Puerto Varas, Northern Pategonia

The next day our home-away-from-home was docked at Puerto Montt, which is the major city in  Chile's Northern Patagonia province.

 

Mount Osorno seen over Llanquihue Lake 

The history of this area was interesting — and surprising — to learn.  In the mid-1850s,  the Chilean government wanted to develop this then remote region which had a climate suitable for farming as well as  many many acres of undeveloped land.     They made a plan to sponsor the immigration of people from Germany,  people who were interested in farming and eventual land ownership.  The plan worked and the region thrived.   In 1912 a railroad line was built to link Puerto Montt to Santiago which boosted the economy even further.  

In the morning we took a tour bus past some of those still-thriving farms and orchards to the village of Puerto Varas, located on  Lake Llanquihue.  This large and lovely lake seems to  be guarded by snow-capped volcanoes. The major one is shown in the first picture in this post.  

Although this wasn't primarily a birding trip, I 'm always happy when it happens accidentally:

 

So  as we walked along the Lake it was fun to come upon an evergreen tree with three or four of these birds hanging out in the branches.  I  think these were Black-faced Ibis (based on research after the fact).

 

It is apparently a fairly common bird in Chile, but of course our first time, not so common at all.   We had time to do a bit of exploring along the Lake as well as walking in the charming village.

 

Puerto Varas is known as Chile's "City of Roses".   While it was still rather early in the  summer  here in the Southern Hemisphere,  we  saw a lot of beautiful summer flowers.     This little village felt familiar the minute we stepped foot in it.  Probably because of the  strong Germanic influence in the architecture and, I think, in the general appearance of the carefully tended parks and private yards.   But every once in a while on our travels we have visited a place that feels, for no particular reason, as if  it could have been home in another life — almost a feeling of deja vu.     (It's never a City with a major tourist destination  — apparently even if I really believed in  past lives, I can't imagine myself having lived in a castle…)  

 

   

Everything wasn't carefully manicured — and we enjoyed those parts of the area at least as much.  

The following two days were on-board "sailing" days.  Below is the Pacific Ocean and blue sky from our deck on the next morning and that was pretty much the view for that whole day from any window on the ship.

But it gave us a chance to take part in some of the ship activities (besides sleeping well and eating delicious food, which happened every day no matter how we'd spent the rest of our time).  We kept busy and then the next day on board there was such magnificent scenery that any shore excursion paled in comparison.    That day is future post in itself.

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities.  Thank you to the hosts:

SATURDAY CRITTERS ; MOSAIC MONDAY;   NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; TUESDAY TREASURES;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD;   THANKFUL THURSDAY; and  SKYWATCH FRIDAY;