Valdivia, Chile

Kara says:

Valdivia. See how grey and dull and miserable everything looks in this picture? Well imagine this is the cheeriest, warmest and sunniest it gets. This is Valdivia. The people from Muerto Montt call it (and I have joined them with relish) Maldivia.



In all fairness I'm sure it's a perfectly nice town, there's a walk along the river, they have real pubs and good beer, some nice studenty cafes/restaurants, I'm sure it's lovely. But for three days it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained. And then rained some more.

But we had a great oul' time: photo of me with the first submarine to sail around cape horn, the O'Brien (an O'Brien with an O'Brien). The market had loads of fabulous fresh fish. There were sealions.





Karl wants to say that he liked Valdivia. He was happy there. They were good times.

Yeah, right.

Karl says: No really, I did. Very pleasant town. Very Galway like (admittedly rain included). Great student vibe, plenty of interesting "Java's" like hangouts, real bars and people order pints of beer! PINTS! EACH! I think they might even make that plural in a night out.

Kara says: This is true. If there's two or three men drinking together they order a 600ml or even (gasp) a litre each as opposed to Argentines who would share one between everyone. And girls in Chile drink big beers too. I have even seen groups of girls out together, without men (unheard of anywhere else), drinking beer! I declare Chilean women the most emancipated in all of South America.

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