8 Buses 1 Day! Oh Puerto Saavedra

During my long weekend in Temcuo, I made it to a beautiful town on the Pacific Coast called Puerto Saavedra. It's a good thing we went over on Friday since it rained all day Saturday and part of Sunday!

Although Puerto Saavedra is technically a 1-hour bus ride from Labranza, it took Alfredo and I a good 2.5 hours and 3 different buses to make it there! Long story short- the bus that goes straight from Labranza to the coast only comes by once every hour. In Temuco, it is very common for people to wait by the side of the road and hail a bus when they see the one they want approaching. As unexperienced newcomers, we spent about half and hour waiting until we saw the Puerto Saavedra bus approaching, but by the time we realized it was the one we wanted, it was too late.

Not wanting to spend another hour hanging out by the side of the road, we stopped the next bus that passed. After asking the driver about getting to Puerto Saavedra, we were surprised to hear him tell us to get on his bus since it would take us there. 15 minutes later when the bus arrived in a Mapuche town called Imperial, he told us to get off and drove off before we had time to ask him for further directions. Since we clearly weren't at the Pacific Coast yet, Alfredo and I asked around- turns out we ended up on a bus route that would take us from Labranza to Imperial to Carahue to Puerto Saavedra via a more localized bus system (instead of a direct route).

With no real schedule to keep to, I'm glad it turned out that way- it was really fun going into the little towns along our trip to the coast. Each had so much character and the landscape was gorgeous! At the end of the day, we did end up taking the direct-route bus home...by then we were exhausted. In total, we had taken 8 different bus rides that day, 1 from Santiago to Temuco, 2 to Labranza from Temuco, 1 to the Chol Chol Foundation, 3 to Puerto Saavedra, and 1 more back to home-base in Labranza. Definitely one of my favorite days in Chile thus far!

The View from Our Bus Seat

The Pacific Ocean

taken while hiking up a small hill near Puerto Saavedra

Awesome Playground...why haven't I seen one of these before???

Fishing Boats

lots of seafood restaurants in town

Typical Houses in the Area: Very Quaint

Grazing Cows Just off the Shore

Local Craftwork

There's no escaping soda- even here.

On a funny side-note, I originally took another picture of that truck before this one, but when the driver saw me, he insisted I delete that picture and take another with him posing. Here it is.

Fresh Eggs (25 cents each)

Local Exotic Fruits

Fresh Cheese, Kelp, and Peas for Sale in Carahue