Tuesday 3rd February
Puerto Montt
We arrived this morning at our second port in Chile - Puerto Montt. We are again at anchor so it was a tender boat to the shore. The morning was cloudy and when we got off the tender it was raining. Our guide for the morning told us they had 200 days of rain a year! As we left the port and drove to Lake Llanquihue the clouds started to clear and the sun came out. Our first stop on the lake was Puerto Varas. Over the lake the cloud had lifted enough to see two volcanoes - the Osorno and Calbuco. Both were snow capped and looked beautiful. In the towns main centre we listened to a musician playing the panpipes unfortunately we had to leave just after he started. We then went to another town on the same lake called Frutillar. This area of Chile was settled by Germans in the 19th century. They were farmers and cleared the land building wooden houses from the plentiful trees. Many houses here are made of wood including the roof - they are made of wood shingles. In Frutillar there is an open air museum with replicas of old German style wooden houses. The houses are in beautiful grounds and they are furnished as they would have been in early times. Frutillar is a very pretty lakeside town and we were lucky that the sun was out and it was very warm. When we returned to the port we had a wander around the markets which were along the waterside. Back on the ship I took this photo of the Calbuco volcano that was now visible and looking wonderful.