Puerto Varas

After an extortionate taxi ride, where the diver got lost and in actual fact I was only going 200m, I arrived at the hostel Heather had found in Puerto Varas.  After travelling from snowy England, I was wrapped up in thermals and many layers, it was exciting to feel external warmth again!  Very happy to see Heather after planning and planning again.  I think the other people in the hostel thought we were a bit strange! After a much needed shower and some faff we set off on an exploration of Puerto Varas.  The ice cream shop was about 15 m from the hostel door, which was very dangerous as it was perfect weather for indulging.  However, we decided to abstain for the time being.  The challenge was what to do the next day, canyoning seemed to be a popular choice and was advertised in the hostel and about town.  This involves jumping into waterfall plunge pools and sliding downstream very fast, something my risk assessment for uni probably doesn't cover, so keep it quiet, although I did survive, so no paperwork this time!  We could see lots of people (children) swimming/paddling in the beautiful and calm Lago Llanquihue. Not so far away Volcannoes Osorno and Calbuco preside over the surrounding landscape.  Osorno, a perfectly conical shape with a snow cap reaching one third of the way down its flanks, the kind of snowy mountain I drew as a child and didn't think they actually existed.  Lots of pictures taken of the picturesque setting as the clouds disappeared from the mountain top.  As it was so warm and toasty, we decided to go swimming, hurray! We thought that as there were so many people in the lake, it couldn't possibly be cold....how wrong we were, even vigorous swimming didn't help.  That idea was short lived so we sat and dried ourselves in the sun.  I was happy to sit there until the sun went down, however this would have been several hours and I would have turned into a lobster.  Things to do and food to find!  Somewhere in the next few hours we ate ice cream (passion fruit flavour is amazing), decided we were going canyoning the next day and got a student discount, did some food shopping and took more photos!  Lots of faff probably crept in there too.  Puerto Varas is also known as the city of roses, so lovely smells followed us around, as did the many wandering dogs (not so nicely fragrant).  As dusk approached, the snow cap of the volcano turned a delicate pinky orange, which I tried to capture with my camera, but I will have to rely on my memory for the best picture cameras never do these things justice.  Dinner was a massive pan of soup, constructed with pink potatoes, a squash type vegetable, carrots and other veg, topped off with some herbs.  Very tasty, and enough to eat the next day too.

Canyoning was in the afternoon, so we decided to follow in reverse order the tourist trail around Puerto Varas.  Saw the cathedral up close, red and white outside and a lovely blue on the ceiling inside.  The houses are made of wooden flap type things and are painted in many different colours, very pretty.  In front of the cathedral was a garden full of Christmas trees and Santas decorated by different businesses in the town.  I had forgotten it was Christmas only a couple of days ago, warm sun and no snow gives it a whole different feel!We then hurried back to the hostel for lunch and got to the canyoning office for 1pm.  However, South America runs on a slower day, so we didn't go anywhere for a while, a chance to nibble on the tasty avocado and tomato sandwiches Heather had put together.  Nine of us, plus two instructors, climbed into a rickety old minibus and we set off.  The road soon turned into a gravel track and the minibus felt at times as though it was going to shake itself to pieces!  We reached the national park and climbed out where we were presented with our gear.  Lovely wetsuits with inbuilt hood, very hot in the sun, but probably very useful in the river.  Here a picture would help, I am working on the uploading issues.  After a sweaty stomp up a hill and past a tiny birds nest, complete with tiny baby birds, we reached the starting point.  The river was an amazing blue colour, which indicated temperature too! However, the snuggly warm wetsuits kept out most of the chill.  So began the slide down the canyon, into plunge pools forwards and backwards, jumping in and out, swimming under waterfalls, generally having a fun time!  The instructors kept themselves amused by throwing themselves off the tallest rocks and doing back flips, very impressive!  The final jump was preceded by an abseil next to a huge waterfall, all very beautiful.  The plunge pool was in the shade and so wasn't so inviting to jump into, so I took a long time to leap.  It was also very high! I wont have a go at guessing because I'll over exaggerate.  Stopped for a beer on the way back to Puerto Varas, very refreshing, but went straight to my head! Back to the hostel to sort out things for the next days travel to Bariloche, Argentina.  Decided getting some form of four wheel transport was best to get to the bus station, as my bag of science was not uphill friendly!  Another late dinner as the light faded on the volcano and sleep!