Puerto Varas, lake district, Chile

Look! A volcano!
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Puerto Varas is a bit of a nothing town really. It didnt help that we arrived in the rain and had a hostel that was freezing cold and ripped us off in the end.

We couldn´t do a trip as we were short on cash, so we decided to take a local bus to a National Park.  The first stop were the Saltos de Petrohue waterfalls.  Although nothing compared to Iguazu Falls, they were very pretty and there were trails around the falls which we walked.  You can see volacanoes in the distance and the views are very pretty.  Feeling energetic we decided to walk the 6km to a lake - Lago Los Santos.  We enjoyed the walk but the lake was a bit of a let down as there isn´t much to see or do and to be honest we´ve seen lots of lakes much of them prettier.

We´ve never been so happy to see a clapped out old minibus

Waterfalls
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So we decided to take the bus back to Puerto Varas, only it didn´t turn up for 3 HOURS!  Waiting in the cold and rain with random stray dogs trying to make friends with us wasnt much fun! We´ve never been so happy to see a clapped out old minibus when it eventually arrived!

We went to Puerto Varas as its close to where you can board the Navimag ferry which travels through the Chilean fjords.  However the ferry cost $320 each and takes four days which was unfortunately out of our budget.  We found a promotion of a bus to the south of Chile which only cost $40 each so we decided on this option.....even though it takes 35 hours!