Diego De Almagro Valdivia

... garden, all very nice! On my final day in Valdivia, went out to see some of the islands at the mouth of the river (Isla Mancera) where there are several old forts from the old Spanish colonial era. All very nice!!! Another highlight was the side trip to the Kunstmann cerveceria (the beer, one of the best in Chile, is brewed here), cue much sampling and then an attempt on their 2.5 L column of beer, definitely a wise idea to share that one! Richy

... litre bottles of Escudo, paid a miserly sum of about a pound a bottle and then headed back to the hostel. Obviously we do not talk about the FA Cup from now on (Both Forest and Colm's team, Liverpool, lost). It's just a Mickey mouse cup anyway and there's just no pride in winning it!! (Damn those sheepsh*ggers)! This just drove me & Colm back to the sanctuary of our Escudo bottles. When the travelling clan returned, showers and cloth changing took place. Not ...

... like Portland, the ambience is friendlier and less threatening than its edgy neighbor farther pole-ward. Crafts are for sale in the markets, lots of articulated lizards, but no rain sticks, not yet at least. I wonder if they buy their lizards from China now? The houses are all made of wood, ship-lap and shakes, and architecture that lends itself to the use of wood, very 'un-Latino'. Is that because of the pronounced German ...

... was its constant rain. This being the lake district of Chile they tend to get a lot of rain throughout the year here so there is nothing you can really do about it. The town is supposedly German influcened but we did not see too much of it the town centre. Our main activity was visiting the Kunstmann brewery and restaurant. We took a collectivo as it about 6KM away from the town centre. When we arrived we realised that there is actually ...

We were crossing our fingers that the weather would be better and that we'd be able to stay in Pucon for another day to climb the volcano but it wasn't better so we headed off to Valdivia. On the way we stopped at a lake made of lava (no longer running of course) and saw a town that was destroyed when the lava river ran straight through it and it has to be rebuilt ...

... song, so once again people know the lyrics to songs although they don't know what the lyrics mean or how to speak English). The thing is we sound absolutely awful. I sing about as good as Mel Brooks probably does but with like a mouth full of Big League Chew and I was banking on Andy to carry us through but to my chagrin he sounds about as bad as I do. The good thing is we are wasted and don't give a **** and the other good thing is the person working ...

... a native Mapuche from the area. I think that was a good effort. In the middle of no where after the trip we hitched a ride back into town, which ended up being about 15 people in this Tarago type van and now after probably 10km´s of walking, we need to go and make up for so much exercise and drink some beer!! Kunstmann.... Best wishes to all, And of course, our puppies at home don´t understand that talk so woof woff, walks to beach and go get the stick Bear! Kate

... seguimos preguntando a la gente que nos recoge, y todos se contradicen... así que al final llegamos ahí, y claro, no había ruta para Valdivia ! Pero aprovechamos para almorzar ahí, frente al mar, con las casas construidas sobre las colinas dando a la playa. Nos fuimos enseguida en dirección contraria a la ida, y después de salir de la urbanisación...entramos en un coche que iba directo a Valdivia. Eran unos trabajodores que ponen publicidad para ... SUPER POLLO !!!!

... a little. We were surprised to find the fish and fruit market by the riverside open. The sea lions were there too, lazing in the warm sunshine. Not too much else was open around the town so we just had a good walk around and headed back to the hostel in order to call our families - the highlight of the day! The calls weren´t all that successful, so we decided to try again later. In the meantime we headed off ...

On Friday night I went out with a group of travelers and Chileans (that were staying at our hostel). The first place we went to was this bar that had a lot of students hanging out, so the beer was cheap. One of those liter Escudo beers runs 1500 pesos (about 3 US dollars). We got a bunch of glasses and started splitting buying rounds. I went to buy the first round, and when I got back there were no more chairs for me to sit down on, but ...