Valdivia

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Valdivia. Well, the Spanish wanted to stay there, and so did we.

Unfortunately, we arrived late at night, after the bus and our bags were given the royal once over by the police at both the Argentinian and Chilean border crossings. On top of that, the bus wouldn´t start as we tried to leave the Chilean post. I swear the bus driver managed to fix the problem with what looked like a piece of number 8 wire and a small stick. Lucky too, as the border was about to shut and few cars or trucks would have been passing through until the morning.

Finally getting in about midnight, we set about looking for a place to stay. We saw a light on at one of the hostels and buzzed and knocked until finally one of the guests came downstairs in his pyjamas and let us in. The owners had gone for the night, so we made ourselves at home. The next day they didn´t seem to mind that an extra couple came down for breakfast. Lucky we persisted. The hostel was really nice and we ended up staying 5 nights.

We spent some time playing around in the old Spanish forts. An overexcited Ben treated me to a full reenactment of past wars (complete with sound effects). He seemed to miss the fact that, while the Spanish built the forts in 1645 to protect them from pirates and Mapuche Indians, they weren´t attacked at all in nearly 200 years. Those soldiers must have got pretty bored!

Valdivia remained a spanish stronghold, despite the rest of Chile attaining independance, until 1820, when Lord Cochrane (hired by the Chileans) came along with a bunch of soldiers, and waltzed in on foot. The great system of canons pointing into the harbour were pretty useless against dudes with guns running up the coast, so the Spanish upped and left without much of a fight.

(As a disclaimer, this history lesson is what I could gleam from the fascinating displays in the museum, pretty much all of which were in Spanish)

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Photos

Spanish settlers
Actually, this building was probably built by German immigrants.

Not so Spanish settlers
A colony of sea lions hangs outside the fish markets down on the river. They get pretty fat sitting there all day, catching scraps that are thrown away by the fishers.

More old stuff
One of the Torreones, used to protect the city from Mapuche Indians.

Fort at Niebla
Its full name is "Castillo de la Pura y Limpia Concepción de Manforte de Lemus", but Niebla is a bit easier.

Kayaking Rio Cruces
Valdivia has about 4,870 ha of protected wetlands. We spent a day kayaking around its river system getting lost in amongst the reeds, surprising birds and watching fish jump almost a metre out of the water!

Comments

[Simon]

Argh Argh Pirates me hearties..
Good Ben awesome to see your keeping the defenses up!