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It's always with selfish pleasure to wake up to rain on a travel day. That was the case this morning as we packed up to fly to Puerto Montt, two hours further north.
Upon landing, it's sunny with volcanic peaks to the east - cone-shaped Osorno and flat-topped Calbuco. It is pretty hard to escape mountains and volcanoes here; there are 136 volcanoes in Chile, 40 of which are active. It makes for stunning scenery.
We drive a bit out of town to a "natural monument", a southern beech forest (Nothofagus), as we enter what is known as the Lake District. So nice to see trees! Tall cedars, pines, leathery leaved ferns, moss, and Chilean firebush (Embothrium), a tree with red flowers resembling honeysuckle. At first glance it looks like autumn colors in New England, but it's spring. We see a few good looking but elusive birds. We are teased/harassed by the loud call of a Chucao Tapaculo that won't respond to Willy's calls, but silently skirts around us or nearly underfoot.
Our lovely hotel is a short distance into Puerto Varas, overlooking large Lago (lake) Llanquihue with a view of the volcanic peaks. Most houses in Puerto Varas, a tourist town, have shingles made from a native tree in a unique scalloped pattern.
Birds of the day: the large black Magellanic Woodpecker female with a curl on its crest and a large red patch behind the bill. Also the small Tufted Tit-Tyrant, who also has a thin wispy black crest that curls forward, and a yellow eye; a bird with an attitude.
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