Fiestas Patrias, Parte I

Independence day is done right here! The 18th of September hasn't even arrived and mis amigos and I have already started celebrating along with Chile! I left last Wednesday night on 9/11 to go to Pucón with my three amigas Ali, Kaylin, and Dana. Our bus made a stop in Santiago on the way to Pucón, which was actually a bummer because we got stuck there for about 3 hours thanks to the protesters that were out for 9/11. But it was a small price to pay for getting to Pucón.

We had a ton of fun getting to cook our own meals for a change! We made some dang good food if I do say so myself. Below is Choripan... chori is short for chorizo, and pan means bread in Spanish.

Pizza making!

And you always have to have your drawer full of Alfajores! Nelly gave me 12 for my trip, and I had to share or I would've gained 5 pounds alone from those dangerous cookies. 

Arriving at Pucón for the second time was just as exciting as the first! It's incredibly nice to get away from the city and breath some mountain air... and we got a bigger dose of mountain air than we expected. We hiked Volcán Villarica, and it was by far the hardest thing I have ever done. That volcano requires every bit of metal toughness you've got. We had to rent the gear and guides. The gear consisted in boots, jacket, pants, backpack, gloves, helmet, icepick, crampons, and butt sleds. It was very cold when we left at 6:30am. We got to the base and there was a cloud on top of the volcano, which we were hoping would move so that we could summit the whole volcano. It ended up not moving but by the time we got the the base of the cloud we had been hiking for a solid 5 and 1/2 hours,  so though we were bummed it wasn't horrible to go home. I saw some of the most beautiful views of my life, and fell in love with the Andes. Descending only took about 1 and 1/2 hours because we had pieces of plastic to sit on and sled down. Yeah, I got to go sledding on a volcano! :)

That's the cloud that stopped our ascent.

We also got the chance to go rafting! 

The pics aren't great, but the other girls took some too, which I will get from them. My fingers were a little cold. After our 4 days in Pucón we took a bus to Valdivia, which is a city further south in Chile. Pucón is in the Lake Region of Chile, while Valdivia is in the River Region of Chile. I loved Valdivia! It was one of the most authentic places I've been in Chile. The people were really nice and the area was beautiful!

We went to Niebla, which is another city by Valdivia because everyone recommended that we go to this Feria (Fair) that they have every Sunday. We were thinking it was going to be more of the Artesian items we had already seen but it was better... it was FOOD! All food, and it was good food.

Nothing better than a kabob that's longer than your arm!

This is a typical Chilean dish called Pastele de Choclo. It's pretty much corn, meat, and onion all baked together. It was very good!

Kaylin and I of course had to split a sopapilla!

That is a bowl full of fresh shell fish for only $8. Unfortunately we didn't get to try everything. 

After the good food, we took a walk to the beach nearby.

Ok, this is a great story about the language barrier. We got on a bus when it started raining because we wanted to go find the famous Kunstmann Brewery. We couldn't see outside the windows so we asked a man if he would let us know where the brewery is so we could get off the bus. He said yes, and after a couple minutes we got off. Yeah.. not the Kuntsmann brewery. We had to go into a kids playland restaurant and ask directions to the brewery! Ha! We got some odd looks from the parents in there. Apparently there's a lot of microbreweries around, so we took a step out of the rain into the Salzburg brewery. We then found out from them that Kuntsmann is about 3km farther down the road. So we had a beer to warm up, then headed out to Kuntsmann. 

Yay! Kuntsmann!... das gute Bier!

We got the samplers of their 10 varieties of beer. They were really good. The darkest one (called Bock) was my favorite, because it tasted like coffee.

Our second day in Valdivia consisted in walking around the town, visiting the botanical garden, then in the afternoon we took a boat tour of the river and a town called Punucapa.

Below are pictures of the Botanical Garden at the University of Valdivia.

There is an amazing market next to the river that has all the freshly caught seafood. The best is that some of the fishermen will make bowls of ceviche right when they dock, and they sell it for $2 per bowl. Best ceviche in the world!

Every now and then we would see a sea-lion just waiting for the men to drop a piece of fish that they can snag. These guys were HUGE! They weigh half a ton, and are not the most attractive looking animals. They were so cool though, because they acted like dogs. They would bark/snort when begging for food. The men saw how fascinated we were and allowed us to feed them!

Below are pictures of the boat tour that took us up the river to Punucapa. This huge river was once just a creek, and a huge earthquake (2nd largest ever recorded) caused the ground around the river to sink 3 meters. This created a marshland type of river, and the environment is simply gorgeous!

This Catholic Church is over 100 years old. It was built by the Spanish when they came to Punucapa. 

The tour took a stop at a place that makes Chicha, which is fermented wine...

I bought myself a bottle of Chicha!

We then took a tour of another brewery!

Part I of las Fiestas Patrias was a huge success! Southern Chile is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, and has some of the most kind people I have met. They love how fascinated gringos get, and instead of laughing at us they like to show us even more of what they love. This was a sweet trip! I will write about Part II soon. It takes place in Viña del Mar, and I get to cook with my parents! Empanadas here we come! Ciao! Sending love to mis amigos y familia en los Estados Unidos!