Intro to Valdivia

Valdivia is a quaint little town on a river that seems to have several names from the maps I've looked at...I guess the name isn't important anyway.

Valdivia is an interesting place. It is my understanding that it pretty much rains all the time there creating a mysterious foggy vista. One of the nights we were there, we decided to go see a play in Spanish by a troop of Hungarian actors who didn't speak Spanish. We at least thought we'd have a good excuse if we didn't understand anything. :) None of us had any dress clothes and so we asked if it was necessary to dress up to go to the theater. The hostel owner said, "Don't be ridiculous, this is Valdivia. It rains all the time here, no one has nice clothes. We always wear rain boots or hiking boots and jeans." All right. My kind of town. ;)

However, being in Chile has made me appreciate the weather and the photos for what they are...even when there is no sun for days.

As I've mentioned before, Chile suffers mild earthquakes on a daily basis. But they also suffer devastating ones as well. Valdivia is home to the largest earthquake ever. In 1960, the earth shook an unreal magnitude of 9.5/9.6 and literally opened up and sucked the ocean in, at least doubling the size of the river. There are still masts of boats sticking up out of the water that got swallowed up when the earth opened. The tsunami caused by this quake caused damage and deaths all over the Pacific including Hawaii, Japan, Philippines, and the west coast of the U.S.