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Published: February 20th 2009
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Valdivia fish market
Some weird sea creatures were knocking about in there. We got a bus a few hours Southwest to Valdivia, a city on a river not too far from the coast. We stayed a couple of nights in a hospedaje which is usually someone´s house a bit like a B and B at home and usually the cheapest option to sleep other than camping. The owner was very friendly, like almost all the Chileans we´ve met so far. The town itself didn´t have that much to offer but it felt like a proper Chilean town, unlike Pucon, which had stunning surroundings but had little character and even less selection of food options. In Pucon, the choices were hamburguesas, chips or completos (the hot dog things that are swamped in mayo and avacado sauce) and other fast food. It was very, very touristy and basically exists as a base to do tours from. Nothing wrong with that, but it was good to get to a proper town.
We spent a couple of days wandering round Valdivia and eating good food. In the middle of town there is a brilliant fish market by the river and there are sealions hanging around in the river and climbing onto the bankings to feed on
the leftovers thrown away by the fishmongers. The weather was still burning hot and it felt as if it would never get cooler, no matter how far south we get. As usual, we were wrong.
We got a bus another 3 hours south to a town called Puerto Varas, on a lake from where you can see Volcan Osorno, a picture perfect conical volcano. Well, you can see it if it isn´t overcast and cloudy like it was when we got there. We had read about this town and also heard from a woman in Valparaiso that it was very beautiful and a really nice place to spend a few days and relax. The plan was to spend a few days there, regroup a little bit and maybe go on a couple of activity tours.
After less than 2 hours there, the plan had changed to getting a bus the next day and going to the next city down the road. It was a nice enough town but it was just like being back in Pucon! We got glimpses of the mountains and volcanoes in the distance when the cloud rose but the town itself had no character
We say they´re sealions
but we haven´t actually got a clue and felt a bit bland. We ended up paying about 10 quid for a pizza and beer, got an early night, and got on the first bus we saw for Puerto Montt.
Puerto Montt was summed up in the guide book as a rough port town with little interest to tourists other than as the place to get ferries down to the islands and fjords that make up the southern quarter of Chile. We liked it straight away and spent the night there. There were fish markets, craft markets and loads of good little local places to eat. We spent the day buying our camping stove, gas lamp, cooking equipment and other stuff we needed for later on in the trip. The expensive restaurants were full of couples and the prices had been hiked up due to it being Valentines Day. We passed a couple of hours in a bar instead and ate at some cheap place at about midnight. We wandered whether they were still serving food at that time as there were only about 4 others in the place. By the time we left, the place was pumping. The opening hours have confused us quite a few
times and it´s impossible to tell when a place is going to close or has just opened no matter what time it is. We had a good night and were glad we hadn´t stayed in Puerto Varas.
The next day we took a bus and short ferry ride over to the island of Chiloe. It´s the second largest island in South America and is famed for its many mythical creatures and old legends. We got there on a Sunday, to a small town called Ancud and the place was absolutely dead. The rain that came down when we got there was certainly legendary. It was torrential for about an hour and we had to take refuge in a little cafe which soon began to flood. We ended up using our camping stove in the hospedaje to cook our tea that night as nowhere was open. The bloke at the hostal was a bit of a grumpy sod so we decided we´d spend the next night camping. The town had opened up again on the Monday and it turned out to be a really nice little town. We found a campsite that overlooked the Pacific Ocean, cooked some fresh salmon
and sat watching the birds and the sea. It was good to have fresh, cool air after the 2 weeks of ridiculous heat. That´s not what we thought the next morning after only getting about 5 hours kip because of the wind rattling the tent around all night. We went to a penguin colony about an hour from Ancud as neither of us had ever seen a penguin in the wild before. When we got to the coast, the wind and rain was horrendous. We got kitted out with thick, waterproof gear and life jackets and, feeling like Captain Birdseye, waited on the beach for the wind to drop so we could get on the boat to see the penguins. The boat took us out to a couple of rocky islands where penguins were stood just being penguins and looking bored of the rain. The wind and rain were so strong it was difficult to take photos and the boat bobbed around the islands for half an hour in the terrible conditions. It was a great experience being on the ocean like that and we went back to the tents happy after searching around the shops for tins of spinach.
Tuesday we went to the island´s capital, Castro. From there we took a tour to the Nacional Parque de Chiloe. The tour stopped at 3 wooden churches (another thing that Chiloe is famed for). We´ve no idea why they kept stopping at these churches but basically, they are built entirely out of wood, including the nails joining the wooden beams. This was quite interesting at the first church but it needed another 2 churches just to make sure we understood the concept. The National Park was good and we ended up on a huge stretch of wild Pacific coastline. When we got back, we went for a few beers with a Frenhman we met on the tour and had a really good night.
Today, we´ve made our way to the bottom of the island and a town called Quellon to catch the ferry over to the mainland in order to start the next part of the trip down the Carretera Austral, a 1000 km stretch of road that is supposed to be difficult to get down on public transport. We´ve allowed ourselves about 4 weeks to get down it but about an hour ago, we got an e-mail from the
Penguins
The only picture we managed to take because of the weather. ferry company saying that the ferry has been suspended due to volcanic activity in Chaiten, the destination on the mainland where a volcano erupted last year. So we´ve had to change our plans quite a bit. We´re going the 2 hours back to Castro tomorrow at 06:40 to get our ferry refund back, then getting the bus 5 hours back up to Puerto Montt and maybe staying the night there before setting off down the Carretera Austral by bus. We´re not sure if the volcanic activity will affect the buses but if it does, we´ll have to make our way over to Argentina and find a route south over there.
All in all, it´s been quite a quiet week as we expected it would be on this island. We´ve absolutely no idea where we´ll be in a couple of days time but it will involve a lot of buses, so we´re having a very early night to prepare for it! We´ll let you know when we get there.
Hope everyone is well.
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