Surfing, kitesurfing and interesting places in Chile!

During our stay in Valparaiso, Markus, Basti and Basti's friend went to Matanzas for kitesurfing. Edda stayed in Valpo for a relax day with series 😉 The kite spot was close to Matanzas, in Pupuya. There should be big waves and strong but steady wind. Well, as we have heard many times before during our trip, Markus got to hear the same sentence, "this is not the normal weather here". There were just small waves and strong but very gusty wind. Basti lent Markus a 7m kite because Markus had just a 9m and it was way too big 😜 Even the 7m was quite big and Markus just tried to learn a bit of the waves. The water was also freezing! It was only around 14c 😲 The views on the spot were quite nice and also on our way there we stopped on a viewpoint where one can enjoy beautiful views over the sea. On the way back we stopped at a small local hot dog place 😋. 

On our way to kitesurf, we stopped to enjoy some views

Basti had recommended Puclaro to us for few days' trip so we decided to go there. It was a really small place next to a dam with good kitesurf conditions. We were lucky with the water amount. The dam "lake" had been almost totally dry for the last four years, but now it was full. Our way there was not the easiest. We went to the the bus station with all of our luggage to notice that the next bus is leaving a bit late, so we would be in Puclaro around midnight. We bought bus tickets for the next day for about 11,000 pesos each. So a new try the next morning. It was a 7 hour bus ride to La Serena where we had to switch to a smaller bus that went to Puclaro. First we had to find the counter from where to buy the tickets to Puclaro (2000 pesos) and after that the bus. We were told twice the wrong bus and then the woman who sold the tickets to us came and said that the bus is leaving, go in! 

After a 40 min ride we arrived to the closest bus stop, about 3-4km from Puclaro. Luckily a local man in the bus said that we can hitch-hike to our hotel. We got of the bus and almost immediately a local asked if we want a ride to Puclaro. That was nice! The hotel had really nice views over the dam. The place is basically for kite and windsurfing only, so it was a small surprise how small the rooms were and there were no place to dry wetsuits or other stuff. 

Markus went for an evening session on the arriving day. The next morning it was Edda's turn! She did body dragging and practiced handling the kite. It went rally well this time 😊 after few hours, the wind got a bit too strong for Edda so Markus went kitesurfing. The water was warm enough to surf without wetsuit. 

View from our room 😊

Whoooops, someone's going to crash! 😜

Edda going practicing

Edda's body dragging started to be quite good 😊

Markus trying to get air

Evening session

In the evening there was a bbq party in our hotel, when a Chilean guy, Sebastian had managed to kite without going downwind. They said that if you learn something new, you have to offer a bbq evening for the others in the hotel 😜 It ended up to be a bit bigger party and people from other places came also there and we had a great time and learned some Chilean bbq traditions and tasted local foods, yummy! 😋

Delicious bbq

The next day the wind was a bit different from the previous day. When the wind picked up around 11am, it went from 0 to 30knts in no time, and later on even stronger. Markus went out with a 6m kite but returned quite fast back. It was a really fast kite and it was easy to do kite loops by mistake so he decided to go with his 9m Core Gts kite. It was a bit too big but at least Markus was used to it. The kiting was that day mainly looking for a board. Lorena, a woman from our hotel had lost her board so Markus went to look for it. Eventually it took a bit over an hour to find it because of the waves. It was actually a quite nice session with nice views in the bottom of the lake. First a down winder and then back up wit a way too big kite. Markus could kite fully deepowered without holding the bar. 😂 We had planned to go in the evening again, and Edda would have tried the board, but the wind continued really strong and gusty (30-40knts) until the sunset. 

The next day we had again a long way back to Valpo. One night in Valpo and then we went again to Matanzas with Basti. Basti and Dani have a cottage there so we stayed overnight. The wind was way too light so we didn't get any kiting there, and the main purpose there was that Edda would learn a bit more kiting. Damn. We checked few places and also Basti's and Dani's plot 😊 Markus and Basti went for normal surfing and Markus managed to ride along a wave for around 30 secs! It was the first time Markus had ridden a wave sideways, not just straight to the beach! In the evening we had a nice bbq with veggies, cheese and meat. Basti made also a prank to Markus with extremely hot ghost chili sauce 😝 luckily it didn't burn too long! 

Getting stuff out from the car at Basti's and Dani's cottage

Markus and Basti lighting up the grill with a kite pump 😂

Red evening sun caused by the fires as mentioned in our previous post

Markus and Basti went the next morning for a surf session, but it didn't go so well. The waves weren't that good, but at least some exercise before heading back back to Valpo. 

After Chile it was time to say good bye to Latin America after 5 months of traveling. Our next post will be from New Zealand!