On hindsight, what we probably should have done was flown down south where there is great hiking and some amazing glaciers but Euan had been there before so we thought we’d see parts of Chile that he’d not been to. Valdivia, a tiny town on the edge of a river, sounded like a nice place to go but better still, had a fish market with resident sea lions….
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It turned out to be a pleasant pretty place in a lovely setting
and we met an American chap on the bus there so we ended up staying with a friend of his who had a hostel and we were able to cook for ourselves. We had enormous steaks cooked over a wood fire and they tasted delicious. We’d just come from NZ where fresh beef, lamb, chicken etc is just superb but I have to say the beef that we’ve eaten in Chile has equalled and sometimes bettered the NZ stuff. The supermarkets have many expert butchers and fresh beef in quantities I’ve never seen in supermarkets before. Hardly anything is pre-cut or packaged and the butchers will cut whatever you want however you want. We were asking for 3” thick steaks and we got change from £3 for two massive steaks. Needless to say we overdosed on steak. Raw mince sandwiches seem to be popular and butchers were mincing beef sometimes 3 or even 4 times to get it super fine.
The fish market was also good value, both for shopping and watching
and the salmon cost only £1.50/kg!
There were hungry sea lions lurking in the river
and birds that were flocking to feed on the scraps thrown by the fishermen.
These guys cleaned the fish and the one closest to us had a lime ice-block that,
in between bites, he placed it back on a bag with the fish cheeks he was cutting from the fish heads!
Valdivia was a pretty chilled place and there were some lovely spots along the riverside, like this seemingly makeshift bar on stilts
and the cops, when they weren’t letting their horses eat, hooned around the streets. They went clattering past us one day, really going for it waving their whips around, the horses skidding on the road. I’m sure they were just showing off.
At the river mouth there are about five forts and we visited two – Niebla and Corral, both on different sides of the river. The forts aren’t terribly interesting but there were some old cannons that were quite cool. The museum was in Spanish that wasn’t much use to me but Euan enjoyed it!
and I went and read a book. This one is book number 38 I think.
At the Corral fort there is a daily re-enactment of the Chilean capture of the fort from the Spanish. It was more comedy than drama but I think the guys enjoyed dressing up, fighting and shooting each other and the girls seemed to love wailing over their 'dead' men (to the point that the chap doing the commentary said that the dead men could come back to life so the girls would stop wailing).
Every year in the town of Niebla there is a massive food fair that lasts for two weeks and the small spread out town is full of people and music. It was pure chance that we were there during the fair and of course we checked it out! There was all sorts of wonderful food being cooked up. This chap was about to open a bag that contained shellfish, a leg of chicken and a thick piece of bacon, all in a mesh bag that had been broiled.
Empanadas were being prepared from scratch
and skewers of juicy beef, chorizo and other sausage were being cooked over hot coals. These were just the best and were served with a chunk of fresh bread on the end of the skewer that soaked up the juices from the meat.
We had brought our flight to Ecuador forward, giving us more time to spend in the Galapagos should we want to. We thought we’d check out one last place in Chile before heading back up to Santiago to fly out.
View Larger Map
It turned out to be a pleasant pretty place in a lovely setting
and we met an American chap on the bus there so we ended up staying with a friend of his who had a hostel and we were able to cook for ourselves. We had enormous steaks cooked over a wood fire and they tasted delicious. We’d just come from NZ where fresh beef, lamb, chicken etc is just superb but I have to say the beef that we’ve eaten in Chile has equalled and sometimes bettered the NZ stuff. The supermarkets have many expert butchers and fresh beef in quantities I’ve never seen in supermarkets before. Hardly anything is pre-cut or packaged and the butchers will cut whatever you want however you want. We were asking for 3” thick steaks and we got change from £3 for two massive steaks. Needless to say we overdosed on steak. Raw mince sandwiches seem to be popular and butchers were mincing beef sometimes 3 or even 4 times to get it super fine.
The fish market was also good value, both for shopping and watching
and the salmon cost only £1.50/kg!
There were hungry sea lions lurking in the river
and birds that were flocking to feed on the scraps thrown by the fishermen.
These guys cleaned the fish and the one closest to us had a lime ice-block that,
in between bites, he placed it back on a bag with the fish cheeks he was cutting from the fish heads!
Valdivia was a pretty chilled place and there were some lovely spots along the riverside, like this seemingly makeshift bar on stilts
and the cops, when they weren’t letting their horses eat, hooned around the streets. They went clattering past us one day, really going for it waving their whips around, the horses skidding on the road. I’m sure they were just showing off.
At the river mouth there are about five forts and we visited two – Niebla and Corral, both on different sides of the river. The forts aren’t terribly interesting but there were some old cannons that were quite cool. The museum was in Spanish that wasn’t much use to me but Euan enjoyed it!
and I went and read a book. This one is book number 38 I think.
At the Corral fort there is a daily re-enactment of the Chilean capture of the fort from the Spanish. It was more comedy than drama but I think the guys enjoyed dressing up, fighting and shooting each other and the girls seemed to love wailing over their 'dead' men (to the point that the chap doing the commentary said that the dead men could come back to life so the girls would stop wailing).
Every year in the town of Niebla there is a massive food fair that lasts for two weeks and the small spread out town is full of people and music. It was pure chance that we were there during the fair and of course we checked it out! There was all sorts of wonderful food being cooked up. This chap was about to open a bag that contained shellfish, a leg of chicken and a thick piece of bacon, all in a mesh bag that had been broiled.
Empanadas were being prepared from scratch
and skewers of juicy beef, chorizo and other sausage were being cooked over hot coals. These were just the best and were served with a chunk of fresh bread on the end of the skewer that soaked up the juices from the meat.
We had brought our flight to Ecuador forward, giving us more time to spend in the Galapagos should we want to. We thought we’d check out one last place in Chile before heading back up to Santiago to fly out.
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