The German influence in the whole of Puerto Varas was unmistakable: almost every restaurant and café advertised Kuchen alemán (German cake), a „Deutschen Verein“ (German association) feigned a sense of home with Hax’n and Sauerbraten, and at the time of our visit half the country was attending Oktoberfest taking place in town, in Lederhosen.

This attachment of emigrants to their German roots is quite amusing, take Swakopmund in Namibia or Hahnsdorf in Australia for example, and, I assume, common to emigrants of all nations who seek security and comfort in familiar customs, traditions, and food (strangely enough the one thing my whole family missed most in New Zealand were German bratwurst and bread rolls; family and friends too, of course).

In Puerto Varas however, this attachment to Germany had a slightly negative connotation. It’s a well-known fact that many Nazis absconded to South America on escape routes, fittingly called ratlines, and indulged in their twisted ideology for yet some time. When Walther Rauff, an SS commander in Nazi Germany and one of the most wanted Nazi fugitives, died in Chile in 1984 some misguided bastards in fact still remembered the Hitler salute and chanted „Sieg Heil“.

These thoughts crossed our mind yet have nothing to do with bratwurst heritage in Puerto Varas (Rauff was manager for a king crab cannery not German style butchery) or marching bands and lederhosen that, though a dreadful sight, aren’t dangerous as such.

Our accommodation, a guesthouse run by a dourly German lady was unbearably and hilariously old-fashioned German – some Weimar ornamental plates hanging on the wall were as old as a plush couch and uncomfortably sagging beds. I assumed she had not been back to Germany since her emigration to realise that almost all German living rooms nowadays emulate one of five photos in the IKEA catalogue.