Seattle South

It’s another wet, gray day outside and there is some temptation (a lot really) to stay inside and catch up on so many things that we have fallen behind on. We’ve been gone a week now and are running perilously low on clean clothes, so at a minimum that needs to get taken care of. And since we’ll be out of the room anyway, may as well make a day of it and catch some sights.

After dropping off a few bags of manky laundry at the front desk, we head off to the riverfront, where the tour boats depart for a ride to the Spanish forts some 5km away. These people are nowhere near as dumb as we are however, and with the weather as bad as it is, everything is cancelled until tomorrow. That sounds like a challenge, and after asking around, we learn that it is possible to drive about 20km out of town and then catch a local ferry to see the forts.

It’s a slow drive on a narrow road, more often than not stuck behind a heavily loaded truck of one kind or another, but we manage to find the port and are first in line. Just one problem. There are two forts nearby, and we’ve been told the best one is on a small island in the middle of the river. Unfortunately, the water is so rough by this point that the ferry can’t dock there. That means option one is off the table. Option two is across the river and that ferry is apparently still going, but after waiting in line for half an hour and seeing no movement (and visibility so poor we probably couldn’t see the fort if we were standing right next to), it’s time to concede defeat and head back to town.

We make it back in time for a late lunch back at the market and quick trip to the grocery store to stock up for our drive tomorrow. Angela is so excited to come across this little treasure and can’t wait to tell Sam that it is safe to travel to Chile because they have Heinz ketchup.

According to the forecast, the weather starts to clear up tomorrow, so we’re planning on moving south to Chiloé for our last few days in this part of the country.