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Published: February 17th 2008
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Pucon
Volcanic vista First stop to Valdivia, experiencing the longest No Man's land ever,of forest and National Park, one of the few we wouldn't mind being stranded in should we ever not be allowed trough the next border. Chile immediately is so different to Argentina, with countryside similar to England, green fields and hedges! Valdivia, is supposedly Chile's most pretty city and well, if that's our bar mark so far, then Chile doesn't have much hope. We found a grand purple mansion, all sharing a room-like an attic, we creaky doors, floorboards and so dark.
We arrived just in time for Beerfest!!! Lucky us! I joke, not so good, it was very German influenced with German's flown in especially I think for the occasion, well they were ginger and very pasty, so I'm guessing not Chilean! It was more a carnival of tissue paper carts with people dressed up in lederhosens giving away free shots of beer foam. Matt was dissappointed. So off in search for real beer, via the docks, where there was a mass feeding frenzy of sealions!!! I couldn't believe they were somewhere so urban, sharing fishbits with cormorants and seagulls. I was mighty impressed. The only other highlight of the
Pucon beach
Honestly, it's under the umbrellas somewhere day and indeed Valdivia, was that Matt got free internet connection on his laptop in our room and so we were introduced to a brilliant series of The Flight of the Conchords..my new all time favourite comedy.
So we left the very next morning to Pucon, not so far only 4 hours, so we arrived midday. This was by far nicer than Valdivia. With very simple wooden architecture, the town consisted of neat little roads, set at the bottom of an awesome snowy volcano. One that looks like a typical conical cartoon drawing. There's even a warning in case it errupts, for where to evacuate to. Luckily the danger colour was green, so no fear of an eruption at the moment. We found a very small little room, with 3 beds and just enough floor to walk single file to the window-all of 2 steps. Not so bad usuallly but Matt's about 6 and a half foot, so either he slept with his head out the window or diagonally with his feet out the bed..poor guy. We explored the little market stalls, in search of Matt's current obsession for bags!
We moseyed our way to the black sand beach, on
Good Times...
Matt and me enjoying the scenery the shore of the clear and calm lake. Bizarrely in such a tranquil setting, there was a background of trance dance drum and bass thumping out of a couple of beach bars. The sand was more like gravel and so hot! We spent the next day there and as Chile has so far proved, there was little else to do, unless paying extortionate amounts of money to do various activities that are free elsewhere, so we organised to leave the next day. Matt, was in for a treat, as while we were there, a little stage was set up for the promotion of Salz crackers with the most beautiful scantily bikini clad babes that gave away freebies and danced and pranced about with various young teenage boy volunteers. Matt got some good photos of them and arranged with their boss to use them as promotional material. We were known as Matt's assistants and so got a free pair of Salz flip flops and t-shirt between us! Bonus eh? I'm sure we could do just as good a job wearing that gear as the official promo girls...or maybe not!
So we were back on an evening bus and on our way
to Valparaiso. We were actually met at the bus station by a lady offering beds. This place was so different, really cold and misty, why would we leave the sunshine of Pucon for this? We found the only row of tacky souvenirs for bags and hats, ...Matt's got a serious problem and so we decided, as this was supposedly a beachy resort, that if the weather was pants the next day, we'd so straight to Santiago. I know, we're bunny hopping our way through Chile so fast, but when there's not much to see and do, it's best to head on! So far the only highlight of Chile has been having free internet to watch Flight of the Conchords..we are now serious addicts and with little time before Matt leaves to go back home to Oz, we were on a mission to squeeze in the rest of the series!!!
So, into Santiago and fell into a rather old fashioned hotel-creaky floorboards and carpeted stairways. A current trend here methinks. Our room, was by far the best so far, with a little balcony! There's some really nice classic old buildings around the city and so nicely painted and kept. So different
Handsome Matt
Yeah, that's our boy! to parts of London or Aylesbury and towns at home.
The next morning we were woken by a rap at the door for breakfast-how nice is this? We took the metro to Provedencia, , supposedy a posh area of Santiago. Such a gorgeous day, but pity the city is rather a dissappointment. We followed a very dried up trickle of a pooey coloured river through a park of random artistic sculptures- more like a place for people just to display public affection. We were on a hunt for a artesanal market for, well guess, maybe bags for Matt to buy?! The only thing he did get was a replacement earplug for his hole in his ear to replace the funky battery that he had been sporting and had got many amused expressions from locals. Sarah and I had got new sunnies, but unfortunately the bling motif that made mine came off and so I superglued it successfully back into place, only to satisfy Matt wanting to see them on and so got superglue all in my hair. Nice one!
Wandering about we actually found it to become a nicer area, busier and quite European in feel. On our way back
Mad Matt
We really had little to do in Chile.... to our domain, I was too slow behind Sarah and Matt to make the metro, but Matt tried to keep the doors open like you can in London, but these were pretty firm and so crushed his fingers!!! So awful as the boy has been throgh enough with his cuts and bruises, so I just saw them fade away into the tunnel. I met them at the next stop, so no epic lonely journey luckily, as I would get lost.
All of a sudden it's been a year since Sarah and I first hopped on a plane to Asia.....we celebrated by watching Flight of The Conchords of course!!
Having woken up early, we waited ages for breakfast...too good to be true, as I went to enquire about it and found we'd missed the time for designated breakfast...weird as I guess we must have got someone elses yesterday by mistake. Oh well, more important things to do a it was our last day with Matt, we were off in the evening to Peru, and Matt would hopefully have a flight in a couple of days back to Australia via New Zealand, but we'd spent much of the past few days trying
Queenie
Sarah playing the regal role to confirm this as it seems that his place on two of the connections had been lost and so he is officially either stuck in Chile, or LA until an available flight comes along! Poor guy. Luckily, he'd secured another hostel for a few days while he waited for any flight cancellations and got free bed and board if he shot some good promo photos for the hostel. So the afternoon before we left we, we became assistants again.
After a monster game of ping pong, Sarah and I reluctantly left Matt to fend our way to the bus station and wait for the next episode into Peru.....
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james st. james
non-member comment
beer fest in valdivia
they don't fly in germans for a beer fest, and certainly not to valdivia. those were chileans you saw, of german (or partial german) descent. valdivia, osorno, puerto mont, frutillar, and other towns in the lake district were settled by germans in the mid to late 19th century. their presence is generally exagerated in most guidebooks, but they did play an important role, disproportionate to their numbers, in developing the southern part of chile. sorry you didn't like valparaiso. it is by far the most intresting city in chile, but it's charm is in its hills, not the flat lower part of the city (and certainly not around the bus station, which is one of the dumpiest parts of town). good luck in the rest of your travels. cheers!