Puerto Varas - Frutillar

We went south for a long weekend with friends. It was the occasion to visit the Saltos del Petrohue, impresisve waterfalls in a big river. We also visited the area, with Puerto Varas and its huge lake and surrounding volcanoes. We had a quick visit of the island of Chileo, where we tried the famous Curanto, it is traditionaly served as sea food and meat cooked together in a hole in the ground.

Los Saltos del Petrohue

Frutillar is a nice village with German influences next to a quiet lake. The speciality of the place is the German cake, the Kuchen.

Frutillar

Pucon

Nearly 800km south of Santiago is Pucon, a little town on the bank of the Villarrica lake. The volcan of the same name dominates the city and you can even see the red light out of the crater at night! We enjoyed the great Geometric hot springs, lost in a canion covered by vegetation. We make a trekking in the Huerquehue national park, seeing lakes, centennial trees and even foxes! The city is also great with typical restaurants and asados with tender meat!

The Geometrical hot springs are some of the nicest we have seen.

The Huerquehue park have beautiful sceneries.

Chillan

Chillan is a small city, 5 hours driving south of Santiago. We went there with friends for the fiestas patrias, a long bank holiday in September. We could enjoy the local hot springs and the quiet mountain landscape.

The warm water of the hot spring felt really good after the cold weather!

We enjoyed a typical "cabaña" in the country side, with the usual asado (barbeque).

Walking with friends in the countryside.

Cañon del Colca

The Colca Canyon is 4 hours from Arequipa and is the deepest canyon in the world with 4160 meters. It is famous for its many condors who like to play with tourists and fly around us. These birds are huge with a width of nearly 3 meters.

Two condors flying above us.

The entrance of the canyon.

Arequipa

Arequipa is the second city of Peru, as Cusco it is a strong Spanish background and a lot of colonial buildings.

The catherdal of Arequipa.

The Plaza de Armas of Arequipa.

Machu Picchu

After an early wake up we finally reached the Machu Picchu via train and buses. The place is like a city in the clouds and when the mist goes away we could see how high we where in the jungle.

View from above the Machu Picchu.

The Incas created levels of fields in the jungle to feed habitants of the city.

Machu Picchu with the face of the Inca in the background.
The green mountain was seen as a god looking towards the skies.

Cusco

Cusco is and old Inca city with a lot of Spanish colonial buildings. It really looks like Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.

The Plaza de Armas, main square of Cusco.

The main street of Cusco with the hills in the background.

The market is full of local products, the fruits are delicious, we didn't know half of them.

The Cholas are the women dressed in traditional clothes, they are everywhere in Bolivia and Peru.

The cathedral of Cusco.

The Ceviche is a famous Peruvian dish, made of marinated fish with spices and lemon, delicious!