Puerto Montt 2

Monday 8^th February

After breakfast dropped off my laundry and then walked along the seafront, where I could see a large cruise ship has anchored offshore, to the museum.  It's a rather grey day. The museum had a special exhibit on megafauna which existed in what is now Chile, particularly focused on the stegomastodon, an elephant like creature which dominated South America until it went extinct with the rest of the megafauna about 15 000 years ago. Also on the ground floor was an exhibition about Pope John Paul's visit to Puerto Montt; he did get around! A particularly frustrating aspect of the museum's information boards, which were otherwise excellent, was the translation of the heading into English but none of the rest of the text, as if to tease non-Spanish speakers. "We know you are out there, we know you are interested in this, but we aren't going to tell you any more because you are too lazy or stupid to learn Spanish".  The upper floor told the story of the founding and settlement of Puerto Montt from the 1850's to the present day. Many of the exhibits do look as if they have come from attic clearances. What I hadn't realised was that the city was devastated by an earthquake in 1960, which provides some excuse for the ugliness of much of it.

Brunsviga Calculating Machine.
I remember being shown how to use one.
Much better than Log Tables or Slide Rule!

Too Young to Use This

Big Cruise Ship Anchored Offshore

Small Boats Tied up in Angelmo

More Small Boats in Angelmo

Part of the Market

Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie

From the museum I headed to Angelmo, which, I think, was the old port area, and is now dominated by tourist focused shops and stalls, seafood and cheese shops and seafood restaurants. There are still some small boats there and a ferry terminal nearby. I was rather hoping to find a cafe where I could sit down and watch Angelmo go round but my luck was out. So decided to go with the flow and have fish for lunch. After hearing about what went into the fish food used in the salmon farms and reading of the dangers of eating shell fish affected by "red tide" algae I am not as enthusiastic about anything fishy as I used to be. But it did seem silly to choose factory farmed chicken over farmed salmon just because of what I had learnt. At least the farmed salmon should be fresh! The grilled salmon turned out to be good, none of the sticky texture salmon can have, and came in a generous portion with two large boiled potatoes. But I am still surprised at how little effort Chileans put into so much of their cuisine. Just a piece of salmon and two potatoes, no garnish, not even a sprig of parsley. Had a beer to go with it. Downside of the substantial lunch was to make me feel quite sleepy so after walking back into the centre of town, stopped off at Cafe Sherlock for a coffee.