Saturday, December 3, 2011

Into The Heartland of Germanic Chile

From Valdivia to Orsono to Puerto Varas and finally Puerto Montt this is the heartland of Germanic Chile. Wiki has a basic overview (as accurate as Wiki can be). Interesting enough but after 3 days of climbing, trekking and all things outdoors I am looking for one thing and one thing only.  The Kunstsmann Brewery!!
This was not a quest of 11th Century Crusades proportions but I did have a quest. That and a map.

A 15 minute walk and a 5 minute bus ride and I reached the promised land. I did the only thing a guy can do in this situation. I ordered 1 of everything from the menu. Its not as impressive as you think, those are 3 oz glasses but an amazing way to try each type of beer. The winner for the rest of the day was the dark Boch.
Draft in Chile is Shope. I came back into town with a bounce in my step. I was minding my own business when I happened about a Shoperia or draft house. Oh Oh!! In I went with only the best of intentions. Well it should have been called a sausagaria as this was definately a Latino sports bar. Whatever, there was a division 3 soccer game on and I wanted a beer. I had not noticed until I settled in that is was also a smoke house. Everyone smoking as thier maximum capacity. It was not awful and ignorable. Lets cut to the end of the game, and I can not make this up. The second the game ended, I mean the whistle was blowing, the barmaid opend the front door and turned on the large overhead air filters. The smoke was gone in about 3 minutes. So part of the machoism in Chile is sitting in a bar watching sports and sucking in second hand smoke. Boneheads!

There was still lots of time in the day so off to the fishmarket I went..well wobbled. Each fish market I go to is a little different and this was takes the prize. First off the main fish here was Conger Eel. I had it in the Refugio and its great but what an ugly ass fish. The boys were lined up at the back of thier stalls gutting and cleaning fish with such precsion and skill that nothing was wasted. They even sold the fish heads for I guess soup but whatever I can not comprehend everything. The market was right on the Rio Valdivia and each morning the boats bring in thier catch so it does not get any fresher then that.


The Sea Lions had this place figured out thats for sure. There were scraps to be had and the big old fat boys just sat behind the stalls waiting for lunch. I mean Big Old Fat! Lazy bastards probably could not hunt anymore if they had to. Pelicans, cormorants, sea gulls and various other birds were also hanging around for the easy pickings. Now I am not a fish guy but I think that someone has to think that tourists would pay good $$ for a bag of fish parts to feed the sea lions. That being said you know someone would fall in, get bit or do some other stupid tourist thing.

The next 4 days are going to be mellow and low key as I prepare for my voyage on the Navimag through the fiords of Pantagonia from the 9th to the 12th. We leave from Puerto Montt which lies less than 200 km from Valdiva. That gives me time to stop in Orsono for day then a couple days in Puerto Varas keeping the bus rides to under a couple hours will be a nice change.

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