Hostelera Borde Rio Valdivia

Valdivia was an unplanned, last minute decision as we had missed the last bus to our chosen destination, Pucon and didn't fancy staying in Puerto Montt, a loud functioning busy old port town. On arriving in Valdivia we hunted for accommodation which everywhere else has been relatively easy but here it started a 1 hour walk around all sides of the small city. Now there is a song that goes "I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more" etc etc, what the song does ...

... on our part! Confetti littered the quiet streets from last nights party which did sound like great fun. We´re sure that Valdivia would have given us a much different experience had we visited on any other day of the year. The hostel was nice and homely (thanks to the duck and the rabbit) and we did get to visit the (somewhat ...

... picked up a brochure of what to do in Valdivia in 48 hours - maybe there is more here than meets the eye. The next morning, after checking in to a different hostel, one overlooking the river, we set out in search of some bikes. Gareth managed to get a bike not only with a comfy seat but also with gears, mine was lucky just to have brakes. Our first stop was to see the local seafood and produce market down on the waterfront with musicians playing and local Artisans ...

... grabbing California by its little Baja chicken-leg, then rip upward along San Andreas' fault and follow the Sierras northward all the way up to say, about Juneau. Now take that sucker and flip it over southward, letting people slide toward the desert while you've got it upended (losing most of them in the process, may they r-i-p). Now slide the whole thing southward to the tip of the South American continent. Welcome to Chile ...

... laughed at for approximately one hour. Valdivia is home to a handful of sealions, which on top of the monkey poster made me laugh myself nearly to death. They are extraordinary, stinking, pointless animals which exist only to entertain the mentally challenged. We again hit the town - I swear these Irish girls will be the death of me - but the Smoke Machine ws barely even warm by the time we called it a night at around 4am. Well done Nicholas. Well done...

... t you know sitting to close to the TV will hurt your eyes". Good thing she doesn't understand English. Valdivia has a large college across the bridge and since I love college campuses and I haven't seen one yet in SA I decide to walk over there to check it out. The campus is very nice with huge quads but instead of being wide open like US campuses the quads have a ton of trees. This particular campus doesn't feature any large buildings and instead it ...

... was because we had a map to the town it´s near....lucky someone can read maps! Chris is fighting me for the key board right now, I´ve just told him to bugger off and get another beer. Where was I, so we find the Administration building and guess what, there is an American girl who is a biologist who is volonteering there and was able to translate for us. The end was no, they don´t do guides but yes, for 30 bucks, all day a guy will drive us around the ...

... will upload when we get the chance. Next mission was to find the brewery mentioned above, real quality beer is something to be savoured here and we set about doing just that. A long walk later before we realised that it was beyond our walking ability for the time at hand and the energy required, so we double back to find a cab and soon we had made it to Kunstmann Cervezeria! Out the front we were greeted by a massive blow up German! what a sight here in ...

... of wine...or 2 to celebrate. Also on Christmas, we went out on a boat ride on the river. We rode out to a little island where we visited the oldest church in Valdivia and had tea and a piece of pie at this little cafe ran by some very motherly type ladies. After realizing that there was not much to the city and we were going to be here for 4 days and 3 nights, we began looking for some surrounding areas in which we could try ...

... It was worth coming to Valdivia just to see them. Our hostel is called Airesbuenos and is about 10 mins walk from the bus station. There are 2 hostels with the same name and owned by the same people so we chose the one nearer to the bus station. The other one had great reviews but this one is newer so didn't have any. It's quite impressive to look at - very nicely decorated. Unfortunately ...