We stopped at just about every bakery along the way to decide which one was going to get our pesos today. For lunch, we ate at the German Club. I had pork sausage with sauerkraut and mustard along with boiled potatoes and red cabbage. Sandy had beef Milanesa and spaetzle.
Two different bakeries got our pesos – we shared a piece of chocolate cake at one and then a piece of raspberry and blueberry kuchen at another. They were both excellent. My mom did some research on Frutillar while we were spending the day there and even though she’s never been, she is pretty sure she could live there.
We then drove the scenic route back home through the farmland by the lake. Sandy twisted her left ankle slightly during our run this morning and then really strained it while squatting to look at desserts on the bottom row in a bakery display case. She could barely walk and her ankle was a little swollen. She goes to the chiropractor on a regular basis, so she guided me on how to adjust her ankle when we got home (she took some ibuprofen, elevated her ankle and by morning it was back to 90% normal). I took a nap back in Puerto Varas and then for dinner, we walked to Mesa Tropera and had flights of beer to sample each of their drafts.
We shared two different small pizzas – one with olives and the other with parmesan, onions, and oregano. I was pretty full, but stopping for ice cream on the way home seemed to be the right thing to do. It was – I mixed raspberry with dark chocolate – super! Back home, we did some planning for after Puerto Varas.
Friday, we had a day to go our separate ways. I wanted to do a hike and Sandy was good with the two hikes we had already done earlier in the week back in Chaiten. Plus, she didn’t think it was a wise decision to hike with her injured ankle. I went to Parque Nacional Alerce Andino where I wanted to do the hike to the Laguna Sargazo and when I got to the entrance, I learned that there were four short hikes I could potentially do. I set off to do them and I was able to get all four done in three hours.
This park is in a temperate rainforest, so it is pretty much always wet. They’ve built great boardwalks for most of the trails, but the downside is that it makes the wood very slippery. Of all the trails, I did fine until the last 100 meters of the last trail and down I went. After a quick moment of fright worried that I could have really hurt myself, I was relieved because I was fine. My wrist was a little sore, but it’s back to 100% a couple of days later. The hikes were beautiful.
Most impactful for me was the 3,000-year-old Alerce tree called El Gigante. I stood in awe, not so much because of the things the tree has seen in its lifetime – I mean, it’s had pretty much the same view for all of those years. For me, it’s just remarkable to stand alone with a living organism that was growing when the first temple in Jerusalem was constructed under King Solomon – a thousand years before the birth of Christ. I was thinking of what the tree probably looked like at that time. It was a cool experience.
While I was hiking in the park, Sandy enjoyed walking around the rose-lined streets of Puerto Varas. She did a weight workout at the gym in the mall and also found a new daypack. She checked out other shops along her walk around town and then headed home to work on lodging for next week. When I got back to town, we walked to La Vinoteca for dinner. We shared a bottle of carmenere from Chile. I had a rib eye steak and Sandy had hake. Although it is cloudy, we were able to get glimpses of the two volcanoes across the lake (one of them can just about be seen in the background of our dinner picture below). It was a perfect Friday night dinner together.
Saturday saw us walk five minutes away to Café Alquimia for a Chai Latte and Hot Chocolate. It’s a cute little shop and the owner happened to be there on Saturday. She is from Tennessee but has lived in Puerto Varas for eight years. It was very nice talking with her. During the afternoon, we worked on our journal, had Greek salads at home, watched one of Brian and Carrie’s YouTube videos. Dinner was at Taberna NoSe. These were some of the best burgers we have had on our journey. Three for three on excellent restaurants now in Puerto Varas. Back for some ice cream at Dominique – this time we each had blueberry and dark chocolate. Nice!
For our last day in Puerto Varas, we planned to get out to see a couple of the natural wonders in the area – the Petrohue Falls and the Osorno Volcano. First stop was about an hour’s drive from the apartment and it was the falls at Vicente Perez Rosales National Park. They’ve developed nice walking trails to the falls and we didn’t really know what to expect. What we found was a beautiful area of lava that had cooled quickly under a glacier thousands of years ago. Now that the glacier has gone, a river is left to rush through the lava like water chutes. It’s a really pretty area.
From the falls, we drove about a half hour up the slopes of the Osorno Volcano. Unfortunately, it was an overcast day and as we approached the top (about 8800 feet above sea level), we were in the clouds and couldn’t see anything. We enjoyed the drive and stopped on our way down to have a picnic in the car.
We headed back to Puerto Varas and dropped Taylor off (the car) and then did a walking tour of the town’s historic houses. They were mainly built in the early 1900s, and some are still in remarkably good shape. Some are not. We also walked to the top of Cavalry Hill for a nice look out over the town and the lake.
Dinner was at Pataliebre. Sandy had a salad with sliced beef, and I had an order of stuffed peppers and the best chicken wings I have had since we left the US. Four for four on great restaurants here. If you can’t tell, that is important to us and it’s a reason we’d be ok living here. One more stop at Dominique for some ice cream and that wraps up our time in Puerto Varas. We head out tomorrow morning and we hope to find our way back here someday.
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