Chilean Lake District
Wednesday, 14 April 2010 00:00
From Puerto Montt I rode a whapping 20 miles to Puerto Varas, a former German colony. The guide book says, If it’s not raining, you can get a great view of Volcan Osorno. There was no rain but the clouds and fog eliminated the volcan until just before the sun went down.
Wendy and I missed the Chilean Lake District when we decided to stay in Argentina on our way to Bariloche, so this was my chance to visit the area. The next morning, the sun was shining so I decided to ride around Lago Llanquihue, the second largest lake in Chile, before working my way to Lago Panguipulli.
This side of the Andes is so different than the Argentine side. It reminds me a lot of the I-5 corridor of Oregon. Well, except for views like this
The typical landscape is more like
With these guys in every other field
The town of Panguipulli, on the lake by the same name, is one of those towns where everything is centered around the city park or El Centro . You have the Church on one side
A few stores, a hotel and some houses down the street
And then there’s the lake front
All in the shadow of this guy
After a night in Panguipulli, it was off to Argentina via Paso Icalma. On the way you pass, yup another volcano, Volcan Llaima.
As you get closer to the volcano the towns start having volcano status signs. The sign has three circles, red, yellow and green. A local told me that a while back it was yellow. I guess that's when all the black stuff covered the snow
He said when it’s red you run. I’m not sure if he was kidding but today the status was green so I continued. A bit later and the road crossed an old lava flow so I’m guessing the status has been red too.
The road up to the pass was fantastic. I stopped several times just to take a look as this was going to be the last time I’d be in Chile.
I do like the small remote border crossings. The Chilean side took something like 5 minutes and Argentina was 10 because one of the guards wanted to talk about what kind of music I liked. I guess when you’re stuck up in the Andes at a remote border crossing, you don’t get to talk to that many people.
The Beast says goodby to Chile