Puerto Varas - City of Roses

So going back to the airport of Santiago we dwelled about taking that bus back to the main station or walking. We ended up waving at one of the buses to stop and to our surprise it was quite empty. So much easier this time of day! No problem at all when not rush hours.

We had researched the internet and asked at our hostel about buses going straight from Valparaiso to the airport but it was no straight answer. Most people said you had to stop in Pajaritos in Santiago and change buses, so did our hostel. Although it seemed to be three buses a day going straight to the airport but we were not sure so we waited until we got to the station to make our booking. We arrived a bit early in case we had to make the changes but as a lucky surprise there was actually three buses going straight to the airport. And the one leaving before lunch matched our schedule perfectly. So to future travellers, check Pullman buses.

After a short plane ride we arrived to a different environment down in Patagonia. The air felt so much more fresh but also colder. As expected. Our hotel had texted us some tips about transfers so we took one of their recommendations and had a 30 min ride to Puerto Varas from the Puerto Montt airport. The surroundings was very green and quite similar to Sweden in some ways and in some ways not at all. Let me name drop some Swedish flowers and you'll see why it's familiar. Along the road we saw smörblommor, tussilago, backskärvfrö and prästkragar to mention a few.

Volcano covered by clouds

The real eye gem came when arriving to the city of Puerto Varas. Beautifully set with a surrounding giant lake accompanied with two snow covered volcanes. It was cloudy but still so beautiful. And the city itself! Everywhere roses, in all colors. Planted but still it made such a cute impression.

Breakfast/common room at the hotel

Walk down to the lake

As usual hungry when arriving and we went with one of our hotels recommendations. And it was good! The restaurant looked like a hip industrial place, very big just by the lake. And the drinks and food was cheaper than we were used to in restaurant. A lot of tartars in the menu that I actually dared to tried since everything felt to fresh. J went with a risotto. I'll tell you already now we went back here. Amazing food, best we had. Good prices. Excellent service. Best Pisco so far, almost too easy to drink. The other time we went we had to wait 30 min to get seated (first time we sat in the bar which was as good as a table in our opinion) and guess what they offered while waiting? Free champagne. Very hard not to like that place.