El Sur: Chiloe, Valdivia, Pucon

My next stop as I ventured farther north was the island of Chiloe, famous for its myths and legends. My first stop on the island was the Chiloe National Park on the Pacific coast. To try to understand the beauty, try to imagine a pristine coast, surrounded by dense lush forest with absolutely zero developed tourism. Think Hawaii minus the tourists and hotels. As you can imagine, getting to this somewhat remote area took a little bit of effort, but was not without its own value. I actually ran into a group of Notre Dame grads, as well as a couple of students from Carleton College in MN who ran cross-country with a high school friend and recognized my Armstrong High School windbreaker. I ended up hanging out with these guys for the next couple days and had a blast. We managed to bargain our way into a night in an unfurnished cabin right in the park for the whopping price of $7 each! I've never been so pleased to throw a sleeping bag on the hard floor. After the national park, we headed to Castro, the capital of the island. The island is famous for its seafood and palafitos, or houses on stilts hanging over the water. It's a really unique city and I wish I would have had more time to explore. As far as food went, I grabbed a $2 bowl of choritos, or mussels, from a vendor and ate my fill of a pichanga, or a plate of french fries covered with steak, chicken, sausage, cheese, avocado, tomato, onion, and just about everything else you could imagine. A delicious heart attack waiting to happen!

The next stop was Valdivia, a college-town with heavy German influence built on the convergence of two rivers. I enjoyed it because it isn't your typical sterile tourist town, but rather a hardworking and sometimes dirty city with some real character. One day in Valdivia I bussed/hitch-hiked on a school bus out to Curiñanco, a small, rarely visited private park set beautifully on the coast. As I pushed my way through overgrown trails, it was obvious that no one had been here for a while. Another big destination in Valdivia is the famous Kuntsmann brewery, home of the definitive best beer in Chile. They've got about 8 beers on tap, some of which are unfiltered varieties that are not sold elsewhere, and it's easy to see why we decided that this would be the perfect place to celebrate Shu's 21st birthday. I had met up with him here in Valdivia for this very purpose. We ordered a columna of beer, or a big giant 3 liter, probably meter tall, tube of Torobayo sin filtrar, our definitive choice after running through the taste tests of the others. We mixed the beer with the biggest burgers I have ever seen and had a great time.

I headed east to Villarica and Pucón, two cities that sit on opposite sides of Lago Villarica and in close proximity to the famous Volcán Villarica (more to come on that in the next post). The first day, after staying in a great hostel owned by a Swiss couple, I set off on a full-day mountain bike trip to the base of the volcano. It was exhausting, but something about having an active volcano in front of you the whole time is oddly inspiring and motivational. In Pucón, the undisputed adventure capital of Chile, I did my best to tackle all the adventure I could. The first day I went hydrospeeding, a sport I had never heard of, but knew I had to do as soon as someone told me about it. It involves putting on a wetsuit, flippers, and a helmet, grabbing a glorified boogie board, and running down class IV rapids. The guide actually sent us down the more extreme of the two rivers near Pucón, something he hadn't even done in several months. It was a pure adrenaline ride. Check out this video. It's hard to make out which guy is me, but you get the idea. The next day, I went zip-lining through a canopy course. There were about 15 wires hanging from trees more than a hundred feet up in the air. The biggest thrill was going across the same river that I had hydrospeeded on the previous day. Although safety was definitely very relaxed, and involved us actually clipping ourselves in and out without a safety line, it was a blast and am glad I did it (good logic, right mom!). I also went for a day-hike in the nature sanctuary El Cañi, and climbed to a spectacular lookout with views of 5 surrounding volcanoes.