Pedro De Valdivia

... settled here when the town was originally populated and of coarse they built a brewery closer to the coast I may have to check out today. There are a couple of universites which brings allot of young people into the town. One university has a rowing club on the other side of the river also a large campus with a botanical garden which is open for the public to enjoy. From the large warf a number of ferries offer different trips both up and down river for a closer look at the area.

... have fed ten people with it!! Of course, ten people weren't needed to consume the lot! After Chinese we went back to the hostel. The group had been reduced to six - Me, Lorna, Colm, Kate, Niall and Kelly. In the dorm we had a few more bevvies and discussed many topics including ghost stories, the faked moon landing and the arrival of aliens. We even turned the light off for the ghost stories! We must have looked a bunch of numpties! A good night was had though.

... though Argentina probably has more of it within its borders. I like it, flutes and quenas and cuatros with cellos and organ and clean jazz guitar. There are some problems in paradise of course, the rain not the least of it. There's also the cold, not so cold really until you try it without heaters and a chill set into the bones. Then there's the coffee, much harder to find in espresso form than neighboring Argentina and just as ...

... way too malty). We enjoyed some German food in a very tradtional style, Daniella had pork chops and potatoes and I had a pork leg with sauerkraut. When the pork leg arrived , it was massive, so in the end I could not eat it all, but it was very tasty, however unfortunately later on that evening I had a few trips to the toilet - no doubt it was the cause!! After we came out of the brewery it was quite late and pitch black darkness. On top of ...

... t drink anymore so we walk the 2km back to the hostel (although it was probably 2.5km because no way were we walking in a straight line) and once we get there we figure out that we are hungry. Hah, retarded, why didn't we think of this while we were still in the city center. We walk all the way back and find a cab to take us to a burrito joint (it wasn't a burrito joint but if you live in Chicago you know what I mean as burrito joint is just ...

... which is the correct direction I need to head. We say bye to everyone and we are off to our next destination. Halfway to Valdivia the bus makes a quick stop and I see a pop machine which probably means it contains cans of pop which probably means I should nab one since I'm thirsty. To my chagrin (for some reason I really wanted a pop which is odd, btw: my parents used to call pop "sody", not even soda, but sody, coke and pepsi was referred to as dark sody ...

... the computer! SO now back to where we left off. Friday morning started not so promisingly, with Kate realising that she had been attacked through the night by BED BUGS! The response from the hostel was something like "Oh yeah, we had those last week also..." - not the ideal response to a serious problem when running accomodation! These took a liking to Kate and basically left me alone, so she was in some discomfort as we set out to pack our bags and make the ...

... changing and that man has to keep adapting each time a volcano erupts. Valdivia is a riverside town, which is said to be the most beautiful in Chile - we didn´t think so! Although there were sealions there. Maybe our expectations were too high. Made up for it by having a massage and then stayed in hostel for a big meal with the group that night.

... the end, my attempts were cut short a little but at least I got to speak to Mum and my bro´s and sis. Didn´t catch up with Ken, so Happy Christmas Ken! After the call it was down to cooking our Christmas dinner, we had loads of veg and I had a huge piece of salmon and Epi had steak. It was great, washed down with 2 very nice bottles of Chilean wine and then crashed out in front of a couple of movies - much the ...

... in his drunken state he would interleave English in with his Spanish (kind of like Spanglish). I ended up joining their table since the stove was right next to them. After a few more rounds, they invited me to go with them to the next bar. A karaoke bar. I am not really a fan of karaoke, but I figured it would probably pretty funny. So I ditched the hostel group and went out with my new Chilean friends. We ended up stopping at another ...