An overnight bus from Santiago can transport you to places far away. When I awoke at 7am the dusty plains were long gone. We looked to be in upstate New York or New England. Nothing but rolling farmland, pastures, apple groves. Then I looked more closely at the houses, they sparked something familiar. It suddenly felt like we were in Germany or Austria.
We're in the "lakes region" of Patagonian Chile. In the 1840's, the Chilean government, newly free of Spain, reached out to German citizens to move to Chile to farm free land. It was an offer that was too good to be true - more than 50,000 Germans moved here, began farming and helped fight the Mapuche, the indigenous people in southern Chile. They've left their mark in many ways.
This is the first time I've seen the word "kuchen" used for cake in a Spanish-speaking country. The word describes all the cakes here and many are ones you'd find in Germany.
The beer is particularly good, better than the ones I've had so far on the trip.
But more than these obvious things, there is something else. It's hard to describe, and very well could be a projection of mine, but everything here feels more orderly, more planned out, less chaotic than the rest of South America. There are no cinder block buildings with rebar sticking out. There are no potholed roads. The buildings look sturdy and are built for purpose, each with a shiny metallic roof so that snow slides off in winter.
We're in a small cabin thirty minutes south of Villarrica, Chile. The cabin is owned by a young German couple who run a husky farm.
We've got a wood burner which works great but every morning we go back and forth about who has to get up and start it.
Luckily there are windows in the roof that let in sunlight. Throughout the day, the cabin becomes very warm.
They have 53 huskies on the property. We hear them every morning - it curdles the blood - 53 wolves letting you know they're here. In the winter they offer dog mushing and husky training but we picked the wrong time - the husband is in Poland competing in the dog sledding world championships. 
There are quite a few characters here. Alpaca are a funny-looking creature. They have this heavy brow of fur that sits on top of their eyes. They love to stare.
One hungry sheep - he spends every waking hour eating the grass near our cabin.
The three Alpaca and the sheep are always together.
They completely ignore the fox. Matter of fact, everyone seems to ignore the fox.
The three cats come down to the cabin in the afternoon, once the sun has warmed everything up. They're especially friendly.
It's not unusual to wake up, walk past the window and see the Alpaca staring at you.
The dog is skittish. She'll come over once in a while, but usually stays by the main house.
We've done some outdoor cooking and it came out well.
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