Vida de Valdivia – Segundo Dia

For our second day in Valdivia, we began by taking a leisurely breakfast and feeding the garden pets.

And of course, we had to do a photo op with Batman:

Then we pretty much headed straight for the Kuntzmann brewery.  We had to walk downtown and across the river to the university where we caught the No. 20 bus heading to Niebla.  The brewery isn’t too far outside of  Valdivia – less than 10 minutes by bus – so we arrived a little early.

So we took some time to take pictures while waiting for the restaurant to open.

Just before they opened the doors, a bus pulled up and unloaded about 30 Chilean senior citizens who were there for a tour.  (I guess they like to start their drinking early too.)  We were finally let inside and after meandering around, sneaking some samples, finding the museum closed for the day and watching old women buy beer -labeled souvenirs, we were finally seated.  Of course the food prices were through the roof, so my sister and her man ordered their beer and I just got some cheese empanadas.

We sat and talked, discussing what to do with our day when it started to rain outside.  With our decision made for us, we caught the bus returning to Valdivia and after picking up some fish for dinner from the market and laughing at the local beggars, headed back to the hostel.

We spent most of the afternoon in the hostel since it was cold and rainy outside.  Made a little excursion downtown to attempt to catch some of the weekend’s cultural celebration, but only lasted about 15 minutes before my sister and her guy decided to head back.  I stayed to take some pictures:

I wandered around downtown in the rain then ended up in a local chocolate shop and what a wonderful smell!  Rows and cases and shelves of truffles and cakes.  I selected a semi-random sampling of the truffles (”I’ll take two of those and two of those and two of those. Oh those look good – two of those, too.”) without really knowing what was inside them and took them to my travel buddies back at the hostel.

After finishing our dessert, I got started on our dinner for the evening while my sister’s boyfriend watched Chile’s final World Cup qualifying match with two other guys staying in the hostel.

The night’s main dish – fish tacos with a radish salsa – was adopted from this recipe.  Since I didn’t have access to all the ingredients or all the necessary tools, I just did what I could and came out with this:

I’ve made these a few times and I don’t even bother making the salsa verde anymore. I just cook the fish with oil, cumin, salt and pepper and make the radish salad with radishes, onions, cilantro, oil and lime or lemon juice.  It’s a lot faster and even allows the flavor of the radishes to come out more.  (I’d never expect to like radishes – especially in tacos – but trust me on this one. Give it a try.  Of all the people who have tasted these, almost everyone has commented with surprise at how much they enjoy the presence of the radishes.)  We had some extras, so we gave them to the two other guys watching the game.

Now, normally during a Chilean game, we’d be in my sister’s apartment which overlooks Plaza Italia and Plaza Baquedano in Santiago.  Before every previous game, we were warned not to walk through those plazas on the nights of a game because they get crowded with crazed futbol fans and people have died in the mayhem.  We never got to see this infamous frenzy having witnessed one game tied and another one lost.  But as luck would have it, the first time I am finally out of Santiago, Chile wins and we miss the legendary pandemonium.

We watched it on TV though.  They showed flags flying everywhere, fans screaming, horns honking, confetti flying, people hanging from the plaza statues and out of the over-looking windows.  It was quite a sight.

We got a little taste of the chaos in Valdivia too.  For the next four hours or so following the game, cars were honking their horns throughout the town.  Since there was no sleep to be had, we played Jenga (I forget the name in Spanish. It’s “Torre” something – “Tower” something) and, thankfully, soon after I lost, the two guys from earlier came in to invite us to go dancing.  It was pretty nasty out, but the town was alive from the team’s win and we found a great time at a nearby salsa bar despite the rain and cold.  Thanks guys!