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Our flight down to South America was uneventful. It is a long way to go, which is tiring, but everything went smoothly. The flight from Houston to Santiago was on a Boeing 787, this was my first ride on a Dreamliner. It didn't seem to be that much different of an airplane. From Santiago we flew on an airline called Sky Airways to Puerto Montt. At the Puerto Montt airport, we had a car reserved with Alamo, but they did not have our car (nor any car) available. At first they told us the car would be returned within an hour, but soon the story changed that the car wouldn't be back until after 5 PM. Alamo suggested that we try renting from a different company, but a quick query of Hertz, Budget and Europcar revealed that there were no rental cars available any where in the Puerto Montt airport. We took a taxi to our hotel in Puerto Varas, and told the Alamo guy to deliver the car to us when it finally became available. Around 6 PM, we called Alamo again, but still no car, and it's delivery seemed unlikely. We were quite fortunate that the staff at Hotel Solace called a local car company and found a rental car for us. It turned out to be cheaper than the Alamo rate, so the situation worked out okay. Hotel Solace is located near the center of Puerto Varas, so it was easy for us to walk down to the center town for dinner. We got a view of the Osorno volcano across Lake Llanquihue. Little did we know that this evening would be the last we saw of the snowy peak of Osorno for a few days - the clouds and rain moved in over night and the peak was obscured. After a disappointing dinner of hamburgers at a place called Puerto Cafe, we returned to Hotel Solace and went to bed early after our long day of travel to Patagonia. This map shows Puerto Varas and the places that we visited in Parque Nacional Vicente Pérez Rosales: the Osorno volcano, Los Cascades and the Saltos del Petrohue
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph First Day in Chile Photos
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