Valdivia is a pretty university town that was started up by German settlers. It has a civilised air to it, nice bars, traditions, great brewers! Yup, Kunstmann (something thatg gets more funny the more drunk you get) is brewed here and it is a wonderful beer. They do a good dark beer that rivals any Newcy Brown (almost) and good blond beers too.

I wasn’t here for the beer though and instead headed out of town to seek out a campsite. I ended up in a place called Niebla which is called such as this kind of means mist, or clouds in Spanish.

I was going to walk as someone tols me that it was not far, but after an hour I doubted them and caught a bus. By this time it was getting dark and at the same time a thick fog descended around the bus.

When I got off in Niebla Friday night was in full swing, people were rowdy, some punks sneered at the bus, it was like being in a Michael Jackson thriller video.

I was going to pop my hammock up in a tree but couldn’t fins anywhere I felt safe so I got back on a bus and headed back to a campsite I had seen on the road.

Here I slung my hammock between two trees helped by the accommodating owners of the campsite, snuggled in and slept the sleep of one who has walked a fair bit.

The next day I woke up to a glorious sunrise over a river that had been hidden by fog the previous night. Snapped a few pics and ate a hearty breakfast of eggs and home made bread provided by the campsite people. I then headed back into Valdivia.

Valdivia is a pretty place. Chile prides itself on having a first world economy and this is one of the heartlands of that kind of economy. Very German in nature, an air of academia floats over the town as rowing boats skull up and down the river in an Oxford Cambridge fashion.

It was cosy simply sitting in Valdivia watching the world go by, the little festival that was happening while I was there included a beauty pageant which girls (and guys) had no trouble attending. It seems the European distaste of these events didn’t transport itself here.

I also liked the wonderful cafes of Valdivia, the sandwich shop selling beer and hotdogs with all sorts of meat filled sandwiches, the old cafes with Chilean specialities. I would love to have been here off season though when the beaches would have been a little less insanely full, so maybe next time.