Volcan Osorno

Sunday 28 August 2016 

The next day we headed off for our last day of skiing, back over the border into Chile to Osorno, a 2,600 metre Volcano which overlooks the beautiful Lago Todos los Santos and Lago Llanquihue (on the shore of which was our apartment). The drive from Villa La Angostura took us over the Cardenal Antonio Samoré Pass which was right in the path of the 2011 Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption. We saw the aftermath in 2012 but four years later the ash was still piled up on the side of the road. The pass takes you high up into the mountain, luckily the road was clear of snow. We saw a fox. He was really tame for a wild animal - he just sat there while we took his photo. 

Once we got over the border it was really beautiful, but we hardly remembered it from the first trip in 2012 because then our attention was completely dominated by the massive Vulcan Osorno, which was shown to its magnificent advantage against a beautiful blue sky. This is what it looked like last time we were in Chile: 

This time, the volcano was shrouded in clouds so our attention was diverted to the beautiful country side instead. Given the weather on the volcano it was clear that there wouldn’t be any skiing for us today. We decided to do some touring and visit the local waterfall, Saltos del Petrohue. While not as grand as Iguazu, it was still pretty nice, with beautiful blue-green water. In the photo below you can just make out the shape of the Volcano Orsono, but as you can see, this time it was covered in cloud.
 We travelled down to the southern coast, which is about as far south as you can drive in Chile (before you have to get a ferry to southern Patagonia).  

Just 27 kilometres from Osorno is the Volcan Calbuco which erupted in April 2015. Some fields are still covered in ash.