The dinner "experience" at Peumayan Restaurant |
In between getting the boat ready for our trip into Patagonian waters, we decided to take a couple of trips to see the country. The first was to Santiago to meet up with our friend Dina, who was in town for work. It was 33oC when we were there, so much warmer than we were used to! We wandered lazily around town for an afternoon, ate ice cream, had sundowners in a rooftop bar with a lovely view, and then ate a truly spectacular meal at a restaurant called Peumayan. They specialize in authentic Chilean cuisine and served a 3 course meal that consisted of 22 “bites”.
Amazing presentation |
Moving too slow equals a kiss from the Ocean |
The port in downtown Valparaiso |
Now the view is of container ships and a big, dirty busy street and set
of train tracks. The waterfront
boardwalk between Vina del Mar, just up the coast and Valparaiso ends at the
beginning of town. It is such a shame. We read somewhere that people gave up on
Valparaiso about 50 years ago and let most of the old buildings fall into
horrible disrepair.
House where we had snacks |
It was interesting, but still not quite what
I expected. It is also the only place we’ve
ever travelled where a local told us that the area we were in (the tourist
area) was very dangerous for tourists.
At 4pm in the afternoon…
Despite that slight downer, we had another
great meal with a view of the whole bay, and thanks to the heroic driving of a collectivo
driver, we managed to catch our bus back to Santiago.
And no, we didn’t get mugged.
Bariloche region, Argentina |
Our next trip was to San Carlos de Bariloche, which is a
small town in Argentina just on the other side of the Andes mountains. As Chile only allows visitors to stay for 90
days at a time, we had to cross the border to start our 90 day clock
again. As renting a car gets challenging
when you want to cross a border (and expensive), we opted for the bus. It took us 9.5 hours to drive there, but we had
nice, lie back seats and enjoyed a nice, quiet ride. The scenery through the “Region to los Rios”
(River Region) in Chile into the mountains was spectacular. The drive through the mountains was also
pretty stunning. Unfortunately the bus
only stopped at each border (an interesting experience) and so we didn’t get to
take any pictures.
Stunning scenery |
Bariloche itself is on a big lake that connects with at
least 7 other lakes. The town isn’t
anything to write home about, but the area is beautiful. It is a major ski area in the winter, but has
recently become a summer destination as well, as evidenced by the billion
tourists in town. We stayed in a lovely
hotel right in the heart of the city where we had a fantastic view of the
ocean. Their website claimed they had
the best breakfast in Bariloche and they didn’t disappoint.
As we only had one day in town, we decided to do the two
activities that involved getting to the top of a hill so we could get a good
view of the area. We took the local bus
out to the first hill, Cerro Campinario, about 20km out of town and then took a
chairlift to the top of the hill. We
could have walked, but I’d burned my feet the day before the trip on either our
boat deck or on a hot water bottle, I’m not sure which (yes, in one day the
deck was hot enough to cook an egg during the day and it was cold enough at
night to warrant a hot water bottle – gotta love Valdivia). My sore feet were not happy to be in shoes, let
alone hiking anywhere! The views from
the top were spectacular. We finally understood
why everyone kept telling us that Bariloche looks like Switzerland.
After returning to town, we caught another bus to the base
of yet another viewpoint. This time we
took a gondola to the top of Cerro Otto.
The view from the top wasn’t quite as spectacular, but we spent a long
time watching the paragliders taking off and circling around the top of the
mountain. Very cool.
Our other town activities included eating in two great
restaurants recommended by friends of Dina’s, and sampling the local ice cream
- twice. Bariloche has a big Swiss
influence so there are chocolate shops and ice cream parlours on every corner. Definitely my kind of town!
Fixing the Sailtrack on the mast |
Alas, a weather window for heading south was shaping up for
Feb 4th and so we arrived back in Valdivia late Saturday night,
after a 2.5 hour delay waiting for the bus in Bariloche. Despite the late night, we were up early on
Sunday in an attempt to get the boat ready for the coastal passage. As the wind blows from the south 99.9% of the
time in the summer, finding a 30 hour period where the wind was going to blow
from the north was like finding a pot of gold.
We had to take it. So, we did a
million last minute jobs, cleared out with the Port Captain and
provisioned. It was exhausting, but we
threw off the dock lines at 11:45am on Feb 4th and started on our
way! It was sad to leave so many good
friends in Valdivia, but we are all Cruisers so I’m sure we’ll meet again one
day.
We headed down the river (against the current, of course)
and sailed out of beautiful sunshine and 30oC, into fog and 10oC at the mouth
of the river! Brrrr. The 135nm trip down the coast was uneventful,
but very cold. With the fog and the fact
there was no moon that night, it was probably the darkest passage we have ever
done. It was very difficult to discern
between the sea and sky. The only light was from the phosphorescence in the
water, which was the brightest I’ve ever seen.
As promised by the weather gods, we had strong north winds the entire
time and so we cruised along at 5 knots (should have been faster, but major
current against us) and arrived in an anchorage at the top end of Isla Chiloe
yesterday afternoon. We are close to the
town of Ancud and so we have marginal internet.
We took today off as a rest day (although Gary is in the back fixing the
heater), but will continue through the pass and into the inner waters between
Chiloe and the mainland tomorrow. The
pass runs at 8-9 knots and so you have to time it correctly.
We had a nice, quiet night and morning at anchor,
but it is now blowing >20 knots from the south in the bay. We are definitely glad we made it here before
the south winds started up again…
Our Patagonian travels begin!
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