Rather than just eating our way around Valdivia we spent our last full day here doing cultural things.

We caught the local bus out to Niebla and went for a walk around the fort. I’m not really interested by this sort of thing but I do love taking photos. The museum was actually really nice and looked very modern with the information printed onto wood and glass. It was all in Spanish but that didn’t bother me. What DID bother me was the abundance of scary mannequins! 

Boat fail

After getting supplies for tomorrow’s bus trip we net down to the dock to try and the 4pm boat trip up the river. But they weren’t running today. To the Kunstmann Brewery!!!

The Kunstmann Brewery

We took the 20 bus for $500 out to the Kunstmann Brewery and sat down in their restaurant area. Kat ordered the tasting selection and I got the honey beer which was really sweet according to Kat’s previous experience in Pucón. It wasn’t. My poor non-beer drinking palate just couldn’t deal with it but I drank the lot anyway. And then I ordered a glass of the new fruit flavoured beer they had after having a sip of Kat’s. Add in some papas fritas and we were good to go!

Our final meal

We head back to Cafe La Ultima Frontera for our last meal there. We were greeted by my favourite waiter with a, “You’re back again?!”

I ordered “un Gran Pit sin pan y sin queso. Y una papas bravas.” Why bother with the bread and cheese when you can scarf down potatoes?!

Everything was delicious, as I’d come to expect. Everyone was so lovely and I’m actually sad to be leaving Valdivia purely because of this cafe.

Cafe La Ultima Frontera
Pérez Rosales 787

Interesting to note

When I got money out of the ATM I shoved the notes into my wallet as usual. The notes seemed really crisp so I scrunched them up to make sure I didn’t accidentally hand over extra notes. On closer inspection today I noticed that they were consecutive notes! This was very exciting to me, although I’m not sure why.

Today was a bit of an admin day. I managed to get bitten to shit by what I think was a flea in my clothing so I got all of the clothes that I thought contained the little bugger and took them to a lavanderia. Thankfully they used tumble driers so there was no chance the sucker would return.

I really don’t know what it is with me and fleas but they fricken LOVE me! I have resigned myself to the fact that every time I go travelling I will get fleas. Sigh.

And just for a laugh, here is my laundry day outfit:

Boozy chocolate

Laundry dropped off we went in search of the cafe we walked past last night and stumbled upon a chocolate shop. We couldn’t resist the little cookies sold by the weight so got ourselves three each to devour later.

The cafe that we’d walked past last night was right next door so we went in and ordered hot chocolates with frambuesa liquer. They came out in champagne flutes! Not nearly as tasty as the Cassis hot chocolates but still good nevertheless.

Third time lucky

We went to the bus station to book our bus to Bariloche. We got to the payment point and I handed over my card to pay… she asked for my passport. Shit, it was back at the hostel. I’d only been asked for it once when I paid with my card so didn’t bother carrying it around with me.

Oh well, there were cash machines around the corner so I went and withdrew the money and we went back to the window. She, again, asked for our passports… what? We were never asked for our passports before for bus tickets. Whatever… so we started walking back to the hostel. Then Kat had the lightbulb moment: we were booking an international bus to Argentina! Now that makes sense.

Back for a third time we went to a different booking office in the station so they didn’t think we were completely useless and booked our two seats. An 8am bus to Osorno where we’d change onto the international bus to Bariloche. Done!

La Ultima Frontera, take two

We just couldn’t help ourselves and went back to Cafe La Ultima Frontera again to see what else they had to offer. I ordered a tacos de carne and a “submarino”. Rather than ask what it was I just ordered it out of curiosity. We joked that it would be funny if it was just a cup of milk as I don’t drink milk… and it was! Almost. The waitress placed a mug of hot milk in front of me and a saucer with a strip of chocolate on it. So a submarine was kind of like a DIY hot chocolate.

My tacos were HUGE. I bypassed the tortillas and just tucked into the massive pile of beef and avocado. Delicious!

And our seat was under the really cool decoration hanging from the ceiling. Basically a mobile made of branches, twine, autumn leaves and pinecones. Awesome.  

Shopping under the influence

Back at the hostel we polished off another bottle of wine… and then went to get snacks from the supermarket where they were playing Maroon 5 and J-Lo on the speaker system. This, of course, lead to dancing in the aisles and the purchase of jamón flavoured chips and two packs of cookies.

Back at the hostel we devoured these and another bottle of wine. Happy days.

Today was a travel day to Valdivia. So we packed up and had a breakfast of scrambled eggsand a mango – trying to eat everything we had so we didn’t have to carry it with us.

Then we popped into town and got a hoodie for Kat and an alfajor and empanadas to go.

Empanadas y alfajor

My first empanada was an okay experience. I think the woman gave me a chicken one instead of a beef one. I think I would’ve preferred a deep fried one over a baked one. The raisins weren’t a bad addition like I thought they’d be. The egg was a surprise though.

My alfajor was just one from the supermarket but delicious all the same. It was quite dry and I couldn’t finish the whole thing.

Valdivia ho!

We caught a JAC bus to Valdivia at 1:30pm and got in at around 4:30pm.

And of course our first experience in Valdivia was a guy approaching us asking if we needed a ride. Then he came back and asked if we were staying at Airesbuenos, which we were, and then told us that it was being painted and that we should get a ride with him to his hostel which is closer to everything and really nice. Nice try, dude.

When we did get to the hostel we were met by Anthony, a nice guy from Singapore/the States who checked us in and gave us two bottom bunks in a four bed dorm.

Valdivia in all its glory

We’d carted down two bottles of Chilean dessert wine with us so we cracked one open and drank it. So tasty!

Then we went to Cafe La Ultima Frontera on the recommendation of the hostel. And what a recommendation! It was a bohemian style, student-y cafe with portions that rival the States. I got a Gran Pit burger and a small papas bravas to share with Kat. There were enough potatoes for four people and when our burgers came out we were barely hungry. My burger had enough cheese for four people as well. I took all of it of and passed on most of the bun too but the steak, caramelised onions and eggs… oh my gosh!!! Every bite was delicious!! Even better was the staff who were super friendly and dressed like emo bikers.

The whole point of Pucón seemed to be to nearly kill yourself in new and wonderful ways. So when I was in the tour office the first day in Pucón and saw a video of people shooting down a river I had to ask what the heck was going on. And then I booked it for Sunday. I got lucky as I was the only one in our group who wanted to do it but they had a minimum of two for canyoning and four for canopying… enter two Israeli girls and I was good to go!

Early mornings, cold weather

Even though I only had to get to the office by 9am it was still earlier than I would’ve liked to have woken up. And of course everything runs on Chilean time – which is like Chinese time only in Spanish – so I was waiting around for a while before our transfer showed up. When it did arrive I was surprised by the guy from the tour office where I first found out about the canyoning and I felt immediately guilty because I had booked with someone else. Turns out he just worked there and it was his company that actually ran the tour so it all worked out in the end. 

The off season

I’m not gonna lie, the morning was chilly! So chilly that all three of us were dreading putting the wetsuits on so Bolo (our guide) said that if we wanted to do canopying first we could. Yes please! Anything to not get into a wetsuit!

Unfortunately for me it was laundry day so I was wearing my tank top (that had been serving as my PJs) and a thin cardigan with cut-off shorts and long socks. I looked like a right mess. And even though Bolo offered his fleece to me I refused. Grin and bear it, right?!

Heights and other fun stuff

Our canopying started off with a practise line. Seeing as I’d done canopying before Bolo got me to go first. Easy as pie… now where are the scary lines?!

Dani, the other guide (who only spoke Spanish) was dropped off at the end of the first line and we were dropped off at the top of it. Bolo pointed out the 85m waterfall that we were going to repel down later… I believe this was the 130m high line… eek!

I was up first and got all clipped in, “Ready?” asked Bolo, “Yup!” Coz hesitation would mean I may never do it.

I had my camera recording and I zipped along the line. No screaming, just speed. When I tried to look at the waterfall I started twisting which sent me all wobbly. Dani gave me the  signal to stop so I pulled down on the cable and unfortunately I stopped too soon. Dani told me to turn around and pull myself along the cable. Yay for having done it already in Mexico otherwise I’m not completely sure that I would’ve understood everything in Spanish. Pulling myself along really worked my stomach muscles… argh!

Einat came down followed by Hila who came with Bolo as she was unsure about the whole thing.

Time to poop your pants

We went to the second line and this time Dani went first to wait for us at the end. This line freaked me the heck out because I saw exactly how fast you go down it. I generally hate heights and am safety conscious and don’t like crazy speed… I know, what was I doing canopying? So when I got my camera ready to record this line I noticed that my hands were shaking like crazy. When Bolo asked if I was ready I totally wasn’t but I said yes anyway because hesitation would only make it worse.

I was pleasantly surprised because the line wasn’t nearly as fast as it looked from where I was standing.

The final four lines weren’t nearly as exhilarating but I managed to perfect my landings and didn’t need to pull myself along the cable again.

No mames, guey!

Canopying over we geared up for canyoning. It had gotten nice and warm by that point so the wetsuits weren’t horrible at all.

We set off on a three minute walk and then we were at the river. Bolo had a drink from the river which is apparently the best water because it comes straight from the mountain.

So we set off walking in the river. All I had on my feet were a pair of their running shoes, no socks… putting our feet in the water the first thing we said was, “Fark!!! It’s cold!!”
Bolo just laughed at us. We had a conversation about adventure sports tour guides earlier in the day so we all knew the deal: you have to be excited even if it’s cold aka lying.

The water was about 4 degrees and my feet were so sore and frozen and getting to the numb stage. Bolo started singing “Let The Sunshine In” and I followed up with, “Bolo, in Mexico they say “No mames!!!”"
He just laughed and said, “No mames, guey!”

Slip and slide

We got to the part of the river where we got to do the thing I saw on the video in the tour office: slide down rocks in the river.

Bolo showed us how to slide down, lying back with ours arms crossed over our chest. He took my camera and videoed the whole thing for us. I didn’t like the whole head-ducking-under-the-water thing but I braved it because everyone else went first and didn’t drown.

The last stretch of river was the shortest and scariest. Bolo showed us how to go down it: sit and then lean forward at the last second… presumably so you didn’t crack your head on the dip down. Einat decided to walk it instead and Hila got me to go first. I knew it would happen but it still scared me; as soon as I sat in the water the water shot me into a slide. I lay back and crossed my arms, couldn’t see a thing coz I was underwater, and then sat up at the last minute. I was being pushed under the water but Bolo had grabbed my hand and was pulling me out of the water. As scary as the whole thing was I loved it!

Here’s a cliff, let’s throw ourselves off it!

At the end of our river sliding we had reached the top of the waterfall (La China). The waterfall I had wanted to do was 154m high but as this was the start of the season (they’d only started up again after winter a week earlier) the other one was not safe to do. 85 metres would be fine for today. 

The wind was blowing and the sun had disappeared so we were all quite cold. Bolo set everything up and Einat went down first. Hila and I stood up the top doing a funny dance to keep warm for what seemed like a lifetime. 

Every now and then Bolo would lean over the edge and check to see how she was getting on. And sometimes he would forget to clip himself onto the safety rope. We asked him about this later and he said that it happens a lot and they usually work in teams and look out for each other. 

Hila went down next and we could tell by the movement of the rope that she was flying down. She must’ve either not been scared or been really cold and keen to get back to change. 

Next up was me. Bolo looped me up and I leant back over the edge. Einat had said to not look down so of course I did. Fuck me, I was a long way up!

Bolo walked me through lowering myself over the first part and then I was on my own. What he didn’t tell me was that I wouldn’t always have a foothold going down. After about 10m the rockface curved in and I was left hanging from my harness. It’s a weird feeling to just be sitting in a loop of ropes and fabric lowering yourself down. 

Before I started my descent I asked if Bolo could take my camera. He said that I should take it so I could take photos on the way down. Awesome! So I’d lower myself a few metres down then stop and take some photos of myself. It was hard to get a photo that truly showed the scale of things but I think the snaps I got give you a good enough idea…

Bolo said he could tell when I’d stopped to take photos because he’d see the rope moving then it would suddenly go still. Haha. 

Nearing the bottom of the waterfall I saw an awesome rainbow so I said, “Oooohhhh, double rainbow!!” (even though it wasn’t) and took a photo. By that point I was actually feeling less cold… and then it was very wet. Dani met me at the bottom and unhooked me and we went back to homebase. 

I couldn’t wait to get out of my wetsuit and into my laundry day clothes. Einat and I were discussing how great a hot chocolate would be and when we were in the changing rooms we heard Dani say, “… chocolate caliente?” Hell yes!!!

It’s amazing how hours of being freezing cold can be taken away by a meagre 200ml of hot chocolate. 

And being the crazy guy he is, Bolo did the traditional jump-in-the-pool when we got back. Argh!!!

He had another canopy group to take so we warmed up inside by a stove until we could get a ride back into town. 

The verdict

Even if you’re afraid of heights or speed or safety you should definitely do this with Canopying-Chile. They are amazing and it’s a great time!!!

Climbing a volcano sounded like a good idea at the time. And then I woke up and 5:15am and it didn’t seem like such a good idea any more…

Breakfast of champions

The girl who had fitted us for our equipment yesterday suggested carbohydrates for breakfast so we decided to load up on pasta. We were running short on time so we scarfed down 200grams of pasta each way too quickly then went and waited outside for our pick-up.

Is it gonna happen?

The weather had been bad for volcano climbing and today was looking cloudy so we weren’t actually sure if we were going to get to do the climb. We drove to the base of the volcano and it looked like we were good to go. We were given our packs and put our gators on… with a little help from the guides. I’m not an outdoorsy person so I could only guess how they were meant to fit on my legs.

And then we were given ice picks. AWESOME!!!

There were 8 of us all together so we got two guides (Carlos and Joaquin) and an assistant guide (Alvaro). We all set off for the first (very tiny) part of the walk… to the ski lift.

We had the option to take the chairlift up and it would cut about an hour off of the hike. We already knew that we were going to do that so we could save our energy for the tough part at the top. $6,000 well spent (even if it didn’t have a safety bar)!

We also went with a tour company called Paredon who had the earliest start which meant we were the first in the queue rather than in a queue that consisted of 50+ people.

Interesting to see was the telemark skiers who made light work of ascending on the snow. Speaking of which, I saw a few people with skis and snowboards and I was gutted that I didn’t think of that before. It was probably for the best as it would have been a buttload of gear to carry up… and the way we got down was way cooler (more on that soon).

The ascent

I know that someone has to be the slowest but it’s never fun when it’s you. I blame my short legs, small stride length and general un-fitness. Walking up the volcano in a zigzag pattern was hard going for me but I wasn’t too far behind the pack. Joaquin kept asking if I was fine or how I was feeling (in Spanish) and I always replied with a, “Yeah, I’m okay.” in English because I was too exhausted to deal with Spanish, haha.

Monika still wasn’t 100% so she stayed behind today but I took Wee Willie up as her stand-in.

Part way up we stopped for lunch but the pasta had done its job and I wasn’t even hungry. I downed a Snickers bar for some energy and kept going.

Man down!

After a while Kat decided to end her ascent so she and Alvaro stopped and I continued on (behind the pack) with Joaquin.

When the group stopped for a rest it gave me a chance to catch up (and take photos). I resisted the temptation to ask how far away we were as I didn’t want to be disappointed. And it turns out that I was pleasantly surprised. After separating from Kat there was only 15 minutes of the ascent left! And even though I felt like I was way behind everyone I only finished about 2 minutes after they did.

Top o’ the volcano

The sense of achievement after reaching the top was actually better that the top itself. Although the crater was massive there wasn’t much to see. There was, however, the occasional gust of gases which burned your nose and throat if you inhaled at the wrong time. The views from when we were walking up were amazing but unfortunately the cloud had shifted just as we got to the top and there wasn’t much else to see. We were just glad that we got the earliest tour possible so we didn’t have to ascend in the fog like everyone else who followed us.

And this little piggy went whee whee whee all the way home…

After hiking all the way up the volcano the last thing I wanted to do was walk back down again. Good thing we were going to slide the whole way down!

That’s right, we had carried up these thin, green plastic shovel-looking things so that instead of walking down we could slide down. I’d seen the sliding tracks on the way up and they looked really steep! It was SO much fun!!

Some parts were too steep to do with the plastic so we just went on our butts (covered with a special protection wraparound thingee). We were shown how to use the ice picks as a way to control our speed and I was gutted because two hands for the ice pick meant to possibility to take photos or videos.

Boy was I glad I listened to the guides though! I picked up so much speed on some of the tracks I could barely control myself. And it wasn’t uncommon for me to smack into the back of someone or for someone to do the same to me. Because we were sitting on the snow I wasn’t too worried about hurting myself.

Some of the bumps in the track meant you actually got a bit of air when you hit them. And sometimes the snow would build up so you were barely moving. At one amusing point I was riding down on a pile of snow, kind of like an avalanche.

Walking between some of the tracks (only about 200m in total) was hard going. The snow was soft and about knee deep so every now and then you’d either sink in up to your knee and have to wriggle your way out or you’d just plain old fall over.

Part way during the sliding I was right behind Remo and he actually ended up going off the track and making his own one. I followed (I didn’t have a choice, I was just following my butt) and tried to overtake him but ended up crashing/rolling over instead.

When we were nearly at the end I saw one of the girls had stopped on the side to take a photo of the sliding. This was the point where I bailed out and got my camera out of my bag. The slope didn’t look as steep so I started recording on my camera and tried to hold the ice pick with both hands while filming myself and the slide down. At one point I bailed off the track but I kept going and got an awesome video of it.

Our first day in Pucón was nice and chilled out. We went to check out the termas (hot springs) with Monika and Remo. The first one we checked out was more like a bunch of hot pools so we moved on to Los Pozones which I had seen photos of online. The pools looked more natural, just holes dug in the ground and lined with rocks. It was only $4,000 ($8USD) to get in so we thought we’d give it a go.

Low tide

To begin with it was a bit unimpressive as all the pools seemed to be really low and have hardly any water in them. But we already paid the fee so we hopped in and had a go. The water was lovely and warm and when I sat down the water came up to my neck so all was good with the world.

We had got there 5 minutes before it opened so we had 6 hot pools all to ourselves.

Not so hot

Although I say they were hot pools the coldest pool, at 25 degrees, was actually quite cold. I think the hot water is mixed with cold water to change the temperature and it meant that the top of the water was warm but the bottom was cold.

The hottest pool, apparently 40 degrees, seemed to have the same deal. I even put my hand under the water pouring out of a pipe only to find that it was ice cold. That particular pool had a mixture of nice warm water and really hot spots.

All in all it was a perfect way to unwind after our travel day yesterday and a great way to lead up to our volcano climb tomorrow…

We had an early start again with a breakfast box meeting at 7am with Monika and Remo. The breakfast boxes that Casa Chueca make for us are actually giant chilly bins filled with food. Sadly for the coffee/tea drinkers the water in the thermos had gone cold. Nevertheless we packed up the cheese and bread and took what we could with us in the car and went on our way.

Pucón bound

With just one stop for a pee and some petrol we got to Pucón at around 2pm, a whole 8 hours earlier than if we’d taken the bus.

We had already booked into Hostal Donde German so we checked in and made ourselves comfy. Monika and Remo had a look around and went to check out a few more places. We set out in search of lomo a lo pobre for lunch.

Food, drink and adventure tours

After sitting down and ordering who should we see out the window but Monika and Remo! They came and joined us for lunch. We’d kind of forgotten that the lomo a lo pobre was HUGE so we forced down as much as we could. Kat had leftovers to go whereas I only left onions and a few scraps.

We checked out a few tour places to see about climbing the volcano which both me and Remo wanted to do. While we were in one place I saw a video for something that looked fricken awesome. Turns out it was canyoning which is basically abseiling down waterfalls and sliding down rocks. This really is the Queenstown of South America!

When it’s horrible and rainy sometimes you just need to retreat to a cafe and get a hot chocolate. Which is exactly what we did. Followed nicely by a trip to the supermarket for supplies including a $2,295 ($5USD) bottle of dessert wine. Drinking that in the kitchen by the woodburner at 11pm was a great way to round off the day. Even better, the wine was delicious!

To anyone who thinks I’m “on holiday”, I’m sorry but when I’m on holiday I don’t get up at 6:45am!

Today was Putú sand dunes day and me, Barbara, Monika and Remo booked a tour ($34,000) to the sand dunes. We had a two hour drive to get out to the place where the van would be parked then a 45 minute walk to the actual dunes. On the way we stopped for water and Barbara kindly lent me money as I forgot to borrow some off Kat and my card was still not playing nice.

Nature

We hadn’t even gone 5 metres when we saw a gigantic beetle type creature. Given the way we were playing with it I’m pretty sure it was dead. A bit further on we saw cows and goats. The highlight must’ve been seeing a calf running and thinking of Said and how excited he was that he saw a cow run the other week. City kids unite!

More nature was to be had when I popped a squat in the bush as it would be our last potty stop for a couple of hours.

The dunes

The dunes were black sand and stretched for 20km. While not as impressive as the ones I’ve seen in NZ they were still pretty cool. I like clambering over pretty much anything while on holiday so I was set. 

Throughout the walk I was wondering if we were gonna get a chance to slide down any of them. That’s when Frank, our German tour guide, stops us and races up the hill and showed us how to slide down. He forewarned us to take everything out of our pockets but of course I forgot my lens cap was in my pocket!

After taking a running leap he flew over the edge and landed with a plop and not much slide. Remo tried next with the same result. I clambered up and tried too… with the same result. I managed to land on my left butt cheek which, by the way, hurts!

I thought putting on my poncho would help the situation and give me something to slide down on. I thought wrong. I still skidded to a complete stop. Sigh. 

At the bottom I was filled with sand. It was everywhere. In my pockets, in my camera (thank goodness for the weatherproofing!), in my hair, in my face… Thanks to my sunscreen I had sand stuck to my face and apparently looked like had a beard. 

The beach

After about an hour of walking up and over the dunes we hit the beach and set up on a log for lunch.

My lens cap had a lot of sand in it so I cleared it out. I stopped to take a quick photo before lunch and 20 metres later I put the camera down and the lens cap was gone. Pah. Another sacrifice to the travel gods. 

Lunch was mortadella and cheese sandwiches with apple juice and an orange. 

Once that was over we packed up and made our way back to the car stopping along the way to take some jumping and handstand pics, of course. 

Constitución

This tiny seaside town was affected quite badly by the tsunami. There used to be 15 restaurants along the waterfront and now there are two. The only two to be rebuilt so far. 

We saw some pelicans on the way and continued on to a good viewpoint. We went up and had a look out at some rocks and birds then went to the Iglesia rock and saw some sealions. 

A two hour ride back to Talca and we stopped to get money out. I tried my card yet again with no luck then just got money out of my HSBC card. Sigh. 

Back at the ranch I found Kat in our new room. She’d spent the day reading by the pool and just had a glass of wine. I was ready for dinner! 

Tonight was a delicious mashed potato main with veges and a mushroom sauce followed by a chocolate and orange fudge-like dessert with cream and sliced fruit. 

As lovely as the vegetarian dinners have been here I can’t wait to sink my teeth into a lomo a lo pobre!

More planning

The cabins in Chillán were super expensive, at $30,000 a night each. We figured we’d skip those termas and just go straight to Pucón which is meant to the Queenstown of Chile. It turned out that Monika and Remo were driving there anyway so offered us a ride. Everything is falling into place. Woo!

So far this trip has been great. Meeting new people, randomly changing our plans on the fly… this is what travelling should be like!