Thompson Travelers

There are sixteen districts in Chile, numbered from north to south, 1-16, which are like our states.  We’ve traveled 600 miles south to #10, the Lake District, and what a difference!  Most noticeable is the change of weather to cold and rainy!  The bad news is it’s raining; the good news is there are lots of lakes and it’s very green.  They actually get 220 days a year of rain.  Two of of three days it rains and this is one of those days.  So we will be freezing for the next day since most of our luggage is sleeveless shirts, sandals, and shorts.

Our new city of Puerto Varas was founded in 1850 when 300,000 Germans immigrated here and set up the city.  They still have two German schools here.  That may go a long way to explaining why so many Chileans look European, as does this town, and why our tour guide’s name is Andreas, the same name as one of my good friends from Germany.

The town is made 95% of wood with tin or shingled roofs and hasn’t changed its style since the 1850s.

Their number one industry is farming salmon, producing more than 800,000 tons of salmon a year.  Number two is producing 65% of the country’s milk, and number three is tourism.

I have to say, it looks a lot like little German towns we saw when traveling through Germany.  It’s delightfully charming…we just wish the sun was out.

We will be seeing a lot more of the lakes tomorrow…starting at 6am!!

Guess what’s on the menu for dinner tonight?  What else but salmon!!