On top of Chiloe, all covered in Cheese, we got to El Bolson when somebody sneezed.

The night air is crisp but inviting as we step out into the cobbled streets of Valparaiso.
Off to find a wee tiny kitten we spotted earlier bearing gifts of salad poultry to nourish his evidently shrinking belly. Earlier that day we had learned that Caesar salad apparently comes with chicken even though there is no indication to be found on the le carta ( the menu ) A terrible waste! This pile of bird stood higher than my wine glass...how can we let this delicately seasoned ancestor of little tiny dinosaurs die for nothing? We can’t, we won’t!
After an extremely extravagant over packaging of said meat product which pretty much overshadowed the point in the first place, we set off to find our feline friend, our little gatito!

Wait...this story is crap really, we gave up looking after one minute, gave it to some other cats, THEN saw our kitty..our little pal got nothing! Very sad indeed.

What I should tell you is about the place we stayed..La Nona. (which translates to the Grandma) This guy Rene, the B n B owner, knows his Valparaiso and is more than happy to share, should you choose to engage him..which you should because he’s a swell guy. Rene and his lady, whom we didn’t have the fortune of meeting this time, run the B and B out of the house his Grandmother lived in. Pretty sweet digs. Very relaxed atmosphere. He gave us our first pisco sour, a drink which has many variations throughout Chile and Peru. Pretty tasty shiz. We even got to hang with Mom, try out some Espaniol and feast on some Chilean sushi. No easy task going up against the sushi in Vancouver but they faired pretty good if I do say so myself.
I have put La Nona on my official Acworthz Guide to doing things highlighted in other guide books, namely Lonely Planet.

The real treat here though, is the street art, graph, whatever you chooses to call it, this place has got crazy amounts of it, and it’s good!

Alright, let’s get out o here or I’ll never finish writing.

Next stop Chiloe!

We stayed in a Palafito...you don’t know what a palafito is? Neither did I, but Nats did and that is how we ended up at the Palafito Hostel. Due to high traffic,( this place is also on the Ronery Planet guide) we ended up taking the only available spots..bunk beds! At least our roomies was pretty cool. A nice couple from Spain. Ha, I thought I really freaked em out the first night..fraught with feverish nightmares, I thrashed around,  yelling “NO!” according to Natalie. I rarely ever get nightmares but of course if you have to share a room with complete strangers it’s a good time to bust that out.
Anyway, a palafito is a house on stilts..the tide here comes in so high that they need some serious clearance, plus they would fish right off the back porch of these little beauties. Nice to work from home.

waiting for the ferry to Chiloe

 The island of Chiloe has some creepy local folklore of malevolent creatures that live in the forest and come out only to rape virgins..something like that..anyway, not a happy little tail..supposedly it was just an excuse used when to didn’t want to fess up to your highly dubious doings. What I don’t get is    ``````````````````` how they got around the whole, “ Hey them creatures that had their way with little Sara look just like Uncle Ralph!”
I guess they caught on eventually as it doesn’t seem to be used as much anymore.

Thanks to a couple of ladies from Santiago, we got to spend a night with the architect of the hostel. Really good bloke. Our new friends, Mireya, Valentina, Lindsay the Brit and Casper the Dutch traveller were a good mix o nuts as well. We all went out at night to a lookout point in the architect’s truck then to a locals pub.There were some serious chuckles as we spoke broken versions of each others languages and attempted to tell jokes. In the end, animated gestures got the point across no matter the language barrier.
Aside from them shenanigans, Chiloe has some damn fine seafood, if you follow my guide of good places to eat from other travel guides, well just the one really..yeah..Lonely Planet.

Now we skip some n come to Osorno..a one night stop only to transfer to another bus the next day. Research indicated that this place didn’t have much to offer..I beg to differ.
Our night at Mike’s Hostel Vermont was pretty epic. What a treat. I can’t believe I don’t have a picture of Mike because Mike is awesome! He’s like Dean n Gene Ween’s younger brother if they had one, which is funny because he LOVED Ween. Anyway, his hostel was in the middle of this city but his backyard had a little dog, two ducks, a rabbit, n 2 cats. He grew veggies, tended animals, drank beer, played various instruments, ran the hostel with his Chilean lady and just about every other thing. He also devised a way to make booze out of orange peels..innovative sob this guy..and funny as shit.

The night carried on with some guitar sessions in the back yard. Some fine young Americans were the opening act with songs ranging from Smashing Pumpkins to something I obviously missed somewhere along the way but the real headliner here was Offier Avital, the Israeli guitar master. This cat could really throw down some licks. We even joined in and collaborated on some blues. It was a match made in..well, Osorno.
That night the gang head out for the Pirate Bar. Nats n I hung back for some much needed rest for tomorrow was Bariloche! For one day! Which I’ll tell ya about soon! I’m already over the amount I was hoping to write! Hope it doesn’t bore you ta tears!

Much Love,

The Acworths