El Fuerte de Niebla y Reserva Punta Curiñanco

We managed two day trips from Valdivia… one to El fuerte de Niebla (Niebla Fort) and a second to Reserva Punta Curiñanco (a nature reserve)… 2 day trips in the same post – they are getting lazy with their blogging I hear you say… 🙂

In normal circumstances I would agree – but as neither excursion was exactly exciting, I thought I’d save you from having to read (or skip) 2 posts!!!!! (plus we don’t have any pictures from Reserva Punta Curiñanco…. )

So, we visited El fuerte de Niebla on a very apt day… ‘niebla’ means fog in English, and the day we picked turned out to be wet, windy and very foggy… meaning that we got the full ‘niebla’ experience!

The fort itself was actually pretty interesting, and it was good to read about the history of the fort system in the area… but one of the main reasons for visiting is the good views… and when the area lives up to its name you miss out on those… 🙁

However, I’m going to share some pictures with you anyway 😉

Our second day trip took us to Reserva Punta Curiñanco, which was about an hour away from Valdivia on the bus…. We’d read online about some awesome trails in the reserve, and were more than ready to go for a hike…

When we got to the reserve we paid our entrance fee… we then learned from the man at the gate that there was only one trail and that it would take about two hours to walk…

We also found out that we weren’t allowed to take our backpacks into the reserve but had to leave them at the gate…?!?  …..so much for our lunch overlooking the ocean on the trail… we had to gobble it down before walking the trail instead… not a great start…

The trail itself was fairly pleasant… it had a nice stretch walking through the forest, and other parts with nice coastal views…

I would love to share some pictures with you – but am unable to 🙁 as our camera battery decided not to charge when it was plugged in overnight – so it didn’t even turn on when we tried to take our first picture 🙁

You’ll just have to imagine a pleasant trail instead…. and also a little sea otter that we spotted when we left the reserve and were on the beach waiting for the bus back to Valdivia…

All in all not our 2 most memorable day trips in Chile…