Southern Chile - coast and rivers

From Vina del Mar on the coast we took route 66 south and by-passed the capital Santiago as we'll be back there for Christmas. We then picked up the main highway, route 5 through Curico, and visited Radal Siete Tazas National Park on the way. We had a nice hike to Siete Tazas (seven cups) which is made up of seven consecutive natural pools and their respective waterfalls.

There are also two high waterfalls, La Leona (the Lioness) with a 20m drop

and the Velo da la Novia (the Bridal Veil) with a 40m drop

 

From here we continued down to Chillan then back to the coast/Biobio river mouth at Concepcion.  Just south of the city is the geographic centre of Chile, so only halfway down. We had a few relaxing days in Concepcion, discovering the city and the coast. We visited the Huascar, an ironclad turret ship built in England for Peru in 1864 for the war against Spain. It was the flagship of the Peruvian navy and participated in a number of battles before being captured and commissioned into the Chilean Navy in 1879. It is one of the few surviving ships of its type, has been restored and is now a memorial ship.

accessing the ship

Along the pier there were a number of very large sea lions, including these that wanted to come onshore but the gate blocked their path. 

 hanging out with the boys on a Sunday afternoon and making lots of noise

From Concepcion we continued our journey south and visited Salto del Laja, or Laja Falls on the way. The tallest drop is 35m but it's 455m wide. It certainly makes the top 5 waterfalls in the world that we've seen so far. Mark went in for a closer look and got a bit damp

Further south into the Los Rios (the river) region of southern Chile and the town of Valdivia. Its at the juncture of three rivers, the Calle-calle, Valdivia and Cruces and near the coast. The town was founded in 1552 by the Spanish conquistadors and some years later the Fort System south of Corral Bay were built to protect Valdivia. We took a ferry across the bay to Corral to see one of them. 

Tomorrow we head further south to Patagonia and Puerto Montt.