Friday, January 10, 2014

   What a great day we had today!  Started with breakfast in bed, AGAIN, and then on to the tenders that transported us from the cruise ship to the dock at Puerto Montt, Chile.  This is the region of Chile that was settled in the early 1800’s by German immigrants.  The entire region is reminiscent of the beautiful Bavaria region of Germany with the homes, farms, and shops all looking very similar to what we experienced on our trips there.  This area of central Chile is also known for its spectacular lakes, mountains, and volcanoes.  We learned today that there are over 2,000 volcanoes in Chile, many of them still active.  Today we visited two of them on the western slopes of the Andes.  One of those, named Osorno Volcano , is considered to be one of the world’s two most perfectly cone shaped volcanoes, second only to Mt Fuji in Japan.  It is locatedon the western edge of the Andes Mountain range and stands prominently overlooking Chile’s second largestlake, Llanquihue, (pronounced yon-kee-way). This lake covers several hundred square miles and yet is only about 20 minutes from the Pacific Ocean.  

 We also visited the spectacular Petrohue (pronounced Pet-roh-way) waterfalls and rapids.  Jet boating up the rapids is an amazing sight to see and quite an experience. We also visited a couple of German villages, Frutillar and Puerto Varas, that were established a couple hundred years ago and have not lost their authentic European flavor.  Chile is considered to be a highly developed nation and is the second wealthiest country in South America.  Yes, there is some poverty, but it is nothing like the third world countries we have visited and in many ways nothing like some of America's poverty stricken cities.  I'll try to attach some pictures of today's events and the locations that we visited.

 We had the opportunity to travel a section of the Pan American Highway which begins up in northern Alaska, crosses through Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, and then down the full length of South America, terminating at Ushuaia, Argentina where we will be arriving by ship on January 16th.   We then boarded our small tender boat and returned to the ship about at about 5PM.     We enjoyed another delectable dinner consisting of shrimp cocktail, an assortment of Chilean empanadas, roasted chicken, potatoes and vegetables, and a dessert of PASSION Fruit sorbet, and also a strawberry sundae.  We don’t know if we’re going to be able take a full month of this kind of dining!!!

 The ship is underway again and we’re headed south to the city of Castro on the Island of Chiloe which was founded in the early 1500's.  It was always a favorite stopping off point for many of the early European explorers who were sent abroad to conquer and build their empires .  Charles Darwin also made frequent visits to Castro on Isle de Chiloe while doing his research on the Galapagos Islands.  

 We are doing well, still dealing with the respiratory and sinus issues we developed while in Utah, but slowly recovering.  The air here is clean, pure, and therapeutic for us.    So far the internet access has been adequate so we’ll keep you posted as often as we can.  Love you all,   Tom & Marla