Valdivia, Chile

After Pucon we headed south to check out the town of Valdivia.  Valdivia was another pretty town - this time on a river and not too far from the coast.

Our first day there we went to check out the beach with our friend Hayley who we met in Pucon.  We took the local bus to Niebla which is the closest beach to Valdivia.  Unfortunately, although we got dropped off just 100 metres or so from the beach, we misunderstood the bus guy (a frequent occurrence for us) and thought that he told us that we had to walk up the hill to get there.  We slogged up the road (it was a really sunny day although the breeze was cool) and when we got to the top we could see a beach but it didn't really look like there was much there - it was really small with no town or anything next to it.

We tried to get down there but there didn't seem to be any kind of public access.  Eventually we asked someone and he told us that we were actually halfway to the next beach up the coast!  We eventually decided to just keep going to the next beach as he assured us there were plenty of restaurants serving nice seafood.  Luckily it wasn't as far away as it seemed and we got there after about 10 - 15 minutes of walking.

 

The beach itself was nothing that special - the sand was brown and there was a big concrete wall built along it.  But the coastline itself was quite picturesque and there were some colourful fishing boats moored in the water.  The water was absolutely freezing but by the mid-afternoon there were quite a few families chilling out on the beach - some kids were even swimming.  We hung out a little bit before deciding that we were ready for some lunch. 

We picked a little seafood restaurant right near the water and ordered our food.  It was quite expensive for us considering our budget but compared to Australia it was probably really cheap.  I had "poor man's fish" which is essentially fish with fried onions and eggs on top, served with chips (a nice variation on traditional fish and chips).  Paul had the most delicious piece of fish (a type called corvina) served with this marinara sauce with all this other seafood in it.  I had a little bit of food envy when I tasted his food.

After that we lazed around for a bit longer before heading back to town - all in all a nice day at the beach.

The next day we just checked out the town - the highlight for me was seeing the sealions down in the river.  They come right up to town and just chill out on the banks of the river right in the centre of town.  It was very strange seeing these huge sealions right next to where people were kayaking in the river.  That day was pretty chilled out as we got ready to head over the border to Bariloche in Argentina.