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After a three hour bus trip to Valdivia we walk for about fifteen minutes to find our hostel. The room is basic and the bathroom is tiny but its fine for a few days. The hostel is busy and everyone is friendly.
The town of Valdivia suffered the biggest earthquake ever recorded in history. On 22 May 1960 a 9.5 magnitude earthquake shook the town to it's knees. A tsunami warning wasn't issued and the 25 metre wall of water that hit the town an hour later was said to have taken more lives than the earthquake itself. Over 6,000 lives were lost as was the majority of the town. The tsunami was so big that it reached 10,000 kms away in Japan and Philippines although the wave had reduced to about 10 metres. Still big enough to make a devastating impact and claim lives. There were also mudslides high in the Andes and a remote volvano that erupted neither of which received much media attention at the time due to the fact that they didn't claim any lives. It's a scarey thought that we push to the back of our minds as best we can.
Visiting today you would never have guessed that there was pretty much nothing left as it's rebuilt and is a busy town full of students that attend the nearby University. It is Fresher's Week and the people we thought were tramps are new students out on the street covered in paint and eggs, wearing torn clothes and no shoes. Apparently, the tradition is that they need to raise 5000 peso's in order to buy their shoes back. The scroungers get nothing from us as we are 'travellers'!
We walk down to the fish, fruit and vegetable market by the river and are amazed to see sea-lions hanging about on little jetty's for a few scraps of fish from the market traders. It's a colourful market with a huge range of fruit and veg, only half of which we recognise. Later we walk on along the river and come upon a small deck floating about a metre away from the footpath. As we get closer we see about eight sea-lions lounging in the afternoon sun, occasionally heaving their huge bluberous bodies around the deck, using much effort to raise themselves up to chase each other off their patch or maybe away from their chicca and finally off the deck into the water. Their huge teeth are bared, but don't actually make any contact. The loud guttural noises they are making are frightening enough. We feel priveledged to have such good ringside seats and watch them at such a close quarters. It's their smell that eventually drives us away.
We take a local bus to a town called Niebla. We miss the stop for the ferry and continue on into the tiny town up the hill. Walking back, we go on to the beach and enjoy the sunshine. Continuing on we pass a fish market with many yellow boats bobbing around in the harbour and a memorial with photo's of those lost, presumably, at sea, but we can't be sure. We catch the ferry which is about a 30-minute crossing and arrive at Corral and walk up to Castillo de Corral, a fort built in the 19C by a Scot fighting for the Chileans. As we only had 45 minutes before the ferry returned we walked back down to the harbour and waited and waited for someone to start the boat up. When they did appear 45 minutes later we realised we misheard the time of return. We really must brush up on our Spanish and properly learn how to say the time!
We go on a beer tour at the Kunstmann Cerveceria, 5kms out of town. The Kunstmann (no, it's not a German shouting at a ref) family began brewing beer for personal use based on a home brewing guide and turned this into a business in the 1990's. Their beer is now exported to seven countries. Valdivia has a tradition of brewing, originating from German settlers in the mid 19C. The first major brewery was built by the Anwandter family in the town next to the river, but this was devastated by the 1960 earthquake and the premises were lost along with millions of litres of beer. The tour is full of interesting information about the original family and and the process of making the beer. The local competitors at the time were suspicous at how quickly the Anwandter business grew that they thought it must have something to do with the devil. The family turned the rumours to their advantage and introduced a picture of a devil on the label of the bottles. The tour finishes in front of the towering silver vats where we can grab a schopp of unfiltered porter (stout) straight from the vat. Steve challenges a 'down in one' to a 60 year old Chilean and wins despite suffering from the cold liquid as he necks it back. Interesting rumour: The name Porter derives from the Covent Garden porters in London. Having burned and blackened the malt it was handed out to the market porters for free.
We have a couple of nights in the hostel chatting to people and realise we have just met our first English person on the trip after five weeks in. We share stories of our route so far, as we are heading in opposite directions.
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