Valdivia, home of fat sealions...

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All neoprened-out from our active few days in Puerto Varas, it up to Valdivia a few hours north in the Province of Los Ríos (newly-created four years ago and numbered XIV, thereby completely messing up the lovely neat provincial numbering system). We stay for only one night in a lovely old house run by a charming English, French, Swedish and (of course) Spanish-speaking lady who looks after us very well (even cooking us a slap-up breakfast, an indescribable rarity in Chile, where desayuno incluido usually means instant coffee and a bread roll).

Valvidia is a pleasant riverside city with a bustling and vibrant fish market right on the banks of the Río Calle-Calle. Visitors flock to the market not to buy fish and shellfish - of which there is a mind-boggling variety...there are at least four varieties of mussel on sale, which all look startingly similar - but to see some of Valdivia's most unusual inhabitants. A group of several huge sealions permanently stationed outside the market (bear in mind that Valdivia is at least 10 miles inland), feeding on the fish heads, tails and guts the stall-holders toss over the railings to them almost constantly. The sealions are, as you would expect, hideously fat but, I suspect, hideously self-satisified and contended creatures.

There isn't an awful lot to do except enjoy the market, riverfront and architecture (despite being heavily affected by the colossal 1960 earthquake which bears the city's name, there are many pretty, if dilapidated old houses), so we take advantage of some spare hours to plan our next - very delicate - move.

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Photos

Valdivia fish market
Lucky buggers!

Choros, choritos, choros, maltones...
All mussels to me...

Strange goods at the market
Chupones, tasty but seed-laden nibbly things from the quiscal plant, a type of bromeliad. Strange but tasty!