From Puerto Montt to Santiago

The Navimag cargo/passenger ship made it into Puerto Montt early in the morning. Not long after the rest of the passengers and myself made it off the boat I started to make my way north towards Santiago. It was time to get moving back north towards Brazil, further on to Colombia, and finally back home.







Still in the hospitable south of Chile I decided to hitch-hike north and see where I landed. It was perfect. I met a number of friendly Chilenos and my last ride ended in the coastal college town of Valdivia. What was supposed to be one of the coolest cities in the south of Chile.






Valdiva was a terrific city. It had a great feel right away. Clean, vibrant, and set between several merging rivers that are navigable to the Pacific it was an interesting combination of college town, fishing village, and ship building port. I ended up staying two nights in Valdivia, spending the first day checking out the riverfront, university, and night life.










The next day I went down to see the market and take a boat ride down the rivers around Valdivia. The city is known for its seafood and ship building. The market along the river was a trip with all of the sea lions competing for salmon and other seafood scraps. One even seemed to be the personal pet of one of the vendors.










The boat ride gave a good view of the town and surround area. On one side of the river the town looked modern, while the other side it looked industrial with its ship building docks. In another river the swampy grasslands looked as natural as could be. I met some nice folks on the boat that wanted to take a a picture with me so I ended up taking one as well. The Chilenos have been such friendly people!












The next day I hopped on a bus to another town a few hours to the northwest, but still in the south of Chile, Pucon. It was a cool town, but fairly touristy. Known for its hot springs, icy volcano, and numerous outdoor activities it was a popular place to visit. I had a good time there, staying a couple of nights. The first day I visited the hot springs and met some other travelers going there as well. They left the hot springs before me to catch an earlier bus while I stayed behind and ended up catching a ride back to Pucon with some locals that I met at the pools. The others ended up missing the bus so they jumped in the back of our truck and we all made it back to town together.






The next day I went to the national park and ended up running into the same group on the bus. We seemed to be following each other around. At the park I also met Kiley, a woman from Australia. We hiked through the park together then had fun hitch-hiking back to Pucon. Later that evening I took a night bus the rest of the way to Santiago, 10 hours further to the north. I was tempted to stay another day, but it was time to get moving north!










Monkey-puzzle tree bark