Heart of Germanness

Death on the... Valdivia
Winter wonderland
Waiting for scraps
With open arms
A kind of blue
Yarn bombed
Socialist realism
Tetris tavern

There's been several waves of Germans coming to Latin America. In Chile, the German population is mostly decended from about 30.000 immigrants who arrived between 1846 and 1914, specifically following the revolutions of 1848 in the German states. Now, there are about 500.000 of them.
The heart of German Chile is the town of Valdivia, where cafe and kuchen is sold in every cafe and scenery is wet, green and hilly with the default construction material wood, to the extent where even part of the collection of one story buildings of the universidad austral, the most prominent university in the city is made of wood.

Valdivia is not overly interesting, however. Like a forgotten German industrious town in the middle of nowhere. The fish, thankfully, is good, and probably the best thing to see in town are the birds, pelicans amongst them, as well as huge sea lions, fighting for scraps of fish at the riverside fresh fish market. The sea lions, the size of cows, within arms length of the fish cleaners, snapping up all the bits and pieces cut off by the sellers.

Not surprisingly, Valdivia is also home to what is considered the best Chilean beer, Kunstmann. With its slogan 'Das gute bier', their brewery is just out of town, but also a bit of a tourist trap. A little bit further down is Valtor, in name more like a medieval nemesis to some Game of Thrones character, their beer was good, but their food a bit disappointing.

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