First trip outside of the two it took me to get here!
I asked if i needed to bring my swimmers and was told no way! When we got there i realized why! Absolutely freezing!
The trip to Cobquecura was beautiful, going from Chillan further into the country but closer to the beach. I was told that every town we pass was built in the 1700´s, & when they were built, the workers traveled horse & cart to the next place they would build. They way they decided where that would be was by traveling 24 hours, soooo basically, every 24 hour trip, a new town was born. Pretty cool.
The view of the coast against the mountains with pine trees on them was beautiful, contrasting spectacularly. I took loads of photo´s.
The sand was GREY and the seaweed was soo nothing like what we have in Australia! Here it´s like a hard rubber tube..annnddd you can buy it in shops to eat! But the main reason people buy it is to give to their children when they are teething, instead of dummies, very resourceful. Actually, that is one thing Ive noticed about Chillan, every natural resource available is used as much as possible, which is fabulous. Life is simple and living is easy with the natural necessities of the earth. (is that a song??)
I hear a huge roar and see what i have been waiting for! Right smack bang in the middle of the coast is a huge rock where Sea Lions live, binoculars out straight away and i can´t get enough, they are huge but so beautiful, on top of the rock there are scavenger vultures circling, and small sea lions playing on the waves in the sea. So beautiful!
Ive taken loads of pictures already, and then i see it, a baby sea lion washed up on shore, very alive, and not wanting, despite one ladies efforts to pick it up and move it into deeper water, to go back into the water!
I find out that the female sea lion will produce more then one pup, but because of the limited room on the rock where hundreds of sea lions live, it is not uncommon for the mother to push one off in banishment! So i figured that this little sea pup either didn't want to, or could not go back to his home, and the distance from the rock to the shore would have exhausted it :( SO sad.
It´s pretty dangerous though for a sea lion pup to be on land as there are so many wild dogs, its death would be brutal, so we all agree (and by we, i mean the people who speak Spanish with Julian´s dad lol) to call the police and see if they can help out at all.
SO! that was the epic adventure of the sea pup, very sad :(
Walking up towards the car, i see all these little art stall´s, that have some beautiful things, most artwork is made from things of the sea, which is very cool. I decide to buy one when we have our next trip though.
Julian promises me that when we come back in a few weeks after we have been to the north, that we can go horseback riding on the beach!! There is a little stable with 6 or so horses waiting (aka sleeping!) with their owners for people to hire for an hour or so, which only costs 3 mil pesos! I can´t wait!!!!
Off to the next thing, a huge..well..rock, that used to be under water (no surprise there)that is now a CHURCH! But, not like Jenolan caves type church with pews and marriage ceremonies (though maybe one day this did happen) this is more of a spectacle now a days, but it still has the statue of Mother Mary and different religious items scattered around. In saying that, there are also short notes, mostly of love, written by people who have committed suicide there, either at the sacrifice of the sea when the tide is high, or by their own hand. Very sad.
This place is HUGE and very cold :/ the texture of the sand is very different to the coarseness of the sand on the beach, obviously the sun has a part in this as no sun can get into the cave so it can not break down the particles. We walk around for ages, freezing mind you with no jacket! and down the the mouth of the cave where the sea comes in. We attempt to take a photo before the water comes through with the next wave!!! Don´t think it worked at all haha.
The water here is sooo cold the obvious explanation for this is where the water comes from: the south pacific ocean, which can bring currents from the south antarctic. aka... freezing. Needless to say there are no sharks here!!!
We hit the road for the hour trip back to Chillan, and i sleep for most of it.
Until the next trip!
Hopefully it will involve lots of wine tasting and pisco! mmmmmm....wineee.
