Puerto Varas, Chile

Here in south Chile for about 1 week. This is a beautiful town, right on the edge of the largest lake in Chile and opposite Volcan Osorno - which you can see in some of the pictures. We flew here so I could have a few meetings and give presentations on wind energy science to 4 local schools - as KidWind is developing a partnership with a local renewable energy company called Wireless Energy. If curious, check out their educational side-project here: http://www.renovalab.cl/
It is cool to be in Chile, and the landscape is stunning - but this town is very expensive! Glad we are not paying for a hotel here...
Our ¨host¨ Fransisco (works for Wireless Energy) took us on a couple adventures, including going to Petrohue waterfall and Lago Todo Los Santos. The rock you see next to the waterfall was once a lava flow from Volcan Osorno!
We fly back to La Paz tomorrow, and have a few more days there before pushing on into Peru! We fly from Lima in two weeks!

 Volcan Osorno

Petrohue falls - Volcano barely visible

View from our hotel this morning

Petrohue Waterfall - Water is normally green but it had rained

Netta & a friendly pup - Lago Todo Los Santos

Pirate Ship - we took a ride our first night here

Sunset from the Pirate Ship

La Paz

We are in this incredible city for just over 24 hours before getting on a plane to Southern Chile... Despite the rain we have been having a great time walking around crowded, hilly streets full of people celebrating dia de pachamama (Mother Earth Day). Lots of folks were drinking beer and pouring libation as of 11am today!

Checked out the museum of musical instruments... which was incredible. A great collection of Bolivian musical instruments, even some from pre-colonial times. We were able to play a few of the instruments, too!

We will be back in La Paz in about a week, after I do some work in Chile. We are looking very seriously at climbing Huani Potosi, a mountain near La Paz with a 6,088 meter (19,974 ft) summit! It is a strenuous 3 day trek.

LOTS of pictures up on Flickr. I will post some good ones of La Paz soon!