Southern Chile

From personal travelogues, 1995-1998

Chile is such a long country, north to south, that it spans many climate zones. If flipped head over heels into corresponding latitudes in the northern hemisphere, it would stretch from Acapulco, Mexico to Juneau, Alaska. So far, my favorite part of Chile is the woodsy lake and fjord districts immediately north and south of Puerto Montt. The natural scenery is very beautiful, the culture is quaint, the people are friendly and most costs are modest.

Other than sightseeing, shopping and eating, there are a lot of available outdoor activities, from fishing to hiking to cycling to photography to white water rafting to mountain climbing. There is also a rich cultural scene; folk dancing and music, handicrafts, architecture.

My travels in these districts have all taken place during the uncrowded, low season which is March through mid-December. For Chilean tourists the summer rush peaks in January and February, the months with the warmest weather, least rain and most sun. If you travel during January and February you may have difficulty finding accommodations and you will pay higher prices. Take warm clothing in all seasons.

I have been to Chile about eight times on business. Sometimes I take extra time to travel, usually around the areas featured in this web page. My wife was along on one of my longer trips. I / we are frugal travelers but not backpackers. We are willing to spend a little more for a meal or accommodations that are special. We stay away from American style hotels. We don't make advance reservations. We steer clear of the usual group tours. A lot of the slickly advertised opportunities thrust in the faces of travelers are just obstacles to a good time. We do our damnedest to wiggle around them. Some of the information in this travelog may help you to do the same thing.

Click on the following link to get a map plus text comments on roads and travel for Puerto Montt and Lago Llanquihue. A real estate agent has provided this map of Chiloe and the fjord district to the south of Puerto Montt.

Most international flights enter Chile via the Santiago airport. If you are visiting Chile for the first time, I suggest continuing immediately from Santiago to Puerto Montt, which is on everybody's Chilean itinerary anyway :) Save your visit to the huge, industrialized city of Santiago for later in your trip when you have become acclimated.

There are several jet flights to Puerto Montt each day and the flight time is only about one hour. Chile also has privately owned fleets of comfortable long distance busses which reach everywhere, including Puerto Montt. The busses cost considerably less than jet flights. An airport shuttle will drop you at the Santiago bus terminal.

There are several rental car agencies at the Puerto Montt airport. On my November 1998 visit I rented a sub-compact from TRAVI (56-65-257137) for $59 per day including insurance and taxes, but not gas. The rental agent asked to see my US driver's licence, passport and major credit card.

Here is a commercial WWW page for Puerto Montt. Some useful content is tucked in amongst the paid advertisements. Puerto Montt is NOT the best place to stay overnight. It is industrialized, smoggy and congested.

Driving in the lake/fjord district around Puerto Montt is relatively easy since the traffic is light, Chilean motorists are courteous and they drive on the right (correct) side of the road. There are many well maintained, paved roads. However, a lot of interesting places are served only by gravel roads. The gravel roads can be good during dry seasons, or they can degenerate rapidly during wet weather. Several times I have started out on good gravel roads which became almost impassable before I reached my destination. Of course I didn't want to give up, so I kept going and I was lucky.

Notable Curiosity: The Puerto Montt airport is in an agricultural area about 15 km. west of the town of Puerto Montt. Somewhere close to the airport, I figure a few km to the south and east, is a bog which contains the oldest verified human habitation site in North or South America, 13,000 years BP! It is called Monte Verde, and the exact location is not on any road map I could find. Here's another link to info on Monte Verde. And here's the National Geographic Society link for Monte Verde. There is a major archaeological expedition to Monte Verde planned for 2001.

After arrival, rather than going directly into the somewhat crowded and smoggy Puerto Montt, I suggest driving a few extra kilometers to the shore of the beautiful Lago Llanquihue - under the solemn gaze of Volcan Osorno, the Chilean equivalent of Mt. Fuji. The first town on the lake is Puerto Varas, a small, serene European-style village with plenty of accommodations in all price ranges. Puerto Varas is one of those ideal retreats in which one can comfortably recover from a long series of flights and make the transition to a new country, cuisine and language. It has a lot of resources for tourists, but it doesn't look or feel like a tourist town. It probably is near the top of the places in Chile where Chileans themselves would live if they had their choice. Have some cazuela (traditional chicken and vegetable soup) at the cute little restaurant called Mamusia. Or something a little heavier at the Club Aleman; the restaurant is open to visitors.

If you don't rent a car you can easily get from the main Puerto Montt bus station to Puerto Varas. The little busses are clean, cheap and frequent. If you speak a little Spanish you may be able to get a shuttle or taxi from the airport to drop you outside Puerto Montt on Ruta 5 at a bus stop. Puerto Varas busses use Ruta 5.

There is a good paved road around Lago Llanquihue on the south shore which leads to the town of Ensenada and the road through Parque Nacional Vincente Perez Rosalez to Petrohue and the spectacular Lago Todos Santos. Coming back you can drive around Lago Llanquihue on the north. There is some nice scenery and old farmhouses, but the gravel parts of the road may be rough in the wet seasons. One rainy, dark evening in August (winter) a couple of years ago, my little rental car almost got swallowed by a ravine running across that road.

Well, I guess the Puerto Montt waterfront is worth a visit. They have some good seafood restaurants. Try the hearty fish and potato stew called "curanto". There are also handicraft markets and an open air farmers and fishermen's market. Regarding staying overnight, I still think that Puerto Varas is an infinitely better choice.

To the south and west of Puerto Montt is Isla Chiloe, one of the first areas in Chile to be settled by Europeans. It still possesses a considerable wealth of old wooden architecture, especially Jesuit parish churches. The cathedral church in the town of Castro is garishly painted on the outside, but the interior is varnished redwood (Alerce). The Lonely Planet guide to Chile devotes quite a bit of space to Chiloe. It is definitely worth the trip just to soak up the atmosphere and eat good seafood. Also, I hear that that there is a lively folk dancing and folk music scene, but my wife and I didn't connect with it during our few pleasant days wandering aimlessly.

Directly to the south of Puerto Montt is "Chile's Inland Waterway", a long, lonely arm of the sea. It resembles the Inland Passage of Canada and Alaska. From the inland waterway fjords and rivers stretch eastward into the towering Andes. Pieces of a road, the Carretera Austral, span this fjord district, but most traffic depends upon ferry boats and airplanes. In November of 1998 I flew south from Puerto Montt to Chaiten, one of the major towns on the Carretera. Chaiten is usually just a temporary stop for tourists going on to fish or white water raft on the famous Rio Yelcho and its tributaries. I liked it and stayed there for five days. The scenery is beautiful, the trout fishing is good and the people are friendly. I finally linked up with Nicolas La Palma, a bi-lingual, multi-talented American who runs a moderately priced tour agency called Chaitur. He is the bearded one in this photo; the young guys are his music students.

Chaiten is also a convenient gateway to the proposed Parque Pumalin, bigger and more spectacular than Yosemite, I think :) The present owner, wealthy American Douglas Tompkins, wants to give it to the Chilean people, together with restrictions on its use and development.

During my several trips to the lake/fjord district I have relied on the Lonely Planet's Guide to Chile (and the help of English-speaking friends). Except in a few cases, WWW sites in Chile are still weak. However, when using a search engine to search the Internet for pages related to this area, you have a tremendous advantage. The Chilean / Indian place names like "Chiloe", "Llanquihue", "Chaiten",... are unique keywords. If a search turns up any hits for these keywords, the pages are usually related.

As one of Latin America's most advanced and prosperous countries, Chile has a well developed infrastructure - transportation, lodging, health care, communications, banking - but that infrastructure is not well coordinated or documented for use by self-guided tourists. For example, I found myself running around from place to place, even town to town, to get ferry boat schedules, airline tickets, a fishing license. One English-speaking travel agent in Puerto Montt couldn't sell tickets on any of the three little airlines to Chaiten. I had to show up, during limited business hours, at an airline's downtown office and buy the tickets from an non-English speaking person who insisted on Chilean pesos, no credit cards or US cash. On the other hand, the airline provided a free ride to and from the airports, a courtesy which US airlines do not extend. The plane itself was very modern, crammed full of electronic equipment.

For another example, nowhere in Pto. Montt do they sell sport fishing licenses. The big, rather luxurious, fishing tackle shop on the square in Pto. Varas pointed me to several incorrect places and made a few telephone calls before finally sending me to a travel agent on the outskirts of town who was about the only one empowered to grant licences. This type of stuff is frustrating.

Part of my problem has to do with my very poor grasp of Spanish - a fact which doesn't stop me, only slows me down. Most foreign tourists have a good time in Southern Chile without a knowledge of Spanish - without even English or German, which are the major second languages. It is a friendly place.

Chile should hire travel industry advisors from New Zealand, just across the "pond". New Zealand has a well developed and documented travel infrastructure for the benefit of both native Kiwis and foreign visitors.

Other useful links

• Historical, cultural, nature, agricultural and other unusual theme tours of Chile by an American university (Oregon State) professor and his Chilean wife.
• Great, content rich travel guide to Chile; contains some commercial advertisements to pay the bills.
• Non-commercial introduction to travel in Chile, by guy at U. of Chile.
• Chile Information Project (CHIP) home page. Good content. Leads to lots of other pages.
• Guide to some major web sites in Chile. Odd organization, but may have some good content. Looks like a bunch of stuff contributed by different universities in Chile.
• Chilean handicrafts page.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks very much, Nico in Chaiten and Alex and Sonja in Pto. Varas who were our main pillars of support. Thanks to Rodrigo, Ricardo and Juan of SHOA for directing me to Southern Chile when I first visited them in Valparaiso several years ago. Carolina of Pumalin HQ in Pto. Montt, I realize that the "Pumalin rules" say you are not supposed to be a travel agent, but you did a pretty good imitation. Thanks for making reservations and giving lots of advice when I visited you in November of 1998.

Disclaimer: This page is for your enjoyment. Obviously I cannot guarantee the safety of any of the people, places or activities mentioned above.