Our last land day started early as we arrived in Puerto Montt about 7:30 a.m. We had an eight-hour excursion planned so had an early breakfast at 6:45 and were in place ready to go at 8:00.
After tendering in from the ship, we boarded a bus for our excursion that took us an hour and a half away, through a portion of Chilean rainforest, to the Petrohue Waterfalls and River Rapids, to the Osorno Volcano with Lake Llanquihue sparkling far below us, and to an upscale expedition lodge for lunch.
Even though our first visit was to the Waterfalls, I have to start with the Osorno Volcano. It is 8,701 feet tall and is known as a “conical stratovolcano” or “composite volcano”, primarily because of the many layers of lava and tephra – material that is produced by the eruptions. Some say that it marks the northern end of Chilean Patagonia. The volcano was capped in snow and glaciers and looked much like Mount Fuji in Japan. We stopped along the roadside to take pictures as we could see it clearly from more than 20 miles away.
Back on the bus, we continued to the Vicente Perez Rosales National Park and Petrohue River Rapids. The rapids are fed by glacial melt and flow over rocks made of basaltic lava left by previous eruptions of the Osorno Volcano. There are over 2500 volcanoes in the country of Chile with about 5% currently considered active, including Osorno and several others nearby (although the last eruption for Osorno was 1869).
After departing the National Park, our bus driver took us to Osorno and drove up and up and up the switchbacks and hairpin curves until we were about a third of the way to the top. Beside the parking area there was a small cafe with a restroom where you could use the facilities for $1, hiking trails, two cable car rides – one longer than the other, and a fantastic view of Lake Llanquihue and beyond. The guide told us there are usually 230 days of rain per year, and much of what you read talks about the clouds obscuring the view – of the volcano – and from the volcano. But our day was sunny and bright and close to clear! I don’t know for sure how far we could see, but I’m pretty sure I glimpsed my nephew, David, driving his pick-up in NC.
There are other volcanos close by, including the Colbuco to the south.
Chile has a volcano alert system that goes from green to yellow to orange to red based on the number of tremors and activity. If it reaches red, everyone within 20 miles has to evacuate immediately. It sounds similar to the Emergency Preparedness Zones around nuclear power plants in the U.S.
Walking was not easy on the small volcanic pebbles – sort of like trying to walk in pea gravel but much more slippery. Even with the fabulous beauty stretching out all around us, I only had to look at my feet to find more, growing right up from the rocky soil.
After the chair lift riders returned, we traveled slowly back down the curvy road to the highway, and about a half hour away stopped for lunch near Ensenada at an upscale adventure/expedition lodge named Yan Kee Way Lodge, built on the shores of Lake Llanquihue (pronounced Yan-kee-whey – hence the name of the place).
The owner is an American, who discovered fly-fishing in Chile in 1966, and offers an adventure lodge with the opportunity to catch King Salmon and other fish in the lake and nearby estuaries, along with other activities. Interestingly, according to their website, the Lodge’s kitchen was designed and built in the U.S., then containerized and shipped to Chile where it is a highly recognized kitchen. We were served a delicious meal including fresh salmon from the lake, in a beautiful setting where we could gaze back across the water at the volcanos.
Our final very brief stop was in Puerto Varas, the “City of Roses”. This area of Chile was settled by Germans in 1853 and is known for its German culture. It is a vibrant, active community that we unfortunately only had 20 minutes to experience as we had to make it back to the port for the all-aboard no later than 4:30 p.m. But from the looks of it as we passed through, I’m sure it would be a lovely place to visit!
On the return drive, our extremely informed and excellent communicator and guide, Victor, told us about the non-native invasive plant (the name of which I cannot remember) that has been a problem for farmers and ranchers in Chile. Although burning is against the law due to unusually dry and windy conditions, some have ignored the warnings and huge wildfires have developed. Less than a month ago, just north of where our ship will dock for disembarkation in San Antonio, out of control fires caused the loss of more than 14,000 homes and the deaths of many (112 were reported as of February 5 with hundreds unaccounted for at the time). Many were reported to have had only a ten-minute warning to flee. One of the reasons for Victor telling us about this was the smoke rising from fires on the hillsides we were passing. At one point we could see the flames shooting into the air and fire trucks screaming past us.
After riding in a tender back to the ship, we stood on our aft balcony and watched the active fire pouring smoke high into the air.
We heard the water begin to flow past the propellers of the azipods as the ship began to move forward, away from our final port of call for this voyage. This had been such a fantastic experience that we were glad to have one more sea day to reflect, and to manage the transition back to everyday life. As we sailed toward the sea, we stood and watched the volcanos fade into the distance.
We departed about 5:30 p.m., sailed through the channel and out to sea, and turned north to arrive in San Antonio the next day by 7:00 a.m.