| Jan 9, 2006 - Valdivia, Chile
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 | Sea lions at the riverside market
| | More sea lions and birds
| | A sea lion waiting to be fed
| | Way up close
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 | An action shot
| | The market stalls
| | The river from a bridge
| | The market from the bridge
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 | More sea lions
| | Another close up shot
| | Still more sea lions
| | And a few more
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 | Presidential candidate Piñera, arriving
| | Close up of Piñera
| | The crowds around him
| | The Piñera banners (to prove its him)
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| Valdivia is a small town on a bay on the coast of Chile. It is a peaceful and mostly quiet university town, especially since I was there during summer break. Lonely Planet describes it as totally unmissable, which is part of why I chose it, but I don't see where that is coming from. The other reason I went there is that it is home to the Kuntsmaan brewery, that best beer of Chile I talked about earlier. But as I was there alone, and was actually pretty sick with a bad cold of some sort, I ended up not even going. On the bus ride down I saw my second movie with The Rock in it on this trip, Doom (the first was Standing Tall). What did I do to deserve this? At least they followed it up with Danny the Dog, which is somewhat better, relatively.
I spent two full days in Valdivia, which were pretty much an extension of the slow-moving relaxed alone time I was spending in Santiago, with a lot of photo uploading as well. My first day I saw some of what the town had to offer, like their famous riverside port market that has tons of sea lions hanging out waiting for scraps thrown to them by the vendors. It also has a very picturesque bridge connecting the town to a string of islands that houses a university, some old historic forts, and the brewery, among other attractions. Later that day I was back at the market looking around, when all of a sudden a large caravan of cars drived by. Let me give you a bit of background. The presidential elections in Chile were less than a week away, the coming Sunday (and today was Monday). The incumbent party had Bachelet, a female, as their candidate, which would mark the first female president in Chilean history, and possibly in South America as well. I can't remember, I know there have been female heads of state, I think, but maybe not presidents, or something like that. If you're interested go look it up, I don't know. Anyway, she is running against Pinera, and it is a very close call to the end. So for my whole time in Chile there have been banners and supporters and people handing things out for the both of them. So when I saw this Pinera caravan pull up I thought nothing of it, just another publicity drive-by. But people started rushing over to it, and I was already standing right there, so I just stayed. Next thing I know Pinera himself gets out of the car and is standing a few yards from me. I think we made eye contact. So it was cool to see this whole political stunt go on in front of me with the hand-shaking and all that, and then he boarded a boat that was going to take him around the rivers and bays of the area with flags waving, until he returned that night for a speech. Pretty cool experience.
Even better is what happened next though. While standing there I start talking to some guy on a bike, and he asks me if I like basketball. Long story short, I rush back to get changed, go and meet him at the university gym, and spend the next 3 hours playing pickup 5 on 5 full-court basketball that I have missed so much. Man it felt so good, and I even played alright, for a guy who hadn't stepped foot on a court in many months. That night I just relaxed and cooked myself an old Adam classic of veggies and rice stir-fry, and worked on nursing myself back to health. Yeah, B-ball might not have been the best idea, but how could I say no? The following day I took a walk to the Botanical Gardens at the university on the other side of the bridge and relaxed there for a while, writing in my journal. I was supposed to meet the guys back at the gym again that afternoon, but my body was so sore from the day before (like after plaing soccer in Salta), especially my leg which had cramped up several times during the games but I decided to play through it. And also my cold had gotten worse, so I unfortunately had to skip it. It ended up being another chill day instead.
And I had finally heard from the guys, who since Mendoza had decided to back to Santiago and also down to visit Valparaiso since Brian and Carmin had not seen it yet. But still, we were to meet the following day in Pucon, and our adventure would begin. |
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