Puerto Montt, Chile

Today was our second time calling on Puerto Montt. We were supposed to arrive at 8:30a, but due to the swells and fog overnight, Insignia was an hour late getting to its anchorage for this tender port. When CD Ray bing-bonged into the cabin to tell us about the delay, he had some good news, too. We’d be departing an hour later than planned … so no loss of time in port today.

When we were here in 2014, we did the typical Los Lagos (Lakes Region) tour that includes Puerto Varas, Parque Nacional Vicente Perez Rosales, Petrohue Falls, and Frutillar … with Volcán Osorno shedding its cloud cover for us periodically.

Today, we shared an Uber with Sonia and Boris and spent the day in Puerto Varas … nicknamed the City of Roses. It was founded in 1853 by German immigrants who settled along the shores of Lake Llanquihue as part of a colonization project.

We had a lovely-weather day … lots of blue skies, white character clouds, and very comfy temperatures. While Volcán Calbuco never completely shed her cloak of clouds, Volcán Osorno showed herself to us throughout the day.

Once we arrived in Puerto Varas, each couple went off on their own … planning to meet up again for lunch. Mui and I made our way to the lakeshore and then up to the top of Cerro Philippi (525 feet high). Our path took us through a park that was re-forested in the ‘80s. The hike up wasn’t long, but it was steep … certainly got a cardio workout today.

Back on the waterfront after our hike, we coordinated with Sonia and Boris and met them at Las Buenas Brasas, the restaurant where they had lunch in 2020. We sat at a table in the garden, surrounded by beautiful flowers and enjoyed a very nice meal.

The food was very tasty. Three of our group had seafood. I’m not in the habit of photographing other people’s food, but I couldn’t resist taking a shot of Boris’s seafood soup. I kept my meal light and just ordered the sopa choclo (corn soup) because we had an invitation to dine at the Polo Grill tonight with CD Ray and former-CD Shawn Carter. Shawn has taken a position at the Miami HQ booking and organizing lecturers for the enrichment series. He’s onboard for the Antarctic portion of our voyage. (Though it is out of order in the sequence of events, I’ll just insert here that we had a delightful dinner … great fun catching up with Shawn.)

After lunch, the two couples went their separate ways again, agreeing to meet up around 3:15p to return to Puerto Montt. When Mui and I reached the waterfront, this time we turned right and walked along the narrow promenade. Our quest was to take a snapshot or two of Museo Pablo Fierro … an oddity of a building that is part house, part boat, part cuckoo clock. Creaky and dusty, too, as we found out when we saw the door open and went inside for a quick look-see.

The drive between Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas is only about 10 miles. With the last tender back to the ship at 5:30p, we could have stayed longer in Puerto Varas. I’m glad we didn’t as we encountered a heavy traffic jam on the highway due to an accident. Yes, the delay only added about 15-20 minutes to our ride, and we made it to the tender pier with plenty of time to spare, but we would have been stressed out to the max if we weren’t comforted by the fact that we had a rather large buffer to make the last tender. That we were ahead of an Oceania tour bus that our driver passed with some fancy maneuvering also relieved our stress. After all, the ship would definitely be waiting for those tour-goers 😉

Shortly after 4:00p, we were onboard Insignia and enjoying the views of Puerto Montt and Volcán Calbuco from our veranda … Osorno was in hiding by this time.

By the way, Calbuco and Osorno are two of the most active volcanoes of the southern Chilean Andes. I’m happy to say that they both behaved themselves today.Read more