Puerto Montt

So when my buddy and I got to the wharf at Puerto Montt he looked at me and said, “Boy, did we ever go a long way just to get to Long Beach.” (on Vancouver Island)

He had a point. The landscape is SO like BC – except in Chile there are volcanos. Very beautiful too..especially in December when we were there.

This trip taught me a lot about the power of the sun. I left Santiago at 9pm after enjoying the mid-summer late sunset in a street cafe, and arrived into Vancouver at high noon on a brilliantly sunny day, where it felt like 10 minutes before sunrise the day before – because the contrast between summer (in Chile) and winter (in Vancouver) sun was THAT dramatic. High noon at winter had as much light as sunrise minus 10 minutes in summer. Remarkable to experience that in one day.

There is nothing to do or see there, but there are a few things to do and a few places to visit around, so it might be agood place to change buses and such..

I flew from here to Punta Arenas. It was a spectacular flight.

The chilean lake district is beautiful, and they have great food here.

Puerto Montt is nice. I came here on a ship. Fantastic handicraft market near the port. Picked up a pure white alpaca rug for $95US (6ft x4ft). Scarves (alpaca) $3-$6.
I posted stuff from the post office here Everything sent from Chile goes airmail but the price is VERY REASONABLE. Everything got home. There is a very good money wire place, down on the front street, (near the post office, but the PO is in one of the streets behind the front street) and you can change money into Chilean Pesos for a decent rate of exchange.
It is also the gateway to Puerto Varas (you may want to stay here instead, on the lake, reasonably priced restaurants and a casino), Osorno Volcano and Petrohue Falls. You can get a chairlift up the volcano from the ski centre. Cheap. Taxi from Puerto Montt to Puerto Varas was $40, but oyu can get it cheaper than that. We worked on the ship and $10 return each is good enough for us.

if you don’t know chile, it’s worth it.
if you are chilean, it’s not.