Valdivia, Niebla, and Corral

Before heading back to Santiago from Pucón, we spent two nights in Valdivia.  Close readers will recall that on our way to Pucón, we spent about 3 hours exploring Valdivia while waiting for our next bus.  Valdivia has a small downtown, and in those 3 hours we felt like we had seen almost all of it... leaving us without much of a plan for our stay this time around.

We arrived at our AirBnb around 1pm, at which point two separate people (our AirBnb host, and a tourism agent at the bus terminal) had both recommended Niebla.  Niebla is a 15-minute bus ride away from Valdivia and lies on the Pacific Coast.  Our first stop in Niebla was the Feria Costumbrista- a food court filled with local specialties.

1) Pullmay
Pullmay is a clear-broth stew of shellfish and meats, including an assortment of mussels and clams, chorizo sausage, smoked ham, and a chicken drumstick.  We cannot get enough of the broth.  There's a restaurant that makes Pullmay in Santiago that we love as well!  Note that Pullmay is the same dish as Curanto en Hoyo, only Curanto is made in a hole in the ground, where the broth seeps out, so you don't get to drink it.  In modern times, Chileans have adapted the dish to Pullmay, which is made in a pot, hence retaining the delicious broth!  

If you're lucky, your Pullmay will come with Chapalele and Milcao.  Milcao is a potato pancake made with just grated potatoes.  Chapalele includes flour.  They go great with Pullmay.  Unfortunately, the stalls at the Feria Costumbrista didn't offer Chapalele and Milcao when we were there. 

Matt preparing to wolf down some Pullmay

2) Paila Marina
Cousin to Pullmay, the Paila Marina is clear-broth stew of just seafood.  We splurged on the "Paila Marina Especial", which included crab claw and shrimp in addition to mussels, clams, and of course Piure.  

Piure (see below) is a weird bright orange goopy blob that lives in clumps that look like rocks.  It tastes strongly of iodine and is a Chilean delicacy.  The iodine flavor of piure was unmistakeable in this Paila Marina.  Matt and I tried piure once before at the fish market of Coquimbo.  It was raw, and we did not like it.  We figured we'd give it another shot in its cooked form, prepared alongside many other ingredients.  The verdict- not great, but not necessarily bad.  We wouldn't seek it out in the future, but we wouldn't avoid it in future pailas marinas.

Paila Marina alongside Chicha de Manzana, or Apple Cider

Pure Piure by the Pound

3) Papa Rellena
Moving away from seafood, we got a Papa Rellena.  Neither of us has seen these before and we imagined they'd taste pretty much how they look.  We were wrong!  The Papa Rellena is a delicious concoction that exceeds the sum of its parts.  The outer dough is a combination of potato and flour (kind of like chapalele) that is deep-fried and coated in what seems to be french-fry seasoning.  There are about 20 options for the filling.  We opted for the classic "pino", a ground beef mixture that is also common in Chilean empanadas. 

4) Empanadas de Cochayuyo
No photo here unfortunately.  Cochayuyo is a seaweed that's widely available in Chile.  Karen likes to eat it dehydrated.  It was tasty in the empanada too!


5) Dessert: Pie de Nuez
This bakery was cranking out pastries at an alarming rate.  It also had a long line.  Matt asked about 20 questions about the types of desserts they offer before settling on a pie with a whipped-cream topping and walnut-based filling.  Yum!

In case you didn't catch it in the photo above, here's another one zoomed in.  Look at that Manjar (Chilean dulce de leche) being spread on the cake!

6) Snack/Souvenir: Smoked Salmon

The region around Valdivia is known for smoked fish.  We bought a couple pieces of smoked salmon from a woman setup outside the Feria Costumbrista.  We enjoyed one for ourselves and gifted another to our friends in Santiago.

If you think we ate a lot at the Feria Costumbrista, let it be known that we actually ate the aforementioned items in two separate sittings: Saturday and Sunday lunch since we liked it so much. But yes, we did eat a lot.

After the Feria Costumbrista, we wandered down to the Pacific Coast.  It was drizzling but we were still able to explore some rocks that showed tide-pool promise.  Unfortunately, we didn't come across any tide-pool critters.

Next we walked along the coast and passed the Fuerte de Niebla.  Normally, this now-defunct military fort is open to visitors.  However, it was closed due to a national strike.  So, we continued on to the Terminal de Pasajeros-  a ferry terminal that takes locals and tourists alike to the close-by island of Mancera and town of Corral, both of which boast their own military forts.  It was a bit late in the day for a ferry, so we hopped on the bus back towards Valdivia, with one last stop at the Kuntsmann brewery. 

Tours here cost a whopping $20-$40 USD, depending on whether or not you want to see both the factory and the museum of beer or just the museum.  That's a lot of money for southern Chile.  We settled for the $12 beer flight, which included 16 drafts.  Overall, Kuntsmann is solid, but not our favorite beer brand.  It's one of the three classic craft-breweries featured in restaurants throughout Chile and it was fun to see their expanded menu.

Kuntsmann Brewery - we were worried it would be hard to find along the bus route. When we saw this giant barrel, we knew we'd be ok. 

Several people at the Feria Costumbrista recommended taking the ferry to Corral, so we took a Sunday-morning ferry over.  On the ferry, we asked the ticket-lady for recommendations about what to do on Corral other than visit the fort.  She said we should catch a 45-minute bus to the coastal town of Chaihuín.  There, we could hang out at the beach or explore the neighboring Alerce National Park.   The bus only runs once a day and is timed with the ferry, so we made a split decision not to go.  From Valdivia to Niebla to Corral, we felt Chaihuín was one hop too far out of scope for this vacation.  Until next time!

In the meantime, we enjoyed exploring the Corral fort as planned.  The ferry ride and landscape reminded us a lot of the Puget Sound region.

On the ferry

The Corral Fort

A friendly dog accompanied us like an exuberant but not-very-helpful tour guide during our visit to the fort.

Boats anchored in Corral

After Corral, we headed to the Parque Salva.  It's about 75 cents for admission per person, but the plentiful sculptures and lily-pad lakes are well worth it.

One of about 30 sculptures in the park.  We enjoyed them a lot!  To the back-left of the photo, you can catch a glimpse of our dog-friend who accompanied us throughout our visit to the park.

Before catching our flight back to Santiago, we stopped by the Mercado of Valdivia.  We saw two new items, although we weren't bold enough to try them:

Navajuelas:
A long and skinny sort of clam.  We've probably unknowingly eaten them in various Chilean seafood dishes.  

Nori:
I've never seen seaweed packed into a dehydrated block before.  We thought this was some sort of bread, but upon inquiring we were told it was seaweed.  I still looked confused, so the stall owner asked me if I was familiar with Japanese nori in seaweed- apparently it's the same.