Our big day!

Today Laney and I left Valdivia with our hosts for a small beach spot outside the town called Chaiuin. We took some pictures along the way to give you a feel for the landscape.

Here is the town of Valdivia. If you zoom in on the floating dock you will see a group of sleeping seals and a couple of sealions.

As soon as we left the town the roads converted from smooth pavement to gravel dirt roads. It was a very bouncy trip. But as we drove we saw huge cliffs beside small farm houses hanging out over the ocean, as if to get a better veiw of what was below.

We passed a neighborhood graveyard full of chatholosism and stucco.

We arrived to our first stop, the bay. We got out and walked the still waters boundaries.
Across the water lays an island, which appeared to contain lounging people. But as I looked closer the people were really farm animals. The adult cows and horses lay on the beach soaking the sun, as the calfs, foals, and colts played in the water. I couldn´t help but imagine the barnyard family vacation. It looked as if they had all piled into a stationwagon and took to the open road.

After being at the bay for awhile we all craved ocean waves. So we hopped back into the truck and headed to the national park. Where our hosts, Mati and Hana, said they had heard of an awesome beach spot on the other side. As we drove we started to encounter water puddles on the road. We drove through the first one ¨Yay!¨, we all exclaimed. Then we drove through a second one, this one creek sized ¨Yay!¨ again. Then we drove through a third one, more small lake sized. The truck scraped bottom and we barely fish tailed out. ¨ughm¨, was close to what we said to that. The water just grew from there, so we had to turn back before getting to the otherside. As we turned around the truck suddenly stopped. Great.
We popped the hood to examine the damage. Here we were 100´s of kilometers into the park stranded! Ok it was more like a couple of miles, but still my survival mode started to kick in. I looked at our hosts dogs, who came with us, and imagined them as large veggie dogs!

Luckily for them the battery had just come unplugged and the iron strip that held it in place lost it´s screws. So we plugged it back in and tied it down with rope.
We were off again this time in search of a beach in a small neighborhood next to the park. After asking for directions we found the road to the beach. We parked and started to walk up. Just as we saw the ocean we crossed into a gate and were promptly approached by two miniature pony sized dogs. Seeing as we were carrying two bite sized dachshunds we decided to turn back before one of the dogs busted out the toothpicks and turned them into those little sausage orderves.
Still no ocean.

We headed back to the bay where we started because there is a path there that leads to the ocean. As you walk the path turns into giant sand dunes. Mountains of sand with seashell cobblestone valleys. We knew we were close, we began to hear the ocean. The head on collision of waves meeting sand. The wind blew across us as we aproached.
We made it.

The water was freezing, and I loved it.
- Jameson