January 20, 2026
Departamento Nuevo
Temuco, Chile
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| Terminal Rodoviaria in Santiago |
Monday morning, we called an Uber to take us to the Terminal Rodoviaria in Valparaiso in order to catch our 8:45 bus to Santiago. We took a Flix bus. This was not a luxurious bus, but it was only a two-hour ride. It was foggy and we couldn’t see much along the way. We transferred to the bus for Temuco at the Santiago Terminal Rodoviaria, also known as San Borja. That bus terminal was immense with something like a hundred gates. The place was packed with people weaving in and out and dragging their suitcases through the throng. We had to fight our way to the Flix counter to determine which gate we needed and then fight our way back to the general area because we knew only that it would be somewhere between gates 39 and 43.
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| Fields in Chile's Central Valley |
Finally, the bus for Temuco arrived. It was a double-decker bus and much more spacious and comfortable than the short-distance bus. It took us over eight hours to get to Temuco. Driving down Chilean Route 5 was only slightly more interesting than driving down US Highway 5. We were driving through the Central Valley of Chile and, like the Central Valley in California, it was all agricultural. We passed orchards and fields of vegetables. There were lots of eucalyptus trees. I slept and read. The bus never stopped. Fortunately, we had brought snacks.
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| Our Apartment in Temuco |
We arrived at the much smaller and less hectic bus terminal outside of Temuco. A taxi tried to charge us 9000 CLP to go three kilometers. We called an Uber for under 3000. Our apartment was new and very nice. There was just one big problem. The owner had informed us the day before that the only form of payment he would accept was a transfer to his bank account. This was probably quite normal in Chile. It is a very normal means of payment in Mexico where I live. It is not, however, an easy thing to do internationally. Between Sally and me, we had accounts in four banks in three different countries and the best we could do was to pay him in four days. That was not acceptable. We had to wait until the next morning, go to the ATM, withdraw cash, take it to his bank, and deposit it in his account. Of course the bank didn’t open until 9:00. By the time we did all of that, ate breakfast, and picked up the rental car, it was nearly noon. We still had to drive for 90 minutes and we knew that the last entry to Conguillo National Park was at 14:30.
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| Sally at the Closed Park Gate |
Short on time, we chose to use the north entrance to the park, which was an hour closer. It was a pretty drive and we could see the volcano in the distance. Our primary reason for going to the park was to see the Chilean national tree, the araucaria. We didn’t see any before we reached the park gate. The gate was closed. We had already tried to buy passes online with no success. While I had had luck using the website with the Chrome browser at Cerro Pintados, it would not work this time. We figured we would have to negotiate with the ranger, again. There was no ranger. At least we had not paid. We were not the only car trying to get into the park. One car was bold enough to raise the closed gate and drive through. The rest of us turned around.
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| Volcan Conguillo |
Knowing we were going to be too late to get into the park, we still elected to drive back to Melipeuco and drive the 29 km on a gravel road to the other entrance, hoping to see an araucaria tree. We stopped in Melipeuco for lunch and I finally got to try pastel de choclo, a sort of cross between shepherd’s pie and a tamale. We didn’t see any trees, but we did get some stunning views of the volcano and a big lava flow. The ranger was leaving when we got to the closed gate. We followed him back down the mountain and returned to Temuco.
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| Lava Floe at Conguillo |
I spent the entire evening trying to buy park passes for Parque Nacional Villarrica for the following day. I managed to buy them on my computer using Microsoft Edge as the browser, but we needed to have them on our phones and the only options they offered were to show them on our phones or print them. We had no printer. I got the bright idea of printing them to a .PDF, thinking I could send that to my phone. No dice. Not being willing to buy Adobe’s software, I could not save the file. Next, I copied the .PDF to OneNote, but I couldn’t access the file from my phone. Finally, I was reduced to taking a photograph of the tickets on my computer with my phone.
January 21, 2026
Departamento Nuevo
Temuco, Chile
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| Queltehue in Coñaripe |
Determined to have better luck getting to Villarrica than we had getting to Conguillo, we left the apartment at 7:30. Google Maps didn’t know where it was, but AI said to drive to Coñaripe and look for the park signs. Traffic was heavy and we didn’t make it to Coñaripe until almost 10:00. We hadn’t seen a single sign, so we stopped at the tourist information office to ask how to get there. They gave us a couple of maps and highlighted how to get out of town and then told us to follow the road.
After zigzagging through a neighborhood, we finally saw a sign for the park that pointed us up a gravel road. That was the last sign we saw for 25 kilometers. The map suggested that a certain hot springs was inside the boundary of the park. When after 20 kilometers of gravel road, we came to a fork, one way was not marked and the other pointed to the hot springs. We followed that road. We got hopeful when we saw several tour vans and a big parking lot, but that was just the hot springs. We asked the woman in the ticket booth and she told us the park was up the other fork. Fortunately, she warned us not to try to drive the last part of the road.
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| We Parked at the First Sign |
When, after another five kilometers, we came to the first park sign, we parked the car and continued on foot. Not long after that, we came to a section of road with very deep holes. We would never have made it. A kilometer or so past where we parked, we finally came to the park entrance. The park ranger who greeted us was very helpful. He helped us pick an appropriate hike and identified some birds we had photographed. He looked at the pictures of my tickets, but didn’t try to scan them. Finally, we were in!
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| Me with the Friendly Ranger |
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| Araucaria (Monkey Puzzle) Trees |
We decided to climb up to the Mirador Los Volcanes, a spot above the treeline where we could see five volcanoes. The first section was gradual and we were able to appreciate the grove of araucaria or monkey puzzle trees that are Chile’s national tree. They are funny looking trees that grow straight up with no branches until near the top. The branches are spiny and the bark of the trunk is divided into sections that look like puzzle pieces when not covered with moss. Not far beyond the ranger station, stands the Millennium Tree. It is a very large araucaria with a platform around its trunk. We admired the tree and continued up the path. Eventually, we came to the turnoff for the Mirador Los Volcanes.
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| Millennium Tree |
The path climbed over a small hill and then dropped down to a river. The river was fed by snowmelt, but looked muddy from all the volcanic silt it carried. We crossed a bridge over the river and then began to climb in earnest. The path was very steep, with lots of steps. We climbed through the araucaria forest for an hour or more and finally came out onto a barren volcanic landscape of black cinders. We continued to climb until we reached the summit of a small hill. The view from there was stupendous. To the north, we could see Volcanes Mocho and Choshuenco, although they were somewhat obscured by the smoke from forest fires. Close by, we could see Villarrica. Just south, we saw Volcanes Quetrupalan and Lanin. All were capped with snow. There was a chill wind blowing at the mirador, but we stayed long enough for me to eat most of a sandwich and take some photos.
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| Volcan Villarrica |
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| Volcan Lanin |
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| Mocho and Choshuenco |
Our descent was much quicker than the ascent and we were down by 16:00. Our ranger friend was a little surprised that we had made it to the mirador and back so quickly. We didn’t see more than a dozen people the whole time we were in the park. The town of Coñaripe was swarming with hundreds of tourists, but they clearly had not come to visit Parque Nacional Villarrica. We joked that it was because they could neither buy passes nor find the park.
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| Where the Ranger Got Stuck |
While we were walking back to our car, another friendly ranger came along in a 4-wheel-drive SUV and offered us a ride, which we gladly accepted. When we got to the spot with the deep holes, he got stuck. It took him about four tries to escape. We were about to get out and walk. It felt like the bottom of the car was balanced on a high spot and the wheels were just spinning. Finally, he got loose and delivered us to our car, glad that we had left it where we had.
It took us a few hours to drive back and put gas in the car. Then we returned to the apartment and dined on the leftovers from the previous day’s grocery run.
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| Sally's New Friend |
January 22, 2026
Hostal Brisas del Sur
Puerto Varas, Chile
The rental car agency didn’t open until 8:30 and our bus wasn’t until 10:00, so we had a leisurely morning. We returned the car shortly after they opened and took an Uber to the bus terminal. The Terminal Rodoviaria in Temuco was quiet at that hour. We killed an hour playing with the dogs inhabiting the terminal. One of them tried hard to adopt Sally.
The ETM bus that we took to Puerto Varas was very professional and quite comfortable. We arrived as scheduled at 14:45. The bus dropped us off at the town gymnasium, which was a little odd, but it was easy enough to get an Uber from there to our hostal.
The hostal proved a disappointment. We had reserved a quadruple room, but were given a triple room. Towels were not provided, although Sally helped herself to some she found in the laundry area. The room was small, beds not very comfortable, there were only a couple of electrical plugs, and nowhere comfortable to sit. We had waited too long and failed to find anything up to our usual standards. We had booked this place, despite the shared bathroom, because it looked OK online, but many of the proffered amenities were not as they seemed. Perhaps worst for Sally, there was no coffee before 8:15 and we were not allowed to use the kitchen before noon. We couldn’t bring our own food, either. The location was a couple of miles from restaurants and shops. We were stranded.
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| Hotels in Puerto Varas |
We checked in and set off to walk to the center of town, hoping to find food, cash, and a tour agency. It was a long walk and I was so hungry and grumpy by the time we reached the edge of downtown that we ate in the first restaurant we saw. This turned out to be a very elegant Persian restaurant where we had a nice meal. That improved my mood, briefly, until we got to the center of town and found it full of high-end shops and hotels swarming with tourists on vacation. It was not our scene at all. The ATMs were closed, by that time, so we couldn’t get cash. The tour agencies were about to close and we felt rushed. We were too frustrated to make a decision. We admitted defeat, decided to blow off the following day, and took an Uber back to our hostal.
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| Volcan Osorno |
January 23, 2026
Hostal Brisas del Sur
Puerto Varas, Chile
As we had no other plans for the day, we waited around until 8:30 to have breakfast at our hostal. It was a pretty good breakfast, over all, with abundant fruit and plenty of butter, jam, and avocado for our toast. There was even milk for the coffee. Of course, Sally couldn’t wait until 8:15 for coffee and had to illicitly use her own electric kettle to make coffee in our room while we waited.
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| The Marina in Puerto Varas |
After breakfast, we walked down the hill to see what was available along the lake on our end of Puerto Varas. There were a few restaurants and we sneaked through a gated community to get a look at the private marina. On our way back, we realized that the path we were following was on the wrong side of a rustic three-rail fence from the road we needed to take into town. As I would have had to shed my backpack to squeeze between the rails, I elected to climb over the fence. It was about five feet high, but was constructed on a downslope. When I got to the top, I noticed that the substantial post was a bit crumbly on top. I grasped the other side but, as I started down, the entire post split in half, the rail on which I was standing gave way, and I tumbled backwards onto the path at the bottom of the slope, bonking my head on a fence that fortunately prevented me from sliding into the roadway. My head was okay, but my weight had landed on the bony part of my right buttock. It smarted a bit.
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| Beach in Puerto Varas |
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| Museo Pablo Fierro |
We walked another couple of hours, went to the bank, arranged tours for the next two days, and then decided to stop in a café for coffee and a snack. I discovered that my right buttock was so swollen that I couldn’t sit on it.
We strolled up to the Iglesia Sagrado Corazόn de Jesus, the one notable building in Puerto Varas, to take a look. Of course, it was closed. While architecturally interesting, being clad in dirty corrugated metal siding didn’t improve its appearance. We took a few shots and then did some shopping for food for the next couple of days’ tours. We took an Uber back up the hill.
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| Sagrado Corazόn de Jesus |
I really wanted to work on my blog but, as there was nowhere comfortable to sit, it was difficult to do without putting pressure on my poor bruised buttock. I lay on my side and pecked away at my laptop. I hoped the swelling would go down before the next day’s bus ride to Chiloé Island.
January 25, 2026
Hostal Brisas del Sur
Puerto Varas, Chile
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| Car Ferry to Chiloé |
Our tour guide picked us up at 7:20. We had to make special arrangments to get out of the hostal at that hour, since no one was up. It was chilly and drizzling a bit. We picked up the other passengers and then drove south for an hour and a half to the port of Pargua where we took a car ferry across the Chacao Channel to Chacao. Chilean Route 5 includes this car ferry and terminates on the island of Chiloé.
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| Church Interior in Chacao |
Chacao was a small town that had become a tourist hub. There, we saw the first of the wooden churches covered with metal siding for which Chiloé is known. During the seventeenth century, the Jesuits established churches at each indigenous settlement and would visit them annually, arriving by sea. After the Jesuits were expelled in 1767, the Franciscans took over their mission. Most of these churches have two bell towers and simple wooden interiors. Chacao was home to a large population of black-necked swans and even a few flamingoes.
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| Black-Necked Swans |
From Chacao, we drove down the eastern side of the island, through the countryside, until we came to Quemchi. Quemchi was distinguished as the home of the Chilean writer and explorer Francisco Coloane. Vendors were selling authentic local handicrafts, such as carved wooden items and all kinds of things knitted or felted from local wool. There was a nice boardwalk leading down to the beach, but the high tide covered it and it was too slippery to negotiate. We barely had time to stick our heads into the Coloane museum before it was time to go.
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| Chiloé Tractor |
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| Quemchi Waterfront |
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| Bridge to Aucar Island |
The local industry in the area was salmon and mussel farming. At low tide, it was easy to see the mussel beds. In 1837, an earthquake and tsunami altered the coastline and separated Aucar Island from Quemchi on Chiloé. A long wooden footbridge was built in 1885. The island is home to a chapel and a cemetery. We took the bridge over the mussel beds and walked around the peaceful island. It was easy to see the pontoons of the mussel farms from there and we could hear the sea lions.
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| View from the Hilltop in Dalcahue |
After lunch, we drove further to reach the capitol city of Castro. The coast of Castro is lined with palafitos, the traditional stilt houses. These former homes are now a popular attraction and many house restaurants and businesses. We looked around for coffee, but ended up having to go up the hill to find anything other than seafood. Castro also sported beautifully carved statues depicting local myths.
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| Palafito in Castro |
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| Church in Castro |
After visiting the palafitos, our guide took us to the main square where we visited the Iglesia San Francisco, the largest of the wooden churches. Built in 1910, it replaced an earlier church that burned down and the first attempt at replacement was also destroyed by a wind storm. Today, the church is sunshine yellow, but older photos show it with a red and blue color scheme.
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| Pincoya, the Marine Fertility Goddess |
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| Interior of Church in Castro |
From Castro, we returned to the ferry at Chacao and crossed back to the mainland, returning home about 20:00. It had been a long day.
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| Car Ferry to the Mainland |
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| Petrohue Falls |
Sunday, we took an excursion to Peulla. We left even earlier to meet our bus in downtown Puerto Varas at 7:30. The bus drove us out of the city and stopped at the Petrohue waterfalls. Here, the Petrohue River tumbled through contorted lava flows. The river, fed by water from Lago Todos Santos, contains minerals that give it a lovely light blue color.
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| Water at Petrohue Falls |
After a brief visit to the falls, we returned to the bus and continued on to Petrohue where we boarded the CruceAndino catamaran to take us across Lago Todos Santos to Peulla. Highway 225 is an international route that links Bariloche in Argentina with Puerto Varas in Chile. The traditional road ends at Petrohue and the route then continues by catamaran as far as Peulla, where the road resumes. Buses ferry tourists back and forth across the Andes via this route. There is a Chiliean customs office in the tiny town of Peulla.
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| Glacier on Cerro Tronador |
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| International Hwy 225 to Argentina |
Once we returned to Peulla, we were encouraged to eat an excessive and expensive lunch at the new hotel. We declined and instead grabbed a sandwich at the original Peulla Hotel. We then had time to walk back to the catamaran dock and relax for an hour before reversing our journey.
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| Our Ride Back to Petrohue |
