WELCOME to paulandvickionline.com
Who are we? Contact us Friends and Family Where have we been? Where to next?
 

Chile
 

Viña del Mar
 
Ross and Marilyn were with us to see the seaside town of Viña del Mar with crashing surf and long beaches.
 
We shared a fresh pineapple cut in half topped with three large scoops of icecream and a cookie ($3.00 USD) - try that in Florida!   Horse drawn carriages competed with cars and bicycles at a park near where we stayed.
 
We enjoyed a wide view from our room since it was on the top floor of a 3 story bed and breakfast (6 staircases, no elevator), which was on top of a hill (3 staircases up from the main street).   We took a bus ride along the coast to Concón
(a village known for its fresh seafood)
about 30 minutes away for 75 cents per ticket!
 
We ate an appetizer of jumbo seafood empanadas - shrimp & cheese, crab & cheese and razor clams & cheese - for $1.25 each.   Then we went to another restaurant and had entrees of a baked Crab Parmesan and a Seafood Casserole, with scallops, shrimp and razor clams - accompanied by a bottle of white Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.

Where to eat in Concón (both are on the Av. Borgoño beach road):

Las Deliciosas - only item on the menu is empanadas - razor clam and cheese are especially good

La Picá de Emeterio - super fresh seafood

Where to stay in Viña del Mar:

Offenbacher-Hof Residencial - Balmaceda 102, Cerro Castillo, Viña del Mar - www.offenbacher-hof.cl

Where to stay in Ancud (Chiloé Island):

Hostal Mundo Nuevo - Avda. San Allende 748, Ancud - www.newworld.cl

Where to stay in Pucón:

Hotel Malalhue - Camino Internacional 1615, Pucón - www.malalhue.cl

Where to eat in Santiago:

Doña Inés - Manuel de Salas 162, Plaza Ñuñoa - www.donainesrestaurant.cl - excellent, high quality, typical Chilean dishes, everything presented beautifully

 

Valparaíso
 
The city of Valparaíso is really the poor cousin of Viña del Mar. Both share the same bay and it's hard to see when one ends and the other begins, but Valpo is a series of hills of working class and poor people. To get up the hills we took cable cars. This hill, Cerro Concepción, is the "upscale" and artistic area. (Notice the dirt road going up the hill.)

Chiloé Island
 
We left Viña del Mar on a huge double decker bus for a 18 hour overnight trip south to Chiloé Island.   We had first class sleeper seats that laid flat with leg supports like a recliner.
 
We were given thick blankets & pillows, watched two movies and were served a light dinner and breakfast.   One of our favorite meals here in Chile is a chorrillana -
a layer of french fries; topped with a scrambled egg; chunks of beef, pork and/or chicken
and served with a pebere salsa.
 
We went to a big festival here in Castro and saw women making dough for a meat filling (bowl in front)
that would be fried. 		  We were surprised that they had on hair nets, even though they were working on boards next to the raw meat - and then we spied one woman chopping wood out back with her hairnet still on! So much for the sanitation.
 
The huge chunks of lamb, veal and pork were cooked over wood fires.   Just to show how fresh the meat was, the heads were displayed nearby.
 
Women mashed potatoes by hand and then patted them on wooden posts.   They were then put over a wood fire and roasted.
 
The result was a chochoca (to the right) filled with meat and served with smoked pork (to the left),   We ate a huge hunk of lamb with salad and boiled potatoes. Yum!
 
We spent a wonderful day hiking at Chiloé National Park.
We enjoyed quiet mountain lakes, walked through sand dunes to the shore of the Pacific Ocean,
 
hiked over log paths through the rain forest, and saw an incredible amount of unusual plants
 
including fuchia, myrtle, and many others we didn't know.
We even saw several species of lizards (bottom right picture) sunning themselves between the leaves.
 
In Chiloé we were excited to try the wonderful shellfish (scallops, shrimp, mussels, clams and razor clams)
baked with Parmesan.		   Another favorite was the huge abalone empanada.
 
But we just couldn't bring ourselves to try the strings of smoked mussels nor the bundles of cochayuyo
(dried seaweed) used to flavor soups and also chopped and served in salads, like heart of palm.
 
We went to the northwest shore of the island and hired a local fishing boat to take us out to see the Humbolt and Magellanic penguins; plus 4 species of cormorants that live on small islands.   We were able to sail around several of these islands (most under 5 acres) that were formed in 1960 after the eathquake/tsunami hit the area.

Coñaripe and Pucón in the Lakes Region
 
We left Chiloé Island for the village of Coñaripe. As you can see from the picture, we didn't have first class seats this time. Paul sat in the stairwell.
( Read more about the bus trip in our BLAB.)		   Coñaripe is located at the base of Volcano Villarrica. It is still an active volcano with puffs of smoke and bubbling lava in the crater. The last eruption was 20 years ago.
 
We hiked along Lake Calafquén with the volcano looming in the background.   That afternoon we visited Termas Geométricas, a thermal spa in a gorge of the volcano.
Railed walkways several feet in the air led you from one steaming natural pool to another.
 
There were 17 cold, warm and hot pools at the spa, each one walled by the living rock of the volcano. In the evening they surrounded the pools with romantic candles,
since there is no electricity there.		   A 40 foot waterfall from the melting snow spilled into a stream that ran through the gorge. The water was mixed with the boiling hot water coming from inside the volcano to make the different temperature pools..
 
Many waterfalls and gorges we saw in the area were formed during the 1960 earthquake.   The first thing we were given when we arrived in Pucón at the foot of the Villarrica Volcano were
instructions on how to evacuate in case of an eruption. . .
We felt so much safer after that!!??
 
Wow! The Centro Ecuestre Huepil-Malal was a fabulous choice for a day of horseback riding in the Andes.
Owner, Rodolfo, his daughter, Penelope and her friend Aura took us on a private 8 hour ride
to a lagoon in the crater of a volcano that is only accessible by horse.
 
Rodolfo invited us to go the next day to an unofficial rodeo in Curarrehue on the border with Argentina.
As far as we could tell we were the only people from the USA there. The horses and
huasos (Chilean cowboys) were amazing.		   The country women prepared a wonderful soup called cazuela that was served in huge portions with a tomato salad and pan amasado, the typical Chilean bread -
all for 2,500 pesos ($4.00 USD)!

Santiago
 
Dena and Von went with us to Galindo for wine, seafood and a wonderful visit.   In Pucón we had met a couple, Damián and Grimanesa, from Santiago while on a hike. They invited us to go out with them for dinner at Doña Inés.
 
The food was incredible. At their urging, Vicki tried the conger eel with whipped squash and was blown away.   Paul's dish of roast beef over whipped peas with a tomato reduction was equally wonderful.