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Just spent two and a half days at lake Llanquihue and near the town of Porto Vardis. This is Chile's lake-district and not a million miles away from the lake district back home. The surrounding area is very green and lush and made up of small towns and farms too also of course it rains a lot. The lake itself however is huge, bigger than anything in Cumberland, more probably the size of lake Geneva and there are a few active volcanos on the horizon (not a feature of Cumberland as I recall) We have a marvelous view of both from our bedroom window.
We visit the town and hire bikes for the morning. That was a lot of fun and allowed us to see the area in some detail. The streets in the town run very close to one another and the shops, cafes and houses exist pretty much cheek by jowl. Quite cosy I suppose you might say. The design is German. Like the rest of Chile this area has a dominant Spanish influence but then, uniquely, a German one also. The Spanish encouraged the German people to come here in 1850 though I'm not sure why........yet. However come they did bringing with them a few tools and their farming skills and settled down amongst the Spanish . ( the indigenous indians tend to live down by the port out of site of the volcanoes which they were frightened of ). There are many German surnames among the population and we see a definite taste for German pastries. Spent the whole morning cycling through the town and countryside around and burned off some calories! In the afternoon we visited the north side of the lake and saw their new theatre/ concert hall which was financed by a local German couple; musicians who wanted to encourage culture in the area. Very striking contemporary building. And that's about it here really. A good place to rest up for a while.
Not that this was all as friendly as it sounds as the Indian population were not very welcoming to begin with. The Indians actually lived down at the port and away from the volcanos which they were frightened of.
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