Our first tour on the cruise! Unfortunately this involved a 0615 wake up call! We were debating whether we needed to get up earlier, but then had the smart suggestion of room service! This would save us having to head down to the restaurant, find a table and wait for breakfast!
We were ferried from the boat to shore in the ships lifeboats, remind me never to be on a ship that needs to use lifeboats for real!
On shore we got on our coach and got underway towards Vicente Perez Rosales National Park, Chile’s oldest national park. Specifically we were going to Todos los Santos, known as Esmeralda Lake for its brilliant emerald colour. On our way we were lucky enought to see snow-capped Osorno volcano. Evidentally the top is often shrouded in cloud, but not today. The volcamoe is 8700ft high and is classed as dormant as it hasn’t errupted since the mid 1800’s.
Once in the National park we boarded a catarmaran for a short trip on the Emerald lake. Unfortunately the “brilliant emerald colour” described in the glossy brochures appears to be the figment of some PR guys over active imagination!
The area has a large numbe of German immigrants from the late 1800’s and there are still German schools in the area today. The architecture in places is also very German.
After our cruise within a cruise we boarded the buses again for Petrohue Falls. These falls were famous, not for their height or volume of water, but for the stunning turquoise colour of the water. Hopefully it wasn’t the same PR guy writing this brochure.
After this stop we headed to Puerto Varas for lunch, where we had a typical Chilean meal, with a beautiful piece of fresh salmon as the main course. After lunch we had about 45 minutes free time to wander around the town and market. Lyn managed to find some items in the market that were screaming at her to take them to Canada!
Into the town square next where a family of musicians were playing.
That was pretty much the end of the tour. We had been very lucky with the weather as the forecast was for heavy showeres all day. It wasn’t until we got to the port that the rain started.
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