Valdivia

Hola todos,


This previous weekend, Arantxa and I went to Valdivia. This is a small town about an 11 hour bus ride south on the coast. The bus ride there was not fun. Some of you may know this, but there are little things that bug me, seemingly meaningless and not bothersome. However, Arantxa and I were sitting in the second row on the bus, and right in front of us, was a little sign that said the speed, the driver etc, in bright red lights. Well, this was very very bothersome to me. We got on the bus at 10PM and by 12 I was ready to sleep. Well, no. When I closed my eyes all I could see was red. That stupid sign. For a few hours, I looked at that darn sign, counting how many words were in each message, then how many letters where in each word, then how many letters could fit on the sign at one point. I know everything about that red sign. After a few hours of this, I got annoyed and took my sweater I was wearing and tied it around my eyes like Zorro. At least I slept for a few hours.
We arrived in Valdivia at 9AM Saturday morning, then got on a town bus to ride a little ways out of the city where we dropped off our stuff at our friend from the program's house, where we'd be staying. He, Leif, lived in a little house in a town about a half hour outside the city called Niebla. His house overlooks the ocean. And rent is US$200, how great is that?! We dropped off our stuff, got some fruit and bread for breakfast. We were going to go to a park 40 minutes away, but we missed the bus, so we took a different bus that went half way and walked around on the hills, cliffs, beach and boulders. It was soo beautiful!! One of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life. We walked around for a few hours and then went back to road to catch the bus that went to the park. The park was absolutely beautiful as well! The trail is an hour and a half loop with view points along the way. There were a lot of different plants, everything about the path was beautiful. My goal in Chile thus far was to see the sunset over the Pacific. We got very lucky because as the sun was beginning to set, we ended up at the viewpoint that overlooks the Pacific. So gorgeous! So gorgeous! My visit here is now complete. Along the way we met two guys from Canada who were doing an internship here, and we invited them to dinner at the house with us.
When we got back, the two other people in the Valdivia program (Simone and Jack) came to Leif's house and we all made dinner. It was quite a feast. The Canadians made Spanish Omelets and then Jack made pasta with oysters in wine sauce. I mostly just drank wine and chopped vegetables. It was fun. Dinner was absolutely wonderful. Arantxa and I were starving and I can say that I probably ate twice of what the others ate. I honestly just could not get full. It was wonderful. We then hung around and chatted. We fell asleep early, and it was a wonderful sleep. The only problem with his house is that he doesn't have heat and it was freezing. We could see our breath inside! Therefore, we had lots of blankets. It was comfortable.
The next morning, Sunday, we had breakfast and then went to see the university that the people in the program go to, and the botanical garden next to it. It was such a beautiful campus and the botanical garden was pretty as well. We continued on to the city which was a short walk across the bridge from the university. When we got there, we went to the market on the river, and saw sea lions! They were gigantic; much bigger than the ones in The Galapagos. We continued walking around the city looking at building etc. Valdivia is known for it's chocolate and beer due to their German influence (a lot of German's settled there), therefore, obviously we had to visit the chocolate store! Unfortunately it was closed, but thankfully, we had decided to stay another day considering it was so beautiful and we had to get chocolate! At around 5PM we were going to go to a restaurant that is pretty well known there, but it was closed as well. Instead we went to a grocery store and bought some fixings for dinner.
That night was quieter. It was just Arantxa, Leif and me. I made stir-fry for us all with rice. (I am an expert at stir-fry, they can agree to that). We then played Uno and for some odd reason, Leif had Indian Tarot cards so we created fortunes for each other. Hysterical. We then went to sleep. Another full day.
In the morning, we went to Valdivia again. Sadly it was kind of misty and wasn't great weather for walking around. We went to a cafe and had coffee. Afterwards, finally we went to the chocolate store, Entrelagos. Mmm. I wanted to buy everything. Though, it was expensive. And, everyone, hold on to the closest thing near you to brace yourself for this: I still haven't eaten any of the chocolate I bought yet!! I know. I should go see a doctor. Afterwards we met up with Simone and Jack and went out to that restaurant we were going to go to last night for dinner, before embarking on our journey back to Santiago. The food was great. I had Shawarma which is pita with strips of meat, covered in yogurt and mint, and tomatoes and cucumbers. We also each had a beer to get us ready for the trip back. The beer was good, and it was a huge cup!
At 9:30PM we got on the bus, this time I picked out the seats. I asked the ticket seller to show us a map of the bus seats and picked the seats with regard to where the bathroom would be, and that darn red sign. Thankfully, I picked well and slept most of the way back.
Valdivia was so wonderful and it was well worth the 22 hours of travel. I am so so so happy we made it down there. It is green and lush, and everything looked happy and healthy because they get an abundance of rain. We were lucky because the weekend we went the weather was perfect (warm, sunny, cloudless). A great weekend.
Below are pictures of the trip!

 View of the ocean from a cliff during the first part of Saturday morning

 View of ocean and rocks from view point of park

 View point in park

 Sunset over the Pacific with Arantxa and Leif at the view point.

 The Botanical Gardens