At breakfast we met a nice couple from France. We both asked the person at the front desk for suggestions on what to do but both came way empty handed.
Puerto Varas is on lake Llanquihue, which is huge, and by a volcano, named Osorno, which overlooks the lake.
We decided to drive around the lake. We drove to an area called Petrohue and passed the Petrohue falls which were quite low and did not have much water flowing. We watched a couple of guys try to fish but they didn’t have much luck. Here are pictures of the “waterfalls”.
Further along that road was another lake that had touristy, water sport activities and a hotel. We stopped for a coffee. After coffee we continued on our way and stopped at an grill, all you can eat place for lunch. After lunch we went behind the restaurant and sat by the lake. We met another French couple who were living in Chile. They told us that Chilean society had rich and poor and not much in the middle. We talked to them for awhile.
As we continued our journey around the lake, we saw a sign for Los cascades, waterfalls, so we followed the sign. We ended up on a narrow, dirt road for quite awhile which eventually resulted in a parking lot. Then we had about a 1 km walk through the woods to the waterfalls. I think we were the only non Chilean people there. Here is a picture of the waterfalls.
After the waterfalls, we got back in the car and drove some more. We thought about stopping in Frutillar, a cute town with German origins, but decided to save that for tomorrow. On our way back into Puerto Varas we stopped at the grocery store for dinner stuff.
Before dinner in our room we walked down to the lake so Rick could get a beer. After dinner in our room, I was in lobby, working on the blog, and the French couple came back. We shared stories about our day. They had gone to Petrohue and hiked for about 3 hours. They are doing the opposite trip, starting in Santiago and ending in Buenos Aires so they told us where to go in Santiago and encouraged us to change our trip to include Valparaiso. So we are going o try to make that change.