Day 486 - 488 Puerto Montt, Chile
Day 486
You can see Puerto Montt’s logging roots in the city which is a mash-up of old and new, modern and dilapidated. The region is beautiful with an immense bay. We strolled Puerto Montt Centro and sauntered along the port. In the 1880s, Chile encouraged German settlers to come to the region to help push the Mapuche out. You can see Germanic influences in its older buildings and places like the Club Alamein (Germain Club). We stopped for a bite to eat. The food was all local and very good, but we didn’t find even a single Weiner schnitzel!
Day 487
On Thursday we did laundry, unloaded our rental car and explored Puerto Montt a bit more. The people of Chile are wonderful with their children. We have never seen anyone slap or yell at their kids. They are warm, unfailingly calm and patient. Downtown the city is a mashup of old and new. Many parts of the city are battered. Other parts are pristine and modern. Outside beyond the suburbs folks still farm and ranch and work like they did 100 years ago like this elderly woman we saw working on her small ranch.
Day 488
On Friday morning the 27th, we headed to the location we had been given to board our bus to Bariloche, Argentina except it wasn’t there! Mayhem as we struggle to locate the right location. We found the right terminal and bus one minute before it left! Then the bus took us north and east into the Andes and the Argentine border. We rose through lush pine and then suddenly miles of skeletal forests of dead trees that I am guessing were destroyed when the Cordón Caulle erupted June 4, 2011. It was one of the largest in the 21st Century and affected all of South America. The area here is highly volcanic and still active.