Both Lonely Planet and our Cruise Director agree that the best thing to do in Puerto Montt is to get out of town and head toward Chile’s Lake District, visit the national Parks, see the volcanos and smell the roses in Porto Varas, the city of roses.

Initially Suzi and set out to prove both the CD and LP wrong. We like discovering the charming in places that are not supposed to charm. But our friends John and Pam invited us to visit Petrohue Falls with them and smell the roses at Puerto Varas.

We took a leisurely breakfast and got a 10:15 tender and set out to negotiate our trip. We spoke with a minibus tour operator who Pam bargained down to $50 each. The Holland America tour, doing essentially the same thing but starting a couple of hours earlier cost $169. We thought it was a good deal.

One reason we got the lower rate was the tour bus was mostly filled with passengers from Oosterdam, a larger Holland America ship in port the same day. The operator wanted to fill the empty seats so he cut our price. He told Both Suzi and Pam not to mention what we paid because he didn’t want to upset the Oosterdam people, who paid more. But he didn’t tell me. I was comparing prices with one of the Oosterdam guys who was not happy. He would have reason, later, to be even less happy.

It is an hour and a half from the port to the Vincente Perez Rosales National Park and Petrohue falls. By the time we got there I urgently had to use the facilities. The facilities were behind a pay wall. Nor the normal type of paywall where you pay the attendant 500 pesos (or a dollar, double the cost, if you are a gringo). The facilities are not in the visitor center but in the park itself, which requires a ticket. To get a ticket you need to queue at an automated kiosk that takes a credit card. The line was about 10 minutes. After that you walk through the visitors’ center, you stand on another line to scan your ticket’s QR code, than you sprint another 100 meters to the baños sanitarios and make it JUST in time. I tried to crash the gate pleading desperation while Suzi was in line with the credit card. I even tried pantomime when my Spanish failed. No dice. My wife may be on the ticket line but I was not getting into the baños sanitarios without their getting their 8000 pesos.

We’ve been at the falls before when they had a lot more water, but even with low water they are worth it. They run with milky blue glacial melt between Lago Totos los Santos (All Saints Lake) and Lago Llanquihue. The falls are not high but are broad, running over lava flows from an eruption of Osorno Volcano 22,000 years ago. The hot lava flowed under glaciers, cooled rapidly and fractured creating the crevasses and sluices through the water roils and tumbles.

After visiting the falls, we drove to All Saints Lake near the Argentine border, for a better view of the volcanoes. This area was settled by German immigrants and the houses have that German feel.

The lakeshore is black volcanic sand. So is the parking lot. Our van got stuck in the sand. When a 15-minute stop stretched to over an hour I looked at my watch to calculate how much time it would take to get to the ship. Independently John and I started making plans. John is closer to urban technology than I so started looking for Ubers. He found one 15 minutes away. Being an older guy who has worked in the third world, I started looking at bus and ferry schedules from Puerto Montt to our next stop at Castro in Chiloé Island. I found several departures that would work if we got back to the port after the ship left. We didn’t need either option. The van got out of the sand.

We stopped at a turnout on Lago Lianquihue for a final look at Mo Osorno and then headed into Puerto Varas, the city of Roses.

Vincente, the guide told us we would have only 15 minutes before we headed back to the port. He told us we would make Volendam on time because the drive took only 20 minutes. But already we were slowed by Friday afternoon traffic. John and I each pulled out google maps, 30 minutes at least to the port. The stop in Puerto Varas would cut it close. One accident or breakdown on the road ahead and we would miss the last tender. We spoke up. The Oosterdam people, who apparently had a later last tender, argued that we should at least spend some time in the City of Roses. John and I won. The Oostrdam people were not happy. We saw the roses from the bus window.

We made it on time and probably would have made it with the 15-minute stop, but I would have been a nervous wreck.

Volendam pulled out first, past Oostrerdam, which framed the Osorno volcano as we headed for Castro on Chiloé Island.