21st - 22nd April - Puerto Varas

Left beautiful Bariloche (Argentina) where it had started to rain. Had a 6 hour bus trip to Puerto Varas (Chile). Smooth boarder crossing. The road was very scenic and winding traveling through the Andes. Unfortunately this was not good for motion sickness, but I (Cat) managed to hang in there. David and I are still not 100% but the others were not either but theirs was due to a huge night at an Irish pub. We had a little walk around the main streets of Puerto Varas. Looks like a little German town as there were many German migrants after the WWII. We went for dinner at a seafood restaurant at the end of the day. We both had salmon, glad to be able to have something other than beef after our time in Argentina.
22nd We took a tour with some of the group to Chile's 2nd largest Island Chiloe. Our tour van boarded the ferry which was rather daunting as it was so small. We were able to go up to the top deck for the journey. We saw sea lions, pelicans and seaguls on the journey. Our first stop off was to a little village with the oldest Church in Chile. We then set off on a gravel road past many small family run, subsistence farms. Everything there is done manually, from milking to ploughing the fields. We stopped off to see some black neck swans and to sample some oysters with white wine, tough life but someone has to do it. There were men out on the shore drying seawead to sell, to make agar agar. We then stopped off at the islands biggest town where we went to the produce and handy craft markets. They have an interesting way of selling muscles, threaded on a string and dried out! We then headed to the penguin beach (no penguins as it was not the right time of year) where we had lunch at a little restaurant with a million dollar view and very cheap prices as they catch the fish locally. David and I had sea bass with potatoes for around $6 each! Last stop off was San Antonio Fort which managed to survive the 1960 Earthquake and tsunami. Another fantastic day.