From glaciers to volcanoes

Magellan certainly knew what he was doing! Following our aborted trip to Punta Arenas we spent a day cruising the Magellan Strait, including visiting two massive glaciers, which look wonderful from the water ... or numerous decks above the water. The Chilean fjords are truly impressive - steep hills and wonderful islands, looking like partially-deflated elephants floating in incredibly deep water. The whole day was one long chorus of "Look at that ...!".
Unfortunately, eventually we had to go out into the open sea - just as a hurricane-force storm hit, with winds of 90 knots (150km an hour) and 9 metre waves! We'd spent an evening playing Parcheesi in our stateroom with friends, and had brought in a chair from the balcony - but the weather was so rough that we couldn't get the balcony door open against the wind until the next afternoon!
The captain went out of his way to find more sheltered channels, and eventually the "Roaring Forties" calmed down. It was great to find our way up the fjord to Puerto Montt, in the Chilean Lakes district, where we enjoyed a wonderful trip yesterday.
Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas were established in the 1850s by German and Swiss settlers - and they look like small slices of Switzerland - towering mountains, heavy forests (beech, not pine) and huge lakes, dotted withe fields of cows and shingled houses. We travelled past Lake Ensanada to the Emerald Lake, where we boarded a catamaran for a cruise which showed us wonderful snow-capped volcanoes, extending right to the shore. The rough weather and rain ceased, the sun came out - it was perfect! Lunch was at a German restaurant overlooking Lake Ensanada, with local monkey puzzle trees, lots of llamas ... and an EMU!!! A number of Americans were quite sure it was an ostrich (WHO has their head in the sand?!!) We visited a graveyard, full of names such as "Gonzales Ortiz Scmidt", which we thought showed how the nationalities have blended, then headed back for the ship - using three of the lifeboats as tenders, as Puerto Montt couldn't accommodate such a large ship - hopefully this will be the ONLY time we'll use the lifeboat!