Travis and I arrived in Valdivia at 6am on February 24th to a city covered in “snow”. In our stumbling, exhausted state we could not figure out why the ground was covered in white on a warm morning in the middle of summer.
We reached the central square where young couples were just waking up after apparently spending the night on park benches and things began to fall together. We had arrived in the dregs of the huge annual Noche de Valdivia. The snow turned out to be massive amounts of white confetti, which crews of workmen spent the next 6 hours sweeping up.
Despite the mess, we could immediately see that Valdivia is a beautiful city; many people claim it is the prettiest in Chile. The bulk of the city sits between two rivers, with bridges across both rivers to the farther flung areas of the city. After the number of times we had gotten lost, for hours, in Santiago Travis and I were relieved by how easy Valdivia is to navigate. The rivers act as easy reference points and make the small city of about 150,00 people very accessible.
We were welcomed that evening with a dinner at the house of our prospective new landlords, a family Simon lived with during his study abroad in Valdivia and more recently during his travels. Travis and I decided we like Valdivia very much, and we are happy we chose to come down here. Now we just need to find jobs!
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