Puerto Varas at the southwestern end of the lake is the summer resort where the travellers leave the train. It is a clean little village of frame houses in the heart of a country renowned for its frutillas, or diminutive wild strawberry which grows here in abundance, and whose name should not be confounded with fresas, which is the name for the strawberry of larger size which we are acquainted with. The whole region is a German settlement, and this is especially true at Puerto Varas where scarcely anybody of any other nationality is seen excepting some of the laborers. The Bellavista is the best hotel. It is a clean, comfortable house where the proprietor is a professional landscape photographer. Transportation of passengers to San Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina is effected thrice weekly during the summer season and once a week the remainder of the year. A little steamer belonging to the South Andes Transportation Company leaves Puerto Varas at 8 A.M., and after a four hours' steam across the placid waters of Lake Llanquihue brings one at Ensenada at the base of Mount Osorno in time for luncheon. Here one now has the choice of a carriage or horseback ride to the twelve-mile-distant Lake of Todos Santos (All Saints). This short journey crosses a saddle of the divide between Lake Llanquihue and the valley of the Petrohué River, of which Lake Todos Santos and its tributaries are its source. This ride is over a road which in wet seasons is poor and full of ruts but is decidedly charming on account of the darkness of the forest which comes down to both sides of it. The Petrohué River of unsurpassing beauty winds in a gorge between the high Santo Domingo Mountain and the Calbuco Volcano, and empties itself into the fiord like Reloncaví River. Behind a mountain chain to the west of which Calbuco is the culminating pinnacle, is the large and beautiful Lake Chapo, nearly inaccessible owing to the steepness of the mountain sides which have to be climbed first in order to get a view of it.
Puella
At Petrochué which is reached at 3 P.M. there is nothing but a dock from which one embarks on another small steamer that takes one in four hours more to Puella at the eastern end of Todos Santos Lake. The lake is long and narrow with several arms running like the legs of a spider up into the pockets of the mountains which are formed as their sides dip to unite with one another. The verdure of the forests is dark and primeval, while the water itself is dark blue with barely a ripple on its surface. The appearance of the entire landscape is somber and mysterious. A small round island, named Isla de las Cabras, rises precipitously in woodland glory from the center of the lake. Ever present in the distance are snow-crowned domes, those of Osorno and Santo Domingo behind us to the west, while in front of us rises the awe-inspiring rugged peak of El Tronador (the Thunderer) white in its icy altitude of glaciers. At Puella is a primitive hotel where the traveller stops for the night. This place is at the very foot of the Thunderer, so named from the loud intonations caused by the glaciers breaking off at their edges and falling with roars into the ravines. El Tronador is 11,278 feet high; its summit is only ten miles from the deep-lying lake. Thus one can imagine its great perpendicular steepness. This continues downward for an infinite depth in the lake, whose banks are so sheer in many places that it is impossible to obtain a foothold. The bottom of Todos Santos Lake has never been found although it is believed to exceed a thousand feet in depth. The water made by mountain springs and eternal snows is so cold that swimming is impossible. About a third of a mile from the hotel at Puella is a large waterfall, while at frequent intervals throughout the sublime landscape are numerous falls and cascades.
Taking an early start from Puella, one arrives by carriage or mules in two and a half hours' time at Casa-Pangue, a small frame chalet where are stationed the Chilean custom-house officers. From here to the international boundary at the top of the divide is an ascent of about two thousand feet, the road lying through a thick forest. It takes two hours to reach the summit where there is an iron post with a sign on one side of which is the word Chile while on the other side is Argentina. The divide is covered with snow from May till September which on the hillsides reaches a great depth. Not far from the international boundary marker on the descent is a crude wooden cross, which denotes the burial place of workmen who died in a snowstorm while constructing the road.
About halfway down the descent one suddenly perceives through the thick foliage the turquoise blue of Lake Frio. This lake fed by the torrential Frio River derives its name from the frigidity of its waters whose origin is the glacier on the east slopes of El Tronador. A launch is waiting at a pier to ferry passengers across it which takes about twenty minutes. A road follows the left bank of the lake, but it is not passable for carriages; it is used now for freight only. Rounded rails lie on it parallel to each other and over them pass the concave surfaces of bullock carts. All passengers were formerly transported this way. A couple of miles beyond Lake Frio the western extremity of Lake Nahuel Huapi, Argentina's largest lake is reached at the hamlet of Puerto Blest by means of a mule-back ride.
El Tronador, Chile