Round The World: Valdivia - earthquakes, rivers and black-necked swans

The river

Two nights in Valdivia and one day to explore. We wondered around the town and down to the river to take a river cruise of the area. There are numerous rivers that meet up in the Valdivia area which are rather beautiful to explore. Valdivia is one of those towns that continues to survive even through tragedy. The main disaster that we heard of was that of the 1960’s earthquake which destroyed many homes and made much of the landscape drop by 3 to 4 meters. This means that once prosperous farming lands disappeared, cows and all, into what stands today as a really wide river estuary system that winds its way through the area. Hence to say some people lost everything. This large slow winding river is now home to the national bird of the region, the black necked swans.

Fruit & veg shop

The guidebook states that a further environmental disaster occurred in 2005 where about 5000 black-necked swans were poisoned due to a papermill in the region that continues to operate. The tour we took mentioned a lot about the earthquake but nothing about the swans. However, this may have been a “lost in translation” moment as we were told that the tour was in English too. “English” is really Spanish, in case you didn’t know. So, it was only when I complained that we heard a bit of the English translation via our tour-guide and a helpful English couple that we met on the boat that could interpret a bit of Spanish for us.

Valdivia and the fish market -
JP's phone does amazing panaramas.

The tour took us to visit an old German farm house that was abandoned after the earthquake and a small town where supposedly the population of men is about 3 and women about 100. Good odds some may think. But I have to say I saw more than 3 men there and the women were mostly grannies and kids.

The pier

Valdivia also has a well known fish market where giant sea lions come and bicker over scraps thrown to them, with one giant monster on a sea lion firmly seated at the major hand out point. I’m not too sure how he manages to move that amount of weight up and down! Obviously seagulls wheel overhead for any chance of extras and a few pelicans are also there for the opportunity.

Walking through the fish & veg market

Near Valdivia is the Castillo de Niebla. This is an impressive fort / castle with cannons, magazine buildings and a view to everywhere. But the highlight when we arrived was a festival parade that took about 2 hours with soldiers and kids and clowns and people on horses.

Spot the wildlife!

There was singing and dancing and marching bands. All to celebrate the Chilean national day that was to be in about 3 days’ time. This was great and we spent as much time as possible appreciating the find with us probably the only tourists there. How amazing.

JP's amazing shot of the river

How high?

Fun on the tour...

The abandoned farm house with a view of their fields in the distance!

Exploring

Before heading off toward Valparaiso, we tried to find our way to a National Park that was apparently close and quite scenic. Our GPS was useless at this point as there were no roads on it in this back area in Chile. We tried to use an old map found at the hostel to make our winding way through. The roads wound through along the coast line to a tiny fishing village where we stopped off for a bite to eat. Yummy fish - obviously - but again a mysterious menu and one waiter that kind of spoke better sign language than English. Still useful though. JP pointed it out, but we noticed that many of the people acting as waiters and waitresses are often older than in South Africa. It looks like it is considered a career here rather than a ‘filler’ for university / school students.

Just a little chilly!

The beginnings of sunset

View from the farmhouse - previously fields

After lunch, we followed the Tsunami evacuation signs as the road moved up the mountains and wound around the coast with a cliff line into the sea. Really beautiful – then it descended into dirt. It was quite an adventure, travelling through the farmsteads and villages along the coast, missing carts drawn by cows and clamp-trap local busses that hurtled around corners, all bouncing over the bumpy surface that comes with dirt roads.

Eventually the road narrowed and we met a rather large dump truck. The man leaning out the window of the puffing truck obviously spoke only Spanish. I was quite proud of my skills of asking directions and understanding him! He ended up being really helpful and pointed us in the right direction. We turned around somehow and ended up following the dump-truck (which was a blessing as all other traffic was forced to move aside for us) until he pointed wildly at the road we should follow and we waved our thanks and goodbyes.

Local transportation

We travelled for quite a while over some stunning landscape, but I have to say, we never found the national park that was around a bend somewhere ahead. Rather frustrating, but time dictated that we had to start our way up Chile toward Valparaiso.