Thursday, September 19, 2019
Today was a Chilean holiday, called the “ Days of the Glories of the Army ”.
It was a cool day and it didn’t warm up. The temperature stayed around 5 C ( 40 F ) all day.
After breakfast at the hotel, we were picked up at 8:30 am by our driver, Percy, who took us to the Petrohue Waterfalls. The drive took 50 minutes and when we arrived at the entrance, we picked up our tickets and hiked the short distance to the falls. They’re not as impressive as Niagara Falls but they were still worth seeing.
The river has some rapids and is used for white water rafting.
On our trek back from the falls, we walked through rainforest vegetation.
We arrived back at the hotel at 11 am, had lunch and rested a little while before meeting the driver and tour guide for our next trip. They picked up Pete, Kathy and myself at 1:30 pm, before picking up 11 more people at two different locations. Fr. Richard had decided to stay at the hotel.
From Puerto Varas, we drove to the Osorno volcano, a short distance from the waterfalls where we had spent the morning. As we neared the top, the rain changed to snow and there was a bit of a traffic jam near the entrance of the ski lodge where people were putting chains on their car tires so our driver had to stop and put chains on the tires of our 17 passenger bus before proceeding.
It was very foggy at the top and there were many kids sliding down the slopes.
We had thought we would see a crater at the top but instead we spent an hour drinking a hot chocolate at the ski lodge and looking at the kids playing in the snow, before driving back down the mountain.
On our way down we saw a grey Chilean fox and stopped at a green lagoon to take some pictures.
From the lagoon we drove back to the hotel, where we met Fr. Richard for supper at 6:45 pm. We walked the short distance to a seafood restaurant called Casa Valdes. Peter, Fr. Richard and I had the Chilean Seabass and Kathy had a seafood ravioli. By the time we finished our dinner, it was almost 9 pm so we walked back to the hotel and made preparations for leaving the next day before going to bed.
Ralf Hamm 