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So we left Pucon and arrived in Valdivia, a university town located on a river. There wasn't masses to do there but the main spectacle was the riverside fish market. The stall owners gut their fish behind the market on the riverside, and therefore attract hundreds of birds (including the biggest birds I had ever seen in my life) all fighting for the cut offs, and sealions which live in the river and climb up onto the side to get snacks! They do quite a good show of jumping off the side and diving into the water to catch the bits of fish as they're thrown into the water.
We were taken out and taught to play a chilean game 'cacho', which involved a cup, 5 dice and some betting. This turned out to be a pretty good game once we had worked out how to actually play it after being given the instructions in spanish (which we didn't really understand) and then very confusing english (which we also didn't understand!) The other main attraction for us was the cerveceria (brewery for those who dont speak spanish!) where we did a 'beer tasting' which involved having small cups of every one of the different brews made there! This then lead to our subsequent third dash for the bus as we went further south again to Puerto Varas.
The view on the way to Puerto Varas was pretty amazing as we could see three volcanoes rising up in the distance, getting closer and closer. I also noticed and pointed out to Ben a huge cloud of smoke that seemed to be coming up from the ground and joked that it was probably a volcano erupting. Turns out it is a volcano thats been erupting for a while now (we got a LOT closer to it on our way to Bariloche!) Puerto Varas is located on the edge of a lake and across the lake you can see the three volcanoes. We spent a pretty chilled out few days there with our new friend Jose, who educated us in Chilean music and tried to teach us how to salsa dance (resulting in an injury by me) and we spent one day biking around the lake which was nice, although did make me fear for my life on several occasions!
Our last stop in Chile was Chiloe, the large archipeligo of islands of the west coast. We were told the islanders were quite different to the other Chileans as they have always been slightly cut off. They have some strange stories floating around, such as the 'pincoya', a beautiful woman with long blonde hair who can bring about famine by dancing towards the mountains or fortune by dancing towards the sea, and the 'trauco', a small dwarf that lives in the woods and is irresistable to women and girls, and often blamed for inconvenient pregnancies!
We stayed in the islands capital Castro, which is actually pretty run down and not too nice, but has a redeeming feature in the palafitos, colourful wooden houses on stilts bordering the lake. Ben tried the curanto, which appeared to just be a plate of shellfish and meat, and we tried licor de oro, which is apparently between 45 and 55% alcoholic, but only tasted vaguely of banana milkshake, and we decided Chilote food isn't too good! The visit to the Chiloe national park was the best part of the trip, it was full of fallen, twisted tree trunks and felt lie you were in a fairytale. We also got to see most of the island on the bus trip there!
We also got to experience the 'teleton', a children in need type event that spans two days, is shown on all the terrestrial channels, and the Chileans go mad for! The actually write teleton on their cars with white paint that doesnt come off! We particularly enjoyed the musical entertainment part of the show with songs such as 'yo tengo tu amor' and 'vamos, vamos chileanos'. Its come time to say goodbye to Chile, we enjoyed it a lot, and continue on to Bariloche and Argentina....
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Pedro Le Voise If only we had one of those dwarfs back in Manchester...