, 5, losing count…..
Tours or as they call them here “Excursions” . WOW!!! What the cruise companies give up in cabin charges to lure you on board , they sure make up in tour fees. So you have arrived on board…now we have you. We know that you will probably never come this way again, that all this is new to you, that you don’t want to miss anything so take an Excursion…We gotcha!….Our trip is doubling if we take all the tours I’ve signed up for…think about $300 per day for the two of us. Now the reason we are here is that THE CABIN is only about $200 per day for both of us…….. Yes..we could just walk around town…but what if we miss those spectacular water falls…or the National Park…or the Volcano…or the quaint old German village….or the 3rd largest lake in South America….will I regret it FOREVER….of course you will!…You will always wonder about what you have not seen. Like that magnificant lake or waterfalls everyone at the dinner table will be raving about…one must always rave about your excursion, it justify’s your spending a fortune to sit in a bus for hours….
So of we go…wanted to do a Raft trip, but Eva is too young, must be over 16 and I am to old…over 60! What we can’t row!…
So signed up to see the Falls, the national park, the lake…remember IT IS the 3rd largest in South America. What that would make it about the 25th or 50th largest in the world…..it‘s all a mater of perspective…..No one would want to see the 30th largest lake in the world…but the 3rd larges in South America…now that’s something worth paying $152 USD to see…..
Maybe my spirt is not only dampened by the price but once we reached Porte Montt …Rain…Rain and more Rain…(thank God the kid is to young and I am to old…there we would be on a raft) so we took a tour…on the bus…off to the Angelemo Fish Market…kid is holding nose, I’m trying to take a picture without a tourist in it…lots of cute boats in harbor…many sitting in sand…told that’s where they park them cause the tide comes in and then they go out…..Porte Montt exists because sometime around 1830 the Chilien government having driven out the indigenous people now didn’t have any people who wanted to live here…..well, the indigenous people, the Machupas wanted to..but they were forced to live up north where they didn’t want to live…sounds like a good policy to me….So no Spanish Chilieans wanted to live here but …oh my GAWD…Argentina might have people who wanted to live here…can’t have that…so long story…lets bring some Germans here to farm…yep they came, the government gave them land, tools and live stock…so ..off we are to see the quaint old German Village…..well..not so fast…Quaint German Village has now become a tourist mecca with 4 …5 star hotels, several 4 star hotels…tall buildings and no one tells you this when you buy the tour…that most of the town had been wiped out either in a 9.5 earthquake (largest on record) or the volcano eruption which started the earthquake…Oh…Volcano whose snowcapped peak is seen in pictures hovering over the 3rd larges lake in South America is covered with clouds. Kid…”Mom…where’s t he volcano…I want to see the volcano….” ‘Imagine honey, it’s there…here see the postcard”. “I want to see the volcano”…it’s lovely how they think we have the power to move clouds and stop the rain. So no quaint village…only tall hotels…but a craftmarket…”Shopping!”..kid screams gleefully running of the bus…in pouring rain.. “Mommy buy….”
Ok..The falls were nice..mostly water cutting through black, smooth, glistening lava rock, and I guess when there is water…in the summer. This if fall must be quite spectacular. Tour guide “ Now it is Autum…we have not so much water”…how about not so much money for the tour then?……yes the falls were nice as were the 30 minutes we were given to hike there and back…in the rain…, kid loved the fact that the boulders were black and lava…they studied volcanos in school…so she picked up black rocks to take back. Actually it was very beautiful huge canyon with mountains covered in trees and vines rising straight up into the clouds and not just one water fall but a wide expanse of small water falls of dark green water against the black rocks.
Porte Montt’s chief industry and causing great growth in populationis salmon farming...Salmon not indegenous to the area was brought in for soprts fishing ...then they decided why mess with that when we can just farm the critters...are fish critters? Is there a magnetic South? questions I ponder but I digress. Lunch of over cooked dry salmon or rather its location was about the only German part of this tour remembrer no quiant village …Restaurant probably quite old looks like a Bavarian lodge with Bavarian eagles etched into glass… visions of old Nazi generals gathering here or what was that movie with Gregory Peck…and the boys? Always wondered why they fled to South America. Not really fair I know, probably was just a place for the farmers and vacationer to gather but still thoughts of mysterious meetings in the forest at the old hunting lodge. Great place for a capturing of old Nazi kind of movie . Maybe it was the rainy day that darkened the forest or the great etching…...very mysterious setting...Then back on tenders..and back to the boat to a disapointed child since the pools were closed...
The child has fit into the teen center quite nicely and spends most of her spare time there. Last night we had a curfew discussion...since most of my child training I learned from dogs, figured this was just the begining of curfews and good training here on board so resorting to good puppy training...the first jolt should be hard then there won't be need for more so...Kid was 40 minutes late and we had a serious discussion,(I do know that rolled up newspapers, and choke collars are frowned upon so left those out) discussion, followed by tears, followed by tickling and all ended well.
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