47 buses later...

Back on the mainland, we stopped by our hostel in Puerto Montt to drop off our backpacks. When Abby called the woman who runs the hostel to tell her we were on our way (around 10am), she sounded so groggy that sweet Abby asked her if she was sick. Upon our arrival an hour later, it took her a while to answer the door because she was still asleep. She informed us that there were muchas fiestas the night before... yep, she wasn't doing too hot. Lucky for her, we didn't require too much attention, because we were off to nearby Puerto Varas for the day.

Puerto Varas is a little German town, situated on the shores of the enormous Lago Llanguihue (seriously, so giant. For a while there, I was convinced it was actually the Pacific.). Despite the cold, misty weather (The Lake District of Chile is known for its rain-- we were really lucky with weather for the majority of the week), we enjoyed a walk along the shore. Or maybe we missed our bus stop so we had no choice but to walk a few miles back into town.

Once we actually made it into Puerto Varas, we walked around to check out the German architecture and of course, another wooden church.

We were walking down the street, brainstorming our next move, and we stumbled upon a warehouse full of bicentenario celebration! People had set up tables to sell all kinds of typical Chilean delicacies (alfajores, empanadas, mote con huesillo...) as well as some jewelry and other artsy things.

When we passed by later in the night, we saw some cueca being danced on this oh-so-patriotic stage.

 After this, we went to catch a bus out to see some very exciting waterfalls about twenty minutes outside of town. Sounds simple right? Well, nope. It wasn't. First of all, the bus took about a million years to come. Then, the waterfalls ended up being an hour away. And to finish off this ill-fated expedition, the entrance to the falls was all closed up for the night by the time we got there. The best laid plans, right?

We made it back into Puerto Varas and grabbed dinner before one of our travel buddies had to catch a bus back to Santiago. Vegetable empanadas? Yes, please.

We caught a bus back to Puerto Montt to spend our last night in the hostel there. When we got back, we bonded a little with the precious hostel woman and her friend (They even invited us to go out with them, but most of us just really wanted to shower and go to bed.). In the morning, we ate a delicious breakfast, prepared by that same precious hostel woman, and we hit the road. A quick 15 hour bus ride later (they showed at least 7 movies, there was an old man throwing up... epic), we rolled into our beloved Santiago around midnight, so happy to be back in the land of the tarjeta BIP!.