Leaving Pucon we took a 3 hour bus through more beautiful countryside to Valdivia, the largest city in Southern Chile. It has a strong German influence- at the end of World War II a lot of Germans came to Southern Chile and Argentina, and have left their influence in architecture, street names, food, chocolate, and beer. We stayed in a hostel that had been a big house, and the woman who ran it (who is from California) told us they found boxes of photos and journals in the attic when they were converting the place. The family that lived in the house way back when had been members of the Nazi party, and the teenage daughter wrote fondly about Nazi Germany and continued ties to the party in Chile.
While that is creepy, we enjoyed the benefits that some German heritage had on the area, and dove wholeheartedly into the food and beer sampling. Not about to be talked into another horrendous bike ride, we spent our first afternoon sunning ourselves on a restaurant deck and enjoying crazy tacos and tasty local brews. We wandered the city and saw some of the largest sea lions (or marine wolves, as their Spanish name translates to!)
Our second day in town we wandered through the morning fish market, then took a local bus out to the coast. After a few wrong turns (and some confused directions) we found Marcelo, the man in the second blue house on the right with the fence around his yard (the correct directions!) who let us into the nature preserve. It is a relatively small plot of land with one trail loop through brush, an old growth wood, and beautiful views of the coast line. It was the perfect day for a picnic and a walk and a snooze on the beach.
We caught the bus back towards the city. This vehicle didn't seem to be doing as well on the steep, narrow, windy roads. There was a lot of chugging going on, and as a rule, I am never very comfortable when the driver crosses himself before heading up a hill or into a traffic circle, though this seems to be a not-uncommon practice in South America. This driver was pretty much on the mark though. The bus broke down on top of a steep hill, and while some trickery convinced it to start again, we coasted down the hill and into a parking lot (luckily!). Everyone was reimbursed the 400 pesos it cost to make it the rest of the way into the city. As we were walking to the next bus stop, and van pulled up with the standard cardboard "Valdivia" signs in the windows. They slowed enough to literally pull a woman with her suitcase in, and we shrugged and jumped in after her.
We asked the driver to drop us at the Kunstmann Brewery where we spent many happy hours. So many, in fact, that we missed the last bus into the city center by a hare and had to take a taxi. Though really, it was worth it. We had a tasting flight of all the beers at the moment and both loved the Torobayo sin Filtrar (an unfiltered amber beer. Yum!) and had a giant steak sandwich.
Our final morning we took a ferry to the small fishing town of Corral and visited an old fort and ate some sea-food empanadas before heading south again.
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