A preponderance of sauerkraut

Time to explore Valdivia a bit. I got a bus to the little town of Niebla, which is at the mouth of the rivers on the conjunction of which the city of Valdivia is built, and is home to one of the series of forts built by the Spanish colonial authorities principally to keep the British from getting any ideas about the attractiveness of the first major port up the South American coast after rounding Cape Horn. It was also a lone outpost in Mapuche country for much of Chile's early history and, due to the unfriendly territory to its landward side and the series of forts to seaward, was regarded as nigh-on impregnable, the "Gibraltar of South America" in the late 18th Century, only to fall, the one and only time it was seriously attacked, in 1820, during the Chilean struggle for independence, to an audacious and unexpected assault from the extraordinary character of Lord Cochrane, a Scot and contemporary of Nelson who had been employed to head the embryonic Chilean navy. All the kind of thing that is generally right up my street. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of exploring was curtailed somewhat by the weather - whilst it remained hot and sunny all day in the city and down most of the river valley, the mouth of the estuary and the headlands on which the series of forts sit was shrouded in sea-fog, rendering the views intermittent and the climate cold and damp.

Thus mildly disheartened, I returned to Valdivia proper just after midday and took myself over to a restaurant called Dino's which, I had been advised, was one of the few places in town with access to the ESPN sports channels, where I settled myself in with a pint of the local ale (on which more later) and a "Dinissimo" sandwich to watch the Ireland-England game in the 6 Nations. Oh yes, that sandwich - pork steak, lettuce, tomato, guacamole/avocado, mayonnaise, tomato relish and sauerkraut, all in a bun. By the time I'd added mustard and the local chilli sauce, that was quite some combination. Shame I couldn't say as much for the rugby, which was not a great game and left me in the state, now familiar for England rugby fans, of frustration at a game we might have won and yet conspired to lose. Dammit.

After the disappointment I sloped back to the hostel, finished my chick-lit book, ate up the leftovers of the previous night's curry and eventually summoned up the enthusiasm to head out and get a microbus just out of town to the Kunstmann brewery. As the name might imply, this is another holdover from the German influence on the area, but the range and styles of beer they produce are more similar to those of a North American micro-brewery than your typical German beer. There was also the slightly bizarre sight, when I arrived, of a wedding party (bride, groom, best man, bridesmaid and video-camera operator) who had just arrived, in full wedding regalia, and went for a beer at one of the tables in the corner. Still, once they moved on, I could devote my full attention to the sampling of the beers, of which there were in theory 8, but one of those was just an unfiltered version of an existing one so I don't think it really counts: the lager was reasonable as these things go, the unfiltered, stronger lager was very nice and refeshing, the Torobayo pale ale (pretty much their signature beer) was nice in both the filtered and unfiltered versions, then there was the Trigo (a Weissbier and new addition to their stable), the Miel (an incredibly sweet honey-beer - almost a desert beer), the Gran Torobayo (a deeper, stronger, maltier version of the classic) and a pretty coffee-ish Bock. So yes, despite not being sure if I could be bothered to go out there, I did enjoy the brewery (and I had a hotdog with, surprise surprise, Sauerkraut in it as well). And then I got the micro back to town and crashed out back at the hostel.