Puerto Montt

This is not an inaccurate depiction of my weekend in Puerto Montt. There was a lot of beer and other alcohol, and a lot of food. The city is fairly grey and although it may be livelier during tourist season, the combination of winter and grey weather left it feeling pretty subdued. Not necessarily complaining, as the company was good and the booze abundant, but by Sunday I was crashing hard. So, Puerto Montt! The sights and sounds (you'll have to imagine) and smells (again... imagination).

An honest to God live-music bar! Filled with posters! So utterly urban and... normal?

 A real live Chilean metal band! They weren't exactly great but they weren't half bad. So, you know, I'll take it.

 My friends sort of enjoying the music? Perhaps not to the extent that I was...

Casa Perla, our home stay! Perla herself is lovely as is her very kitschy, very cute home.

Mom, I thought you'd enjoy this. There was a bush out front, just left of the door, filled with these flowers. Very pretty.

 Flan, the extremely friendly hostel cat. I think she sensed my allergy to her, she cuddled up to me suspiciously quick...

 A splash of color. The street art is basically keeping this city from being a giant grey blob.

 As is this monstrosity.

Obviously I took about 5 million pictures of all the street dogs. Don't worry, I'll just share the highlights. This little fluffy little monster immediately rolled over and begged for snuggles when Zach leaned down to take his picture.

Sleeping puppies!

And finally, this guy, who was beautiful and very interested in why we were lingering, perusing the touristy goods at this one shop. His eyes were so light blue they looked white.

SHERLOCK!!!!!!! Because supposedly at some point in one of the stories Holmes visited the city of Puerto Montt, although I don't remember that. In any case, there I was!

 Memories of a Flea in the 20th Century. That experience looks a lot more interesting than the one I'm having. Seen at a book store in the Puerto Montt mall, one of the few attractions around. There's also a movie theater that I thought VERY seriously about visiting, but managed to resist. MIGHT have been rude if I ditched my travel companions/friends I had just met a couple hours ago for a little theatrical nirvana.

 More grey.

 Puerto Montt: Navigating the future. On the floor of an interesting outdoor market we passed through.

We stumbled across a free art museum so we spent some time wandering around inside. This was a pretty cool exhibit: copper and metal dioramas that, if I understood correctly what the guy working was saying, represented Mapuche creation mythology.

 This was outside the Mapuche art room. I think it speaks for itself.

This was an amazingly bizarre and interesting exhibit that I am also just going to let speak for itself. This picture is taken of the front of the exhibit, it's set up in a long room and I took the pictures as I walked deeper into it. Just.... soak it in. Really take your time. I know I did.

Moving on, a horse hanging out by the side of the highway.

After a really nice seafood dinner (and plenty of drinks, first at a completely empty bar we wandered into around 5 PM and completely occupied for an hour before vacating and later with the seafood) we headed back to Casa Perla, in theory, to get changed. What happened next was a much tamer result than Friday night.

This is what a day of wandering around, several glasses of wine/beers (depending on preference), and a rainy, windy evening will result in. Little premature abuelitos, hunkering down for the evening.

But then on Sunday we got an early start, and checked out the Angelmo fish market!

 A truckload of cows, coming in from the port. I guess from Chiloe? I don't really know.

 If you didn't have a cheese guy before, this guy should probably be it. This stuff smelled amazing.

 Chickens and ducks, all caged up.

 Even though everything looks like it's been sealed up and pre-packaged, most of the vendors had the little machine that does it and were doing it at their stands. This stuff is pretty fresh.

Eel, hanging by its gills.

 The providers.

Finally, although I didn't intend to buy anything, we strolled through a long series of stalls selling all kinds of kitschy, touristy Puerto Montt stuff. Some of it was hard to resist (I'm looking at you, giant glorious piles of artesenal chocolate) but most of it was easily passed over. But when I saw these earrings I knew I had to have them. I saw a pair like them when I was in Valdivia and thought about buying them then but chickened out, and I've been looking for them ever since. I had serious non-buyer's remorse! They're carved and painted wood, and they're the Copihue, the national flower of Chile. For $2000 pesos ($4ish USD) they were basically a steal.

Aaand my glorious new sneakers. They were made in Chile. On the back are little representations of what I believe to be llamas. They're extremely comfortable. It was basically a no-brainer.

Remorse level: 0%.

That's all the news that's fit to print from Puerto Montt! All in all, a good weekend. Got some good stuff planned for my students this week, and hopefully I'll start with some after-school clubs (or forming up a debate team, still waiting to hear about that).