Tuesday, April 8

Although we needed the first few days in Santiago to get rid of our jetlag we were able to do a couple of things (but in a more lazy pace than in Japan). We stayed in a nice hostel and celebrated Jeroen's birthday in style (thanks all for the nice posts in our guestbook!). We'd met a Dutch couple Marriette and Hein who visited their daughter who studies in Santiago and had birthday the day before, and they gave us some candles for the birthday 'cake' (a piece of bread) and offered us a bottle of wine during the dinner we had with them; thanks again!

One of the things that makes the difference between a holiday and a longer trip is that you have to go to the hairdresser (or decide to get a hippy look), so that's what Jeroen did. The hairdresser was a typical hairdresser: they like to talk. So she talked for the whole 45 minutes, and when Jeroen said he didn't understand it (about every other sentence), she tended to simply repeat the same sentence, but then almost shouting as if she thought that made it easier to understand...

The sights in Santiago are not particularly interesting so we decided to head south after 3 days. We took the night bus to Puerto Montt (about 1200 km). We paid about 45 Euro for the whole trip, but for that you get a seat like a first class seat in an airplane; seats recline 180 degrees and are comfortable enough to get some sleep. And breakfast was included :)
The island of Chiloe lies opposite of Puerto Montt. It has a very friendly atmosphere and although it rained a couple of times per day (as expected), we enjoyed the town and the views. The island looks a bit like the Dutch "Wadden" islands in the North sea. We visited a local party where they made fresh apple juice and apple wine with the use of an old press. The locals there were very friendly and happy to talk with us.
The dogs on the other hand weren't that friendly; one evening when we were looking for a place to have dinner a streetdog all of a sudden bit Jeroen in his leg. No serious injuries, but since it was bleeding we decided to go to the hospital to get an anti-Rabies injection. We're happy we also took the Rabies-vaccination before we went on our trip, then you have more time to get the after-bite-injection and you need less injections than without the vaccination.

Monday, April 14

After Chiloe, we went up north, to Puerto Varas. This is a nice town, very German (German settlement after 1852 was centered around here) with lots of Kuchen (cake), many hotels with German names, German streetnames and even a copy of a church in the German Black Forest. The town is located at a lake, with a beautiful snow-capped volcano in the back. After a rainy day, we had 2 beautiful days which we spent driving to waterfalls, some other lakes and an afternoon horseriding.
We had a bit bad experience with horseriding from Mexico 4 years ago (tame, small horses that didn't listen, bad saddles, hurting legs and butts), so we wanted to get some teaching this time. It was a 3-hour trek, where we had good horses and a nice teacher. She explained something on how to steer the horse and how to move and then we immediately went on a trek through the hills and the forest! Stepping and galloping, we had a lot of fun. Jeroen fell of his horse once, but luckily he was fine except for some aching ribs (he really likes animals ;). The horse ran away, but was quickly caught by our guide. After all it was a great experience and we'll problably do some more horseriding once our muscles have recovered.

Valdivia was our next stop and it was less interesting. It's a town at the sea, at some point in the 19th century occupied by the Dutch. We went to see the fortress by the sea, relaxed and then moved on to Pucon. That's where we're now and where the next update will continue.

Below this you'll find a link to a short video with Jeroen galopping on his horse.