Chile - Going South

Our next route was driving from Santiago to Puerto Montt. We had booked a ferry ride from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales, partly to be able to get there as the road conditions in Chilean Patagonia can be a bit on and off, and partly to see the beautiful landscape in the fjords.

The ferry was due to leave on 28 October, but it was delayed by a couple of days for unscheduled maintenance. The drive from Santiago to Puerto Montt is some 1,000km, and we wanted a few days to complete the drive.

On the way we stayed in Talca, Concepción, Temuco and Puerto Varas. Talca is an important agriculture center, growing wheat and wine. Concepción is a city based around forestry industry and fish processing. The forests seem to be used to grow and cut down trees only, and there are quite a few big plants all around to process it all. Temuco has a tourist focus, along with the forestry, and as most inhabitants live in a house it is spread out over a big area. Puerto Varas is on the shore of Lake Llanquihue, and there is a snow capped volcano, Osorno, together with the peaks of Mount Calbuco and Mount Tronador, visible from the shore. We stayed in a hotel right on the water, and enjoyed the view.

The timing of the drive, to be in Spring, made nature beautiful. And all along the way we saw the huge fields of rapeseed, and there is really no other yellow colour just like it. It was very different from any stretch we have done, with trees and vegetation more like Scandinavia. Well, there's not a lot of wine in Scandinavia...

We were surprised yet again over the Chilean situation with petrol stations! Finding one leaving Santiago was a real drama. There were some stations, away from the main road, but they were not having any forecourt staff out helping with the work as is the custom in Latin America. There was a person sitting in a small booth, completely covered by safety grills, to direct you what to do, and to fill up you had to pay first and then do the filling yourself. It must be a very dangerous job to work in a petrol station!

The population of Chile is some 18 million, and with 7 million or so of them living in Santiago, it became clear that the main part of the population live in the south. This is where the wine grows, and many other crops. The weather was very pleasant too. Very different from the north, for sure.