Posted 11 February 2007
Since complaining of the cooler than expected weather it has been beautiful, and we still haven´t experienced any of the rain for which the south is famous.
Discovered a great new way of learning Spanish. Visit El Rincon and sit in a warm round wooden tub, which seats eight people, with seven talkative women and you have to start chatting. Very good for me, and I felt my confidence with the language rising rapidly. The even better sounding alternative is to visit at night, the area being dimly lit by solar powered lights and the style is to drink cocktails in the tubs - I didn't inquire about the state of dress, but used my imagination at its most vivid. The great shame i s that such linguistic progress hasn't continued in the same vein, the problem being that the Chileans like me are rather reserved and wait to be spoken to. In fact its rather like traveling in Europe - I shall have to come out of my shell.
El Rincon was marvelous for other reasons, and was clearly one of the great days which gave us an enormous lift. We decided to take a bus to Conaripe the only other sizable village on the Calafquen lake so as to get closer to the site of several hot springs hoping to pick up a cheap lift. Conaripe is a one street town but which nevertheless gave the impression of being cleaner, more modern and more go ahead than the much bigger Lican Ray. The Tourist Office really did give tourist information and when enquiring about getting to the hot springs the girl immediately ran outside and pointed to the waiting minibus. We were going to Vergelas, the most publicized for 10K each for a 14 km trip on unmade roads including entrance, but when we got there the driver asked if we would like to go on a further 3km to El Rincon which he said was beautiful with a salta de agua, for a further 2K. Not knowing whether this was just a ruse to extract more money we decided to continue. It was the right decision. Instead of a Hot Spring Theme park complete with holiday cabinas and water chutes he had brought us to an unspoiled natural spot, with a huge waterfall cascading into one end from a mountain covered like the rest of the countryside in large deciduous trees with red flowers climbing up their trunks and other red ones on holly like trees. As for bathing there was a choice between a few larger fibre-glass pools for the nervous starters, the tubs I have just described, or the natural pools almost under the waterfall where the bonus was to cover yourself with smooth black mud gathered from the bottom of the pool, said to be very good for the skin.
They also provided home made soup, vegetable quiches, cakes and coffee all at extremely reasonable prices. The sun in contrast to the previous days blazed down on us, though there was plenty of shade, some pools were in the sun, others shaded by the trees, the choice changing as the sun slowly moved around. At 7pm as promised the minibus driver returned and took a full load back to Conaripe. The day was only spoiled by being over-charged only 0.10K for the bus back, till I realised that besides being mischanged I had bought only one ticket, so I returned to the desk and got the other ticket and paid only the proper difference. She didn't complain for long in face of the others in the queue and my new found confidence in Spanish.
Being overcharged or feeling vulnerable to theft is completely unusual in Chile. It´s also delightful after running the guantlet of traffic in China for 60 days to find that here drivers always stop at pedestrian crossings, indeed if you are hesitating about crossing they wave you across, and on several occasions they have done this when we were just waiting at the side of the road without the benefit of a crossing.
We learnt in our tubs a Chilean expression 'cachai', their way of saying you´ve got it, that the water in the lakes was warm and made for very pleasant swimming, a fact which I am willing to believe represented a lost opportunity for we had already decided to move on the next morning. As we couldn't get a bus that day to Puerto Montt we decided to go to Valdivia on the coast instead. Another of those inspired happen-chances.
The bus journey gave us another chance to study the Chilean countryside of the central plain. Very green and gently undulating with small higgledy piggledy fields full of weeds and wild flowers and a huge variety of deciduous tress, with mixed farming, some dairy, some beef, some wheat and a few sheep, run from small wooden farmsteads. Joan and I both felt it resembled, our Warwickshire homeland, the English midlands, representative of the years before the onset of modern highly intensive farming.
Valdivia is a wonderful discovery for those with the time to explore and breath in the very pleasant atmosphere, we are spending four nights here after initially booking for only two. It is surrounded on three sides by water in fact two rivers join to form a wide estuary running out to the sea. We saw the celebration for the 450 th anniversary of the founding of the city, which has many times been destroyed in earthqukes, the last being 1960 and by a Tsunami. The Army, Navy, Airforce and Police goose-stepped their way past the dignitaries, followed by a popular march past of the firemen and then by dancing troups from across Chile and other South American countries in their national costume.
The beauty queen La Reina de los Rios collected the keys to her car.
As you would expect there is little left in the way of Spanish Colonial architecture but they are once again rebuilding the city (about half the size of Swansea) concentrating on the picturesque water front with its white pleasure craft and a very impressive fish market full daily with a huge variety of fish and shellfish.
That afternoon we continued after this unexpected interuption to catch a bus to the nearby fishing village of Niebla. Fishing in bright yellow open boats some with small gaff sails.
Twice we tried to get off the minibus but each time the conductor insisted we wanted to stay for what we now know was El Fuerte, the presence of which we not been aware since we were intent only on lunching in the fish restaurants. Two Spanish forts facing each other across the estuary are being restored. There were magnificent views of the crystal blue estuary from the fort, reminiscent to me of the colour of Saguenay in north Quebec. A fort building had been turned into a museum, with a large number of posters, drawings, accurate old maps and paintings describing in Spanish the changing history of the area, which had been for a long time a Spanish stronghold until usurped by the new republics navy led by Lord Cochrane, a disgraced English naval parliamentarian and friend of Bernard O'Higgins, thus leading the independence forces on behalf of the indigenous people.
Then we walked back towards Valdivia first stopping at the Muestra Costumbrista y Foklorica... de La Municipal Niebla. Starting that very day they had erected a stage on which artists were singing and playing acoustic guitars. There were the four rows of stalls, the first two serving food, mostly sea food and fish but also a huge variety of corn based meals with chicken and steak and of course empanadas, an excellent cake stall and one selling draft Kunstmann Beer, which is brewed locally. On the first occasion we opted for fish, Hake and Bass, served with nice potatoes and salad, 4.30K for us both. For the very first time someone came up to us saying 'you are not from here are you'? It turned out she had been in London for a week some time ago and spoke good English. Unfortunately her small child decided to run off and she had to leave, but not before she had told us that the best night was the end of the two week festival which had just started, the evening is called their Venice Night and the river is filled by a carnival of lit and decorated boats, this year that means the 24 February, too late for us - but then you can't expect to win them all.
When the show finished we walked down onto the beach and around to the first bus stop where small ferries crossed the estuary for 0.60K to the other fortified village Corral. A lovely trip stopping at an island in the middle of the estuary (one of thirty we now learn) and taking about half an hour. A nice walk around soon brought us to the other fort just as a costume version of the storming had been enacted, and then down to another smaller harbour with just a couple of small boats and a stone breakwater.
Next day we went to the park of Saval which was Valdivias equivalent of Niebla the day before. It was a big park with a section devoted to wooden statues which unfortunately we didn't look at properly, food and drink stalls where we discovered that antichuchos were shish kebabs. Sitting at a table opposite were a group of horsemen having their lunch. Joan observed that they didn't drink and drive. Beautiful Arab horses were being walked up and down having just arrived for the week in their horse boxes. A large open circular stadium was not far away and and at 3pm the horse activities started.
The whole show was a competition on the control of a bullock by a pair of horsemen. The competitors were obviously local farmers, often father and son and in one case a very young and skillfull rider operating with his grandfather. Thirty pairs of riders started and this was reduced to the final four after three rounds. Three got prizes which appeared to be solely rosettes.
For the competition the circular ring was switched between a small oval sector and the complete circuit. A bullock was released just in front of the waiting horses who then had to make sure it did three circuits of the oval at the gallop staying against the fences, several bullocks tried to escape by jumping the metre high wooden walls and just one succeeded, then the gate was opened to reveal the full ring one rider had to position himself behind the bullock to drive him on whilst keeping him from the inside berth whilst the other rode rapidly side stepping at the shoulder of the bullock until half way round where there was a padded area of wall, at this point the outer rider put in what a Rugby man would call a big hit with the horses shoulder stopping the bullock dead and then they turned it and repeated the exercise in the anti clockwise direction, before turning a second time and escorting it at walking pace to the exit. Each manoeuvre was marked though we never quite discovered what represented the perfect hit. The clever bullocks refused to get up after each hit until pulled up by the tail and the horns and perhaps the odd prod with their spurs. Initially we feared that the bullock had broken a leg but in fact they were only play acting.
The skill of the riding was superb with tremendous acceleration, and especially the fast side stepping, which until then we had only associated with dressage. I know grandaughter Rachel, a keen horsewoman, thinks it cruel to get a a horse to move in this unnatural way, but she might change her mind after seeing them do so at high speed, matching the speed of the horse galloping straight on the inside, and realising how essential it was to cattle ranching.
We watched two such displays before leaving and walked backed to the hotel on the other side of town because we wanted to photograph the city in the low western light as we walked back across the bridge.
All this for 0.10K each, we were prepared to pay the full adult entrance to the park of 0.30K, but were only asked for the lower fee obviously being instantly recognised as eligible for the lower price for senior citizens and children. At this price I am almost begrudging the 0.10k charged here for toilets, for a man with prostate this is the major expense, but it does ensure a plentiful supply of well kept public toilets.
In the evening we went back into town to eat and to watch the free Tango and Swing show on a stage near the river. It was a little disappointing though there was a range of acts. Far better had been the group of nine young kids wandering round town, including just one girl, standing and swinging the drums with their knees to keep the latin rhythm. The leader of the drum orchestra had a steel kettle drum to stamp out changes in the rhythm and the overall leader just tapped out the beat or played bongos.
Today, Sunday 11 Feb, after writing the first part of this posting we decided to return to Niebla for lunch. The show was far better than the first day with a huge variety of local artists, all still with acoustic guitars. For lunch we both had Paila Marina, Paila just means the style of earthen-ware dish in which it is cooked, Marina comes from the fact that it was essentially like a Moules Mariniere, but though mostly large mussels it had other shellfish including clams, something with the texture of a large cockle, and others possibly goose barnacles that we could not identify, plus half a sausage, a good sized piece of hake, coriander and a chilli pepper, to eat or not at your pleasure.
Tomorrow morning at 9.30 we are leaving by Cruz del Sur bus which goes direct to Castro on the island of Chiloe, just south of Puerto Montt. This journey including the ferry to the island is costing us 7K each. We have been staying at the Casa Grande, for 25K including two breakfasts right next to the bus station, and eating our breakfasts in a long dining room over looking the river. With luck Chiloe too should be in festival so as to extend the attractions of late summer holidays.
Since complaining of the cooler than expected weather it has been beautiful, and we still haven´t experienced any of the rain for which the south is famous.
Discovered a great new way of learning Spanish. Visit El Rincon and sit in a warm round wooden tub, which seats eight people, with seven talkative women and you have to start chatting. Very good for me, and I felt my confidence with the language rising rapidly. The even better sounding alternative is to visit at night, the area being dimly lit by solar powered lights and the style is to drink cocktails in the tubs - I didn't inquire about the state of dress, but used my imagination at its most vivid. The great shame i s that such linguistic progress hasn't continued in the same vein, the problem being that the Chileans like me are rather reserved and wait to be spoken to. In fact its rather like traveling in Europe - I shall have to come out of my shell.
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| BATHING CHILEAN STYLE |
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They also provided home made soup, vegetable quiches, cakes and coffee all at extremely reasonable prices. The sun in contrast to the previous days blazed down on us, though there was plenty of shade, some pools were in the sun, others shaded by the trees, the choice changing as the sun slowly moved around. At 7pm as promised the minibus driver returned and took a full load back to Conaripe. The day was only spoiled by being over-charged only 0.10K for the bus back, till I realised that besides being mischanged I had bought only one ticket, so I returned to the desk and got the other ticket and paid only the proper difference. She didn't complain for long in face of the others in the queue and my new found confidence in Spanish.
Being overcharged or feeling vulnerable to theft is completely unusual in Chile. It´s also delightful after running the guantlet of traffic in China for 60 days to find that here drivers always stop at pedestrian crossings, indeed if you are hesitating about crossing they wave you across, and on several occasions they have done this when we were just waiting at the side of the road without the benefit of a crossing.
We learnt in our tubs a Chilean expression 'cachai', their way of saying you´ve got it, that the water in the lakes was warm and made for very pleasant swimming, a fact which I am willing to believe represented a lost opportunity for we had already decided to move on the next morning. As we couldn't get a bus that day to Puerto Montt we decided to go to Valdivia on the coast instead. Another of those inspired happen-chances.
The bus journey gave us another chance to study the Chilean countryside of the central plain. Very green and gently undulating with small higgledy piggledy fields full of weeds and wild flowers and a huge variety of deciduous tress, with mixed farming, some dairy, some beef, some wheat and a few sheep, run from small wooden farmsteads. Joan and I both felt it resembled, our Warwickshire homeland, the English midlands, representative of the years before the onset of modern highly intensive farming.
Valdivia is a wonderful discovery for those with the time to explore and breath in the very pleasant atmosphere, we are spending four nights here after initially booking for only two. It is surrounded on three sides by water in fact two rivers join to form a wide estuary running out to the sea. We saw the celebration for the 450 th anniversary of the founding of the city, which has many times been destroyed in earthqukes, the last being 1960 and by a Tsunami. The Army, Navy, Airforce and Police goose-stepped their way past the dignitaries, followed by a popular march past of the firemen and then by dancing troups from across Chile and other South American countries in their national costume.
The beauty queen La Reina de los Rios collected the keys to her car.
As you would expect there is little left in the way of Spanish Colonial architecture but they are once again rebuilding the city (about half the size of Swansea) concentrating on the picturesque water front with its white pleasure craft and a very impressive fish market full daily with a huge variety of fish and shellfish.
That afternoon we continued after this unexpected interuption to catch a bus to the nearby fishing village of Niebla. Fishing in bright yellow open boats some with small gaff sails.
Twice we tried to get off the minibus but each time the conductor insisted we wanted to stay for what we now know was El Fuerte, the presence of which we not been aware since we were intent only on lunching in the fish restaurants. Two Spanish forts facing each other across the estuary are being restored. There were magnificent views of the crystal blue estuary from the fort, reminiscent to me of the colour of Saguenay in north Quebec. A fort building had been turned into a museum, with a large number of posters, drawings, accurate old maps and paintings describing in Spanish the changing history of the area, which had been for a long time a Spanish stronghold until usurped by the new republics navy led by Lord Cochrane, a disgraced English naval parliamentarian and friend of Bernard O'Higgins, thus leading the independence forces on behalf of the indigenous people.
Then we walked back towards Valdivia first stopping at the Muestra Costumbrista y Foklorica... de La Municipal Niebla. Starting that very day they had erected a stage on which artists were singing and playing acoustic guitars. There were the four rows of stalls, the first two serving food, mostly sea food and fish but also a huge variety of corn based meals with chicken and steak and of course empanadas, an excellent cake stall and one selling draft Kunstmann Beer, which is brewed locally. On the first occasion we opted for fish, Hake and Bass, served with nice potatoes and salad, 4.30K for us both. For the very first time someone came up to us saying 'you are not from here are you'? It turned out she had been in London for a week some time ago and spoke good English. Unfortunately her small child decided to run off and she had to leave, but not before she had told us that the best night was the end of the two week festival which had just started, the evening is called their Venice Night and the river is filled by a carnival of lit and decorated boats, this year that means the 24 February, too late for us - but then you can't expect to win them all.
When the show finished we walked down onto the beach and around to the first bus stop where small ferries crossed the estuary for 0.60K to the other fortified village Corral. A lovely trip stopping at an island in the middle of the estuary (one of thirty we now learn) and taking about half an hour. A nice walk around soon brought us to the other fort just as a costume version of the storming had been enacted, and then down to another smaller harbour with just a couple of small boats and a stone breakwater.
Next day we went to the park of Saval which was Valdivias equivalent of Niebla the day before. It was a big park with a section devoted to wooden statues which unfortunately we didn't look at properly, food and drink stalls where we discovered that antichuchos were shish kebabs. Sitting at a table opposite were a group of horsemen having their lunch. Joan observed that they didn't drink and drive. Beautiful Arab horses were being walked up and down having just arrived for the week in their horse boxes. A large open circular stadium was not far away and and at 3pm the horse activities started.
The whole show was a competition on the control of a bullock by a pair of horsemen. The competitors were obviously local farmers, often father and son and in one case a very young and skillfull rider operating with his grandfather. Thirty pairs of riders started and this was reduced to the final four after three rounds. Three got prizes which appeared to be solely rosettes.
For the competition the circular ring was switched between a small oval sector and the complete circuit. A bullock was released just in front of the waiting horses who then had to make sure it did three circuits of the oval at the gallop staying against the fences, several bullocks tried to escape by jumping the metre high wooden walls and just one succeeded, then the gate was opened to reveal the full ring one rider had to position himself behind the bullock to drive him on whilst keeping him from the inside berth whilst the other rode rapidly side stepping at the shoulder of the bullock until half way round where there was a padded area of wall, at this point the outer rider put in what a Rugby man would call a big hit with the horses shoulder stopping the bullock dead and then they turned it and repeated the exercise in the anti clockwise direction, before turning a second time and escorting it at walking pace to the exit. Each manoeuvre was marked though we never quite discovered what represented the perfect hit. The clever bullocks refused to get up after each hit until pulled up by the tail and the horns and perhaps the odd prod with their spurs. Initially we feared that the bullock had broken a leg but in fact they were only play acting.
The skill of the riding was superb with tremendous acceleration, and especially the fast side stepping, which until then we had only associated with dressage. I know grandaughter Rachel, a keen horsewoman, thinks it cruel to get a a horse to move in this unnatural way, but she might change her mind after seeing them do so at high speed, matching the speed of the horse galloping straight on the inside, and realising how essential it was to cattle ranching.
We watched two such displays before leaving and walked backed to the hotel on the other side of town because we wanted to photograph the city in the low western light as we walked back across the bridge.
All this for 0.10K each, we were prepared to pay the full adult entrance to the park of 0.30K, but were only asked for the lower fee obviously being instantly recognised as eligible for the lower price for senior citizens and children. At this price I am almost begrudging the 0.10k charged here for toilets, for a man with prostate this is the major expense, but it does ensure a plentiful supply of well kept public toilets.
In the evening we went back into town to eat and to watch the free Tango and Swing show on a stage near the river. It was a little disappointing though there was a range of acts. Far better had been the group of nine young kids wandering round town, including just one girl, standing and swinging the drums with their knees to keep the latin rhythm. The leader of the drum orchestra had a steel kettle drum to stamp out changes in the rhythm and the overall leader just tapped out the beat or played bongos.
Today, Sunday 11 Feb, after writing the first part of this posting we decided to return to Niebla for lunch. The show was far better than the first day with a huge variety of local artists, all still with acoustic guitars. For lunch we both had Paila Marina, Paila just means the style of earthen-ware dish in which it is cooked, Marina comes from the fact that it was essentially like a Moules Mariniere, but though mostly large mussels it had other shellfish including clams, something with the texture of a large cockle, and others possibly goose barnacles that we could not identify, plus half a sausage, a good sized piece of hake, coriander and a chilli pepper, to eat or not at your pleasure.
Tomorrow morning at 9.30 we are leaving by Cruz del Sur bus which goes direct to Castro on the island of Chiloe, just south of Puerto Montt. This journey including the ferry to the island is costing us 7K each. We have been staying at the Casa Grande, for 25K including two breakfasts right next to the bus station, and eating our breakfasts in a long dining room over looking the river. With luck Chiloe too should be in festival so as to extend the attractions of late summer holidays.
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