Day 46 - They're called budget airlines for a reason

Pucon to Valdivia

Today we headed southwest-ish to Valdivia. We were backtracking a bit, but the reason was that we'd booked a cheap flight to Santiago from there on Sky Airlines, Chile's budget carrier. We were half way into our 4 hour bus trip when we received an email telling us that tomorrow's flight had been cancelled due to industrial action of some sort. We later found out that the strike was for three days - not much use to us though!

We had an accommodation booking in Santiago that we couldn't change, so we investigated buses from Valdivia to Santiago. Once we arrived we purchased tickets for the next morning, retracing some of our previous route on a 12 hour trip to Santiago.

Valdivia ended up being a pretty town on the river with an amazing fish market. The market is based along a part of the river bank, and there are sea lions there waiting in the water to be thrown fish scraps and the occasional whole fish. The sea lions are massive, and they come right up to the fish tables and sit there waiting silently, begging with large dog like brown eyes.

Please please please can I have some fish please ????

We walked along the river on a beautiful day and saw other sea lions, there are platforms on the water that look like they are constructed specially for them, we watched for a while at one platform as one sea lion tried in vain to get onto the platform, every time he made it on the others pushed him off.

I've told you before ... get off ... and stay off!

Valdivia is also known for its beer, and just near our hostal was one of the better craft beer places in town. The highlight for us at this place wasn't the beer, it was the size of the plates of food they served - we've learnt never to order the "grande" patatas bravas in future!