PUERTO BLEST

EXCURSION TO PUERTO BLEST, LOS CANTAROS CASCADE AND LAKE FRIAS
The expedition starts at Puerto Pañuelo, on the Llao Llao Peninsula and you sail all along the narrow and long Blest channel. As from your departure and during the whole tour you will be able to admire an impressive landscape, including thick cypress and coihue woods covering the hillsides, royal mountains that surround Nahuel Huapi Lake and clear waters from thousand year-old glaciers, duplicating the beauty of the enclosing landscape in their reflection.

The entrance of Blest channel is "safeguarded" by the Capilla and Millaqueo hills and Centinela Island, the place where the mortal remains of Francisco Pascasio Moreno, the creator of National Parks, are buried. After sailing down the channel for a few minutes you can watch the Mellizas Islands (Twin Islands). Very close to this place the maximum depth of the Lake has been measured: 464 ms (as known at present). Before arriving to Puerto Blest you go through Las Arañas Beach and Blanca Waterfalls.

After sailing for an hour's time, you get to Puerto Cántaros, located on Blest Bay. It is an area of Valdivian Rainforest, one of the rainiest places in the country (3,000 mm annually) which produces lush evergreen vegetation, with huge trees, such as coihues and larches, mixing with a shorter bush vegetation that features creepers and lianas. Everything is permanently humid, so this is an appropriate place for the growth of herbs, moss and fungus.

On foot, along an incredibly green path, you get to Los Cántaros Lagoon and its waterfall, from which the opposite side of Puerto Blest, the starting point to get to the international Pérez Rosales trail, is at sight.

Once in Puerto Blest, you can pay a visit to the hostel, with its warm style, and a useful interpretation center of the region, some ms away from it. At this place it is possible to hear the hushed roar of Frías River, that flows into the Lake while it dyes it in emerald green colour.

If you enjoy walking, you can take an easy access road, only 3 kms long, that goes to Puerto Alegre. It takes an hour and a half to visit the place and come back. It is a worthwhile experience.

From Puerto Alegre you can board "El Caleuche" catamaran and sail down Frías Lake to the port of the same name. Frías Lake has an unbelievably green colour.

The international road to Chile, the neighbouring country, begins here. Taking the Pérez Rosales track you can go across the border and arrive at the location of Peulla. From here, you will be able to take a tour around the Chilean Lake region.

Deep woods of lignum vitae and giant larches, some of them thaught to be over 1500 years old, are admired by the tourist throughout the tour. Creepers, ferns and moss are part of the flora of the Valdivian Rainforest. This is an unparalleled sight.

Then you must go to the Customs, to take the bus to Peulla. Here you board the catamaran to sail through Todos los Santos Lake to Puerto Petrohué; and from that site, you can go abord the bus to Puerto Varas or Puerto Montt.