Home » Chile Brazil » Puerto Varas, Bariloche, Iguazu waterfalls, ruins of Jesuit Missions, up the river Paraguay and crossing Brazilian borders

We have just flown back to Holland from Brazil, with a stopover in Madrid on March 10th, the day before those cowardly terrorist attacks that killed 200 innocent civilians.

Puerto Varas, Bariloche, Iguazu waterfalls, ruins of Jesuit Missions, up the river Paraguay and crossing Brazilian borders

Odv
2004-09-15 11:14:38

Displayed times (last time: )

The previous update ended with us getting off the Navimag ferry that took us from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt in Chile. Since then we have traveled some more through Argentina but also through Paraguay and Brazil, but I will leave most of Brazil for the next update, because this update would otherwise become too long.

As we had already booked a flight from Bariloche to Buenos Aires and from Buenos Aires to Iguazu, we had 6 days left to explore the Puerto Montt and Bariloche area upon getting off the ferry. We decided to spend 2 days in Puerto Varas, 3 days in Bariloche and 1 day traveling from Puerto Varas to Bariloche. We had heard that is was possible to travel the lake route taking busses between the lakes and boats on each lake to get to Bariloche, but this is an expensive option as the land straddling the border is privately owned and they charge 70 to 80 USD for the privilege to pass through their land! This seemed somewhat over the top, so we opted instead to see the lakes on each side of the border but cross the border by taking the regular bus from Puerto Varas to Bariloche.

Puerto Varas was originally a German town, it still has a distinct feel with its German architecture. From Puerto Varas, the near perfect cone of the Osorno volcano was clearly visible. We day tripped to lago Todos los Santos, a very picturesque mountain lake, at the foot of the volcano. The nearby waterfalls on the Petrohue river seemed to lack water but you could still imagine what they would look like with more water. The majestic Osorno volcano in the background completed the picture.

As we left Chile for the second time, we talked with some fellow passengers while waiting for the lengthy border procedures to complete. A Chilean was complaining about poverty in his country yet he was going on vacation in Argentina because it was so much cheaper (and poorer). Comparing Chile to other South American countries we could only conclude that ...