Our next leg north to Valdivia and the west coast took us from a Swiss feeling landscape to a definite Scottish one.  Green fields carpeted the valley floor towards rolling hills of forest, with green and yellow bracken favouriting the side of the highway.  Other than the well-kept, bright, roadside graves, we felt like we were home.

Our host in Valdivia told us of the great earthquake of 1960 which reached a Richter scale of 9.5, only ever bested by an earthquake in Alaska.  Earth subsidence caused mass floodings and the city and surrounded areas were devastated.  It sounded really scary, making us grateful for our own country which is relatively untouched by such natural disasters.  

We stayed in a cabana next to the owners house, just outside Valdivia and had access to his beautiful garden, fresh water swimming pool, slide and swings and two gorgeous Alsatian-cross dogs.  The kids ignored the slide and swings and spent their free time playing with the dogs and running through the rose bushes and giant trees occupying the garden.  One large bush with yellow rose-looking flowers on it attracted a swarm of humming birds who hovered so close to us and the bushes you could almost feel the vibrations coming off their wings as they fed from the flowers.

We ventured into Valdivia twice and migrated towards the docks both times, which had a large and impressive market, which included a huge variety of fish and which also attracted sea lions lazily basking by the fish waiting for scraps to be thrown to them by the market people.  

An old black submarine turned museum was parked along the dock which we tried to get into, but they had some weird set up to get tickets (not the usual walk up to the office and buy one scenario like most museums do) and instead of trying to get on, we dismissed the idea and got a boat to take us up the river to a small village called Punucapa instead.  

Punucapa was a small place of about 200 inhabitants complete with shop, restaurant church and beer brewery! The kids had their first ride on a horse complete with American style saddle while we wearily waited for 3hrs before the boat would return us.  We were provided lunch which was a lovely huge portion of pig belly, potatoes, salad and wine.  We were given a tour round the wooden church and we went to the shop to buy ice lollies, but 3hrs was too much for us.  The boat was full of old age pensioners, who I had to give credit to most of them who could barely walk, let alone climb on and off a boat, but were determined and happy. Most of them were late back to the boat, which we had returned to 45mins early, but I had noticed they had chugged back a few glasses of wine and sampled most of the different types of beer the brewery had on offer, so couldn't really blame them.

Our quick stay in Valdivia was over, which we were a bit saddened by.  The place we were staying was marvellous and our host was a lovely chatty man, a photographer, who we could have had many an interesting conversation had we spoken better Spanish or he English. 

We marvelled at how beautiful the surrounding area was, and how we had run out of ways to describe the beauty of the place.  His reply caught me off guard as he said "you forget to look at the beauty, when you live here everyday."

I suppose people are the same everywhere you go.  No matter how wonderful your surroundings are, sometimes you have to be reminded.