Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales

Claudio and I had a truly wonderful three days in the south of Chile last week! We stayed in the town of Puerto Varas and took trips to the Chiloé archipelago and Frutillar, as well as Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park, which is what I'll be writing about today. To be honest, we wished we could have spent at least a week in the area, as it's such a beautiful part of the world, but we definitely made the most of the time we had. It was my last "big trip" of my time living in South America, and it was a great way to round of what has been an unbelievable 14 months of travel adventures. 

We arrived in Puerto Varas on Thursday night, and then started Friday morning by taking a bus from the town centre to Lago Todos los Santos (All Saints Lake), which is located in Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales, not far from the border with Argentina. It was amazing to get out of the bus and find ourselves surrounded by amazing nature, including forest-covered mountains, a volcanic black sand beach, and of course, the turquoise lake itself.

We took a boat trip around the lake, which was a nice way to get our holiday started. The lake is known for its great views of Volcán Osorno, but the volcano was mostly covered in cloud while we were there! But despite this, we still really enjoyed seeing the stunning natural scenery and quaint cabins around the lake.

After our boat trip, we had a little walk around the area by the lake, which has some nice German style buildings - something that this part of the world is well known for.

Next it was time to get back on the bus and travel back down the road to Saltos del Petrohué (Petrohué waterfalls). This was one of the places I was most excited to see during the entire trip!

Here was where we paid to officially enter the national park, and then we walked the short distance to the falls. There are walkways and bridges that allow you to see the various waterfalls in all their splendour. It was amazing to see how fast they were flowing! Initially, we couldn't see Volcán Osorno, but we came back to the falls at the end of our visit to the park, and had a pretty good view of it. It really looks huge!

We had lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the river, and then it was time for us to take Sendero Los Enamorados (Lovers Trail). This is a nice walk of about 20 minutes through a beautiful forest, which leads you to a green lagoon, and eventually to the rushing river at the bottom of the waterfalls. We enjoyed this just as much as the waterfalls themselves, or maybe even more so, because we could even touch the water, and it really made us feel right in the middle of nature.

Overall, we had a fantastic day in Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales. Our time there passed so quickly that it was already dark by the time we got back to Puerto Varas. We did a bit of exploring there in the evening, and then had dinner and went to bed. The next day we had a very exciting tour booked - a trip to the Chiloé archipelago! I'll be writing about that very soon...