Puerto Varas, Fruttia, and Volcanoes

The last night of our stay in Villarrica, we were sitting having dinner at about 10:00 when someone else out on the terrace said, ¨Wow!¨ Everyone looked where they had been looking, and the volcano which had erupted earlier in the month was shooting big red clouds and smoke. We watched it for about an hour. Pretty fascinating to see the bright color against the only rain clouds that we had seen on our trip so far.
The next morning, as we were eating our breakfast, the couple at the next table leaned over and asked us if we´d like to ride with them to Puerto Varas. It seems they were headed down to the same town and scheduled to stay in the same hotel as we were. Our host at Hosteria de la Colina had told them we were going too, and they decided to invite us to ride in their rental car instead of going on the bus! So, we dashed down to the bus station, got a partial refund of our tickets, and proceeded down a much more scenic route than the bus would have gone. Louise and Bruce are from San Francisco, about our age, recently retired, and very nice.
We got to our hotel in Puerto Varas and the next morning went with them to see the Vulcan Osorno which is the biggest volcano in Chile. It sits among several hundred other volcanoes and sticks up above Lake Llanquihue kind of like Mt. Fuji does in Japan (without a lake). We drove almost entirely around it, stopping periodically to see a waterfall or another lake. We also took a beautiful drive across another lake down a valley that has the volcano at the end of one of its arms and ate a wonderful little lunch at a cafe. The town was very small with only one main street and the cafe was merely 4 tables off to the side of the owner´s home. But the salmon was excellent, and I asked her if it had come out of the lake, which it had. Very fresh.
On the way home, we looked down the road and looming ahead of us at the end of the road was Osorno again! It seems to have followed us wherever we went. Very difficult to describe, but we all thought it was beyond description. Breathtaking.
Yesterday we took a ferry across the arm of the bay that is next to Puerto Montt and back. It was quite beautiful with some tall snowy mountains, but not quite the level of Osorno. Then we drove back through P. Montt and back to P. Varas.
A beautiful stay here in P. Varas, some Chilean music at a concert last night, and back to the hotel to pack for leaving. We are going by ship through the Andes down a series of lakes to the Argentinian side, taking buses from lake to lake. That should be breathtaking, also. We will return to Chile on Sunday and fly out of P. Montt on Mon. We´re flying El Comet Airlines. Doesn´t that just boost your confidence???