The Hotel Cabañas del Lago rises diagonally from the lake front - it's the white buildings with all the windows.
Despite the early arrival, there were a couple of eateries open. So after navigating an ATM machine for local currency, we had a “breakfast snack” of coffee and cheesecake. The coffee Jonathan selected turned out to be more in line with a café au lait. Afterwards, the Lan Chile counter had opened and we obtained our boarding passes.
So we are sitting outside security watching the morning rush work its way through. There’s another ATM in the vicinity that whistles and chirps like a guinea pig or a bird. In the meantime Jonathan has taken the obligatory picture of me writing.
The Santiago airport is state-of-the-art; quite a difference from Panama City.
We began to meet the other members of our group yesterday at the Santiago airport. After passing security, we went to the gate to await the flight from Santiago to Puerto Montt. We were wearing the Country Walker hats with the idea of helping identify ourselves to others in the group. The first member we met was Maria Allo, a surgeon up in the Bay area. We also spotted Dennis and Lavon Chorba, and later Stan and Janice Sussman.
The flight to Puerto Montt was less than two hours and when we arrived it was spitting rain and 7°C (45°F) at 2pm. We were met by Jorge, a moon-faced bearded gentleman of about my age who collected us and then drove us to Puerto Varas.
At the hotel, once we had checked in and met our guides Charlie and Ingrid, Jonathan and I took a stroll along the lakefront (Lake Llanquihue) for about an hour. Along the way we gained a companion – a yellow dog, which must’ve had a lot of German Shepard in his heritage. He accompanied us, and apparently to impress or entertain us, would “chase” selected cars as we walked. He would run towards a car, almost like two rams preparing to butt heads. Then as the car was passing him, he would bark once. And then repeat.
Busses and trucks were apparently too big and he thankfully showed no interest at all in the bicyclists along the road.
The Hotel Cabañas del Lago rises diagonally from the lake front - it's the white buildings with all the windows.
The Calbuco volcano.
When we got back to the hotel we took a nap, although I was worried about my ability to get up as tired as I was from 42 hours of airports and travel. We did get up at 5pm and adjourned to the hotel bar where, in honor of our arrival in Chile, ordered the local drink, pisco sour.
Pisco is grape brandy and the drinks were potent. While sitting at the window in the bar, we were watching the clouds start to break and clear. Across the lake (the hotel is on the lake, “del Lago” as in Hotel Cabañas del Lago) we watched the volcano emerge from the clouds as the sun set behind the hotel, putting full light on the snows that cover the top half of the mountain. At the time we thought we were looking at the Osorno volcano, but it turns out we were admiring its southern neighbor, the Calbuco volcano (pictured above).
We went to the restaurant (upstairs from the bar, and continued to watch the volcano as the clouds danced around its peak and the sunset turned the snows a golden color. Further snow capped peaks in the Andes became visible as the light faded away that evening.
Later we returned to the bar for an after dinner drink. As we passed through the lobby we met Maria and invited her to join us, and spent the evening chatting. We didn’t get to bed until 11pm, but we both slept soundly.