Frutillar, Chile

Most of our trip so far has been very spontaneous, going wherever the wind blows us, but we finally made some plans in advance. We signed up with Workstay (workstay.com) and signed up to stay and work on a farm near Puerto Octay. After we finished our adventures in Pucón, we had a few days until we were scheduled to be on the farm, so we decided to look for something to do close to Puerto Octay, where we would be meeting the family that owned the farm.

After a search for affordable accommodation (one of our main motivators), we decided to visit the town of Frutillar, Chile. ‘Frutilla’ means ‘strawberry’ in Spanish. It sounded nice. 

Trying to find a way to Frutillar was a bit challenging. When trying to buy tickets, with our limited Spanish, we would ask if the buses would go to Frutillar, and the driver, or the bus attendant would say something back in Spanish that we didn’t understand. When some other workers in the bus station saw that we were having some difficulty, they tried to help us out asking where we wanted to go. When we said Frutillar, they directed us to the buses with which we were having trouble communicating. Eventually we learned that they were trying to tell us that they would drop us off at the side of the highway outside of Frutillar. Seemed weird, but we went for it.

It was a relatively short ride to Frutillar, and when we arrived, sure enough we were dropped off on the side of the highway, but by chance, there was a lady dropping a friend off at the bus at the same time. Just as we were quietly wishing she would offer a ride, she did in fact offer us a ride! I think travelling with children can be difficult sometimes, but it can also be very advantageous as people in Chile love children and seem to be very helpful (especially when the children are around). We were very grateful when the lady practically took us right to our accommodation.

The only thing that we knew about Frutillar was that it had a nice theatre. We were not prepared for the fun musical and German themes you can find around town. There were large statues of musical notes, a conductor and treble clef. 

All of the bus shelters had musical notes on the sides. There were some cottages given names of some famous composers. There was even a frame of a grand piano on the waterfront. If you looked from a certain angle, you could capture a view of the Osorno Volcano through the cover that has been raised.

The other interesting part about Frutillar was that there was a most definite German influence. The buildings were reminiscent of German architecture, including a giant Cookoo clock restaurant, and there were signs for Kuchen (cake) everywhere!  Before leaving we decided that we would have to splurge for some Kuchen!

There wasn’t a lot to do in Frutillar other than wander along the beach front and playing in the parks. There was a beautiful pier in the middle of the beachfront that Charlie was determined he would jump off of when the weather was warm, but unfortunately we never found that perfect weather as it was a bit chilly and rainy.

One of the most interesting discoveries we found in Frutillar was the Ibis birds. Oh my goodness, these are hilarious birds. They are quite large (like the size of a duck) but build huge nests in the trees. They looked a bit awkward being so big and sitting in the treetops. The Ibis were also extremely noisy. They sounded like they were laughing all of the time. It kind of made us laugh too!

David watching some Ibis on the beach in Frutillar where they are everywhere!