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Published: December 27th 2008
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Quaint Island Houses
Little house on Chiloe Island outside which we saw the dolphins swimming past - due to the awesome zoom capabilities of our camera the dolphin shot basically shows 2 little specs in the sea so you'll just have to believe us when we say they were there Running a bit behind with our blog entries since hitting NZ and Oz, but thought I better finish off the South American leg of the travels.
Chile was awesome! We did struggle a bit with their take on Spanish, but were relieved when we met people who could speak Spanish fluently that said "oh yeah we can't understand what the people in Chile say either"..... apparently they use a lot of slang, which as a true blue Aussie I can relate with the temptation to twist the mother tongue that was taught to you by the motherland until it is almost unrecognizable, we have done the same to English 😊
There are also a lot of statues of a guy called Don Bosco in Chile - now I thought that was the guy who played Mr C in Happy Days, can someone confirm this for me. If it is what did he do in Chile to be so famous?
Anyway back to the land and the people. The people were lovely and seemed really helpful. Even if they couldn't undersand a word we were saying and we couldn't understand them the attempts to communicate seemed to entertain both
Volcano and Lake Combo
As we said it was as beautiful as the English Lakes but with warm weather and volcanoes, some very nice additions to the mix - well done mother nature. parties!
We said in the last blog how great Patagonia was and while we were there the Presidents from both Argentia and Chile came down to visit..... it apparently was a historical moment with CNN TV crews there and red carpets laid out. Unfortunately we wandered along a bit late and just saw people packing up, the little CNN reporter doing his rap up and fancy black cars rolling over to the only fancy hotel in town for the after party - apparently the dress code did not stretch to 2 backpackers in stinky clothes walking around in their flip-flops.
So we decided to leave the Presidents and the penguins in Patagonia and head to the Lakes Districts of Chile. The area was kind of like the lake district back in England but it had really nice sunny weather and big volcanoes strategically placed by mother nature in front of the lakes to give you some awesome photo ops!
We started in Puerto Mont where we flew into. This town was classy and so much fun that a bridal party had to do a couple laps of the city center blasting their car horns to arouse enough
Enjoying a Kunstmann
A tasty German inspired brew from te Kunstmann Brewery. attention to summond a convey of about 20 street dogs and the cheers of the local footy thugs (who had just started to celebrate a home victory). After listening to dogs and footy songs all night long we decided that these charms were not disimilar to those we could find in London and that perhaps we should move on to the lovely island of Chiloe.
Chiloe had awesome ye olde houses and churches made out of wooden shingles and after a little ferry crossing and bus ride we rolled into Dalcahue where the Sunday market was on. The market had cool arts and crafts and this little jetty full of food stalls selling very tasty seafood straight from the local sea. We had a walk around the streets and then crossed over on another ferry to the nearby island (so close we probably could have swam over, but hey the ferry was free so why not be lazy) to have a wander along the black sand beaches and watch the dolpins swim by.... yes we were chilling on the sand and a pod of about 6 dolphins swam by!
After chilling in the ye olde islands and doing
Queen of the River
SArita getting ready to unleash the fury on the river and show it who is boss..... for those who don't know Sarita is boss! a few more ferry crossings (which again showed the goods on the wild life front with penguins and sea lions swimming by and another dolphin or 2) we headed up south to Frutillar. On first arriving we were dropped off in the middle of a dust bowel on the edge of a fairly scrappy town. AS we strolled off the bus Sarita loving looked into my eyes and gave me that look that I have grown fond of, the look that says 'loook crazy man are you sure this is a good idea'. Thank fully for once in it's life the Lonely PLanet Guide was right on the money and I had read that Frutillar was a town of 2 halfs and quicked chased down a few locals to point us to the lake front. As we rolled along the lake front with the gorgeous views of the lake and volcano behind Sarita was convinced that this was a good idea and congratulated me on a good find..... fortunately the congrats came before we had to find food. It appears that Frutillar was a town that was settled by Germans and likes to show of it's heritage by offering out
Our Relationship in Beer
We found this set up on the shelves of the Chilean megamart, it is Sarita (Newky Bronw Ale) and me (Coopers Ale) show crazy little German dolls and really crappy food that centres around sausages and other fairly average meat dishes (ah you win some you lose some).
Next stop was Valdiva, where the river runs to the sea and the food is not so German...double points for this find (although judgement was reserved this time until all judges had eaten and sunk a few of the local brews made at the Kunstmann Brewery - at least Germans do great beer). On the bus I also noticed that there was some guy wearing Bear Grylls trousers - how rough and ready is a guy that brings out his own clothing range?! CAn you say corporate sell out...... by that way if I was in Bears position I would be worse I would have my own aftershave (Scent of The Bear), maybe skin lotions (Bear Skin) and maybe my own honey beer (Bears Honey Beer).
From here it was off to Pucon which again pulled out the big guns in the scenery stakes, with another lovely lake and volcano combo. At Pucon there were stacks of things to do but we had kind of down our share of hikes, waterfalls, bike
7 Falls in 1
Apparently in high season when the river is running faster people kayak down these - weirdos!
We had a little paddle in the water and it was freezing but so crystal clear. rides and volcanoes, but it did offer us the chance to do rafting. I had hit the wild white water before (being the outdoors man I am!) but Sarita had not, so it was off to the rapids. We had a great group of peeps and great guides and Sarita loved it, so next time we are going for the Grade 5 rapids not the little kiddie Grade 3s.
Now last day or 2 in Chile we decided that we wouldn't stay in Santiago but stay in a little town called Curico, which was famed for a 7-stage waterfall in a lovely park and for a very nice town square. On arrival we wandered around trying to find a place to sleep when one of those fantastic travel stories happened, we met Mark. Mark and Chelsie are just starting to set up some cycle tours in Curico and they basically gave us a place to stay, cooked us dinner, gave us some great company for our last days in Chile (as well as the low down on the country) and took us up to the falls and placed us on a bus that took us straight to Santiago and
Amazing People
Here's a photo of MArk and Chelsey standing next to their little house and Connie the Combie then to the airport. It was a great way to finish the half way mark onthe holiday, thanks again guys!
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Faye Muldoon
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Tom Bosco
Please dont judge me harshly, but it was Tom Bosley who played Howard Cunningham in Happy Days. I have a stoopid amount of trivia in my brain.