Friday, Jan 23Lily and I took a rental car to pick up her parents from the airport in Puerto Montt. Their flight was late again due to fog and they got re-routed to Bariloche in Argentina. Ironically, they will be traveling to Bariloche the following day for their fly-fishing and shooting trip in the Argentine Patagonia. They finally made it in after the trip from Hell and we were off to their hotel in Puerto Varas. We dropped of their bags and walked into town to grab a coffee and quick bite to eat. We sat outside at a local café with, of course, another breathtaking view of Osorno.
We continued to explore and Lily’s step-mother, Ruthie, was fascinated by the size and variety of vegetation sprouting up throughout town. Ruthie has her own landscape design company back in Millbrook, NY and was in heaven down here. Puerto Varas is known as the city of roses and the streets are lined with beautiful rose bushes that are now in full bloom. Also, there are hydrangeas everywhere with flowers of a deep blue and purple. I have never seen this color before and can’t do them justice with words, so take a look at the pictures. I’m assuming it has something to do with the volcanic soil here, but I could be completely wrong.
We made our way over to Lily’s office again to introduce her parents to Carolina. We were greeted by 3 of her children who greeted us in the typical Chilean way: A kiss on the cheek for girls/women and a hand shake between men. After a brief chat we were off to Frutillar about 40 km north of Puerto Varas on Llanquihue Lago.
After a 45 minute drive on highways and long dirt roads through rural hills we came to our lunch destination: Se Cocina. Set in the rustic hills of lakeside farmland this restaurant was absolutely amazing. The menu changes daily based on the meats and vegetables available from the farm. For appetizer, we shared a razor clam stew and basil polenta. The freshness in the dishes immediately jumped out at us and the intense flavors were unparalleled with anything I had experienced in Chile thus far. For main course we had Merluza (hake), rabbit with a mustard sauce, and I had roast venison with a pepper sauce. This was my first experience with venison and it was absolutely delicious. Even Ruthie and Linc, who are quite the meat connoisseurs, were taken back by the flavor. The meal ended with coffee and poached pears in a red wine sauce. I’m not sure that this meal can be beat during the remainder of my tenure in Chile, unless of course we return to Se Cocina to try a completely new menu. 
Just up the dirt road was Lavanda: Casa de Te (tea house). Everyone was stuffed from dinner, but we stopped in anyhow because of the fairytale ambiance. The house is set in a field of lavender. The aroma of blooming lavender overcame our senses the minute we opened the car doors. A small cottage sat in a field of lanvender high on a hill overlooking the deep blue waters of Llanquihue. We wandered through the fields taking in the scenery and soothing aromas of lavender. Soon enough food coma set in and we all just about keeled over in the lavender.
After a quick stay, we traveled down to the town center of Frutillar to see the beaches and music theater set directly on the lake shore. All of the beaches down here are black/gray sand due to the close proximity of the volcano. The striking contrast of the dark beaches and crystal clear water makes it seem as if people are playing beach games in large expanses of garden soil. The one drawback is the sand gets extremely hot.
Back in Puerto Varas, Lily and I showed off our new apartment to her parents before everyone was off for a much needed night of rest. However, sleep would have to wait as a knock on the door revealed Lily’s parents with a frantic look across their faces.
Everyday in this part of Chile there are “controlled wild fires”. I use the term controlled very loosely, but the purpose is to clear depleted farming grounds and reignite some life into the parched soil. On this day however, the fire got out of hand and Lily’s parents saw 15 foot high flames shooting above the hill just behind our apartment building. With obvious concern for our safety they invited us to their hotel until things settled down. We quickly packed a small bag and went off to the hotel, but to our astonishment, on the way to the hotel, we noticed that the fire departments got the fires under control. We were shocked based on the pace of life and lack of fore-sight Chileans seem to have when it comes to restaurant and airline service. It was comforting to have the fire department prove us wrong on this occasion.
After the shot of adrenaline from the fires everyone got a second wind and we had a small dinner at the same restaurant as the night before bordering the performance center in town. We were again serenaded by a local high school orchestra while we ate, putting a perfect cap on the perfect day.
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