Niebla and Bartering in Pucon

Sunday, March 15

Sunday began a bit earlier than we had expected…one hour earlier to be exact. We were walking around the city of Valdivia and it was a ghost town. Valdivia is a university city, home to Universidad Austral. We thought that like most college cities the students had been out late the night before and nobody arises from bed until the early afternoon. Little did we know, the clocks changed last night. One week after the US changed their clocks forward, we changed ours one hour back in preparation for winter. On the bright side, we were now on the same time as the US after having been 2 hours ahead all summer long.

One benefit to our timing mishap was that we were on of the first people to arrive at the Feria Fluvial down by Rio Valdivia. The Valdivia River runs through the heart of the city, and everyday there is a fresh fish market on the banks of the river. This fish market boasts something unique however. Behind the fish stands are about 30 sea lions frolicking in the waters. These sea lions have found paradise as they simply wait in the water as scraps of fresh fish come flying over the wall into the river. These beasts of the sea were enormous and I’m sure their gluttonous diet didn’t help much as they looked like some of the fattest sea creatures I had every seen. When they emerged from the water to wait on the docks or concrete slabs, they looked like Jabba-the-hut. Just massive blobs of blubber and flippers.

After eating a breakfast of fresh fruits and cheeses from the market, we drove to the town of Niebla sitting on the mouth of Rio Valdivia where it empties into the ocean. We visited the Castilla de Niebla sitting high upon the rocky cliffs, which acted as a defensive fort for the Spanish navy occupying these parts in the 1800’s. The fort still had barracks, cannons, and a well maintained and informative museum describing the history of the Castilla. The views were spectacular as we gazed as far as the eye could see out into the Pacific Ocean. This is definitely a must see for anyone traveling to Valdivia.

We got word of another feria in Niebla and found the fair tucked away in a small neighborhood just past the castilla. This feria was all about food. We had a sampling of 5 different kinds of empanadas made fresh to order. We washed them down with cold beers and munched on perfectly cooked anticuchos. For dessert, Lily grabbed some alfajores, which are typical Chilean cookies covered in chocolate with manjar filling.

The day was drawing to a close and Lily needed to catch her bus back to Puerto Varas for work in the morning. We dropped her at the bus station and parted ways as Daniel and I were off to the second part of out trip: Pucón.

We made it to Pucón just in time to shop the main drag for hiking expeditions up to the summit of Volcan Villarrica. This snow covered volcano was one of the few that was safe enough to climb. It involved a hike requiring crampons to the smoldering crater at the top. We couldn’t have been more excited. We shopped around at about 10 different adventure companies to barter for the best deal. It was great practice for my Spanish, and we settled on Turismo AndesSur for $30,000 pesos including all of the necessary equipment and transport to the volcano. In fact, this company seemed like the most professional of all of the companies we saw in addition to being the most reasonably priced.

After securing our spot on the hike, we checked into our hostel: Ecole!. This hostel was started by an American and is owned by a consortium of Chilean environmentalists and nature lovers. Two blocks from the center of Pucón, they have cheap clean rooms, and boast a delicious vegetarian restaurant on the first floor. Despite the reputation of the restaurant, we wanted meat. We wandered into town first to stock up on lunch supplies for the 8 hour hike tomorrow, and second to find a place to eat. We settled on a restaurant called Adventure Lodge, mainly because they have 2 for 1 drink specials. Daniel and I had a great meal, and were ready to conquer Volcán Villarrica in the morning.