We have now done the Lake Crossing from Bariloche in Argentina to Puerto Varas in Chile through the Andean Mountains and Lakes.

We flew down to San carlos de Baraloche which is like a Swiss alpine resort with wooden chalets. It is located in the Andes mountain range. In our free day we take a bus up to Cathedral a ski village in season, from here we take the ski lift to the top of the mountain. We sat in beautiful sunshine with a coffee and apple pie (homemade) in my case and shortbread with toffee for Thea. The scenery was stunning and the sun was hot as we relaxed and looked at the snow capped Andes.

Next day we were off to cross the Andes we are taken to a docking area on the lake and catch a catarmaran. We were unsure about luggage so kept some bags with us the others were taken direct to overnight hotel. This meant we had to keep and eye on the bags. the lake was calm and the scenery was continuously stunning as was the weather.

We land at Puerto Blest and have a 3hr wait before continuing, time to have lunch which was rainbow trout filletted for us. We have a walk round and see a woodpecker at work in a tree then the 4WD bus arrives to take us to the next lake. our group is down to 10 and the next catamaran is smaller. We disembark at Peulla our overnight stop. We passed through customs as we are now in Chile there are no issues but we have a long wait for the bus to the village. Again its a 4WD on a single dirt track, the drivers have radios to arrange passing points with other buses. We are dropped at the edge of town at another customs post to identify our bags. here we find that we are the only ones staying at the Hotel Natura in fact we seem to be the only guests. The hotel is new with panoramic windows to view the Andes, everything is made from local wood. The bar in the restaurant is a tree branch mounted on 2 tree trunks with the top cut flat the wood oozes resin naturally. The glass roof of the restaurant has water from the glacier behind the hotel continuously running over it to naturally cool the restaurant.

The meal is superb and the guide has a list of things to do the next day day, but the riding we wanted to do was at 09.00 and we had already arranged breakfast for then. He gets it changed to 12.30, check out is at 11.00 and the bus to the next lake leaves at 16.00, the hotel will keep our bags. The riding is great but its horse fly season and they are a nuisance to the horses which makes them a bit jumpy, I enjoy it more than Thea.

The bus takes us to the lake and we cross to Petrohue going round 2 volcano's. Here we got on the final bus to take us to Puerto Varas where we arrive at the hotel at 21.00.