Valdivia’s riverside market, with its colorful awnings and stands of fish, seafood, regional foods and crafts, seemed the perfect place to start my explorations.
This is what it took to get there:
By Plane
The 24 hours of flights had moments both good and bad.
Good — It didn’t snow in Spokane and the plane left on time.
Bad — There was a thunderstorm in Dallas and it took an eternity to park the plane, leaving me to scramble desperately in an unknown airport to make the measly one-hour connection. I probably would have missed it except …
Good — The plane to Santiago was delayed.
Bad — It was delayed for over three and a half hours.
Good — I met some really nice people while milling around, people who have interesting stories of their own — the Chilean who lives in Alaska, the Brit who lives in La Serena, the husband who had a lifelong dream to visit the mountains of southern Patagonia and the wife who wished they had gone ten years earlier.
Bad turned good — I’d had a six-and-a-half hour layover in Santiago to take the plane to Valdivia, but with my delay in Dallas, I only had to wait an hour or so.
By Public Transportation
Puerto Rico’s públicos — public transportation vans — are alive and well in Chile. About ten other passengers and I, and a daunting pile of luggage, crowded into a van at the tiny Pichoy Airport about twenty miles north of Valdivia. On the outskirts of the city, the van stopped at a gas station: half of us, and our luggage, were shuffled off to a second van, apparently to get us to our destinations faster.
I soon found myself in front of a brown wooden gate on a tree-lined residential street near the center of town — the Airbnb site of my room with private bath. I must admit to a few ‘what-were-you-thinking’ doubts at that point, but they lifted for the most part when my hostess gave me a welcoming hug.
By Foot
The next morning, armed with a map securely tucked inside my purse, I headed for the Feria Fluvial. Downtown Valdivia looks like a fish head jutting into the Calle Calle River which loops into the Valdivia River. My house is at the lower right corner of the head, around where the gills would be. Heading to the river, I assumed there was a sort of promenade that would take me along the water’s edge to slightly beyond where the fish’s mouth would be — the center of town. Alas, there wasn’t, so I stayed on streets close to the river. At one point I passed a black submarine and assumed I was getting close. My map remained in my purse. I walked, and walked, and walked, passing a couple of university buildings, a yacht club, all sorts of homes and offices, but no downtown.
The struggle to preserve old buildings seems to be universal.
Finally, I stopped in front of what seemed a mirage — a beautiful German-styled hotel surrounded by manicured gardens, a terrace, dock, lounge chairs and tables, looking out on a nearby island. Named Hotel Naguilan, it faced Haverbeck Islet. At this point I extricated my map. It turned out I’d walked past the lower left corner of the fish-head gills, a good mile beyond the center of town, which was actually back at the site of the black submarine. The kind hotel staff called for a water taxi, and I returned upriver in style.
And there, where the taxi dropped me off, was the Feria Fluvial.
A type of seaweed sold at the market. I passed.
An interesting first adventure! File that black submarine away for your first spy novel.