The guest house we´re staying at is great although we were a little worried when Mario, our host, was caught ogling some school girls. We were even more worried when I remarked ´They´re a bit young...?´ to which he replied ´They´re never too young...´ Remind us again why you left Germany Mario, not wanted by the police were you?

Anyway, the weather yesterday was pretty rubbish so we kind of wandered around town, initially looking for somewhere to watch England Vs Turkey, and then, after resigning ourselves to the fact that not everyone is obsessed with Beckham et al, I sent a text message to a friend from home (cheers Andy) who kept us updated both on the football and the drunken state of mancunians. We visited the ´sea-lion´ market again, and then crossed the river to the 2 museums, one the museum of contemporary art, and the other of local history. Both were excellent, the former now housed in a brewery that was (wait for it) destroyed in an earthquake in 1960.

The four of us headed back, and after our home made pizza tea we had a game of scrabble that me and Jen were winning before we all got bored and quit half way through a game. We ended up watching some sort of MTV rundown which got from 30 to number 2 before a bloody power cut so we´ll never know what´s number one in Chilé.

The weather was much better when we got up this morning, so after a bit of a lay-in we all headed back to the fish market, where this time the sea lions were joined by about 5 pelicans and numerous other birds. The market was in full swing whereas on the other days we have visited just as it was closing, and we stood, watched and photographed the animals for a good half hour. Valdivia, as I wrote a couple of days ago, stands at the confluence of 3 rivers and was a really important straegic port many years ago. Thy built a series of ports just down the river at Niebla, and we spent the afternoon hopping on and off buses and ferries and visiting the two main ones. There was loads of original (and a couple of fake) cannon and we even saw dolphins in the harbour, making for a great days wandering. We´re off now to get the biggest fillet steaks you can find, to prepare our stomachs for the redmeat fest that is Argentina. Hopefully they´ll be a little more interested in the rugby world cup (the 5th!!! sports item on CNN, behind, baseball, football, collage american football, and WOMENS GOLF!!!) than they seem to be here in Chilé. At least they´re competing I suppose. We head off to Bariloche tomorrow via a 7 hour bus journey that should go pretty direct, and for the moment at least we´re staying as a foursome. Mark and Lucy might be heading north to San Martin when we arrive in Argentina, but we´re basically doing the same route for the better part of a month so our paths will surely cross.