Wow - what a view. After the clouds of yesterday we awoke to a bright sunrise over the lake. The volcanoes are the most impressive I think I have ever seen. They look exactly as a child would draw them - perfectly triangular with snow caps and a little puff of steam from the top.
After a good but rowdy breakfast - we have not been together with so many people at any other place, we headed into town. Puerto Varas was originally built and developed by Germans invited over to Chile to help populate and develop this part of the country over a hundred years ago. This has influenced the architecture so there is a lot of wooden buildings rather in an alpine style. Although the town does not get any snow, it feels a bit like a ski resort. It is very pleasant and went even higher in my opinion as I managed to finally have my second ‘submarino’ (first was in Sucre) - a delicious hot chocolate made by me having to stir in 3 blocks of excellent plain chocolate in hot milk until it melted - Mmmm.
I was not feeling 100% this afternoon so we were really pleased that we have written in some ‘down time’ into our itinerary. Feeling a bit better this evening, we went out to look at the volcanoes again and headed off to collect the laundry. Oh dear. The good news is that we found the laundry very easily unlike our time in San Pedro de Atacama. The bad news is that is was shut and only open tomorrow for a few hours when we are scheduled to be miles away on Chiloe Island. We had come just after after 7pm but the woman running the launderette had not mentioned that she actually closed at 7pm!
After a minor panic we met some girls staying at the hostel next door and managed to get ourselves let in. It is run by a nice lady called Laura with a very bouncy white poodle. With my very limited Spanish and a total of 3 verbs used in the present tense I believe that we agreed she should collect our laundry from next door during the day and I think she explained she was there all the time running the hostel so that we can collect tomorrow evening.
That is what I think is happening... very exciting. I may have to survive the next 2 weeks with 3 pairs of underwear but I think we understood each other... watch this space (very nice fish dinner afterwards though).
