A day of wandering
One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to wander through a city and see all the little side-roads. I arrived here in Puerto Varas at 3 pm, which was just the right time to check-in to a hotel (I figured since I was traveling alone I could splurge a little!) and then walk for a few hours before dusk. The town isn't huge, but there are a lot of attractive buildings. Because of all the German settlements in Southern Chile in the 1850's all the architecture here has a lot of German influence, which is rather odd to find in South America.
My favorite part of my walk was when I found a little neighborhood that looked a lot like Wheaton! The houses looked very American and they had yards, which is a huge luxury here. It was really nice to see a place that looked like home. My second favorite part of the walk was discovering a big tent in the center of the town that said "Ocktoberfest Oct. 26, 27, 28". Inside there were stands selling bratwurst and kuchen and German beer. I think that every person of German descent in the area was there because it was completely full of blonds!
