Puerto Montt

Puerto Montt, Chile

December 17

We started the day by getting a tender. My Mom and I walked into town. On the way we found an adorable German Shepard, who only had 3 legs, so I named him Trio. Trio followed us to the mall. On the way we met one of his other friends who was holding a juice box in his mouth, so we named him Juice box. We found the mall (Trio was still happily following behind us). Unfortunately, it was closed. The reason why the mall (and pretty much everything else) was closed that day was because it was election day in Chile! But we saw a market that had a bunch of Christmas decorations, so we went. My mom bought a knitted Santa Claus that we now have hung up in our cabin. Then the next stall had some nice fuzzy Adidas sweat pants, so I got them. I figured the sweatpants would help keep me warm as we travelled to Antarctica. My Mom and I continued to walk through the market and saw a bunch of wrapping paper and bags etc. The stalls were still opening so we made several laps around the market because every time we went there was a new stall open.  After we walked through the market we sat down on the steps. Trio left us when we entered the market, but Juice Box came and sat down by us on the steps. He fell went to sleep in the nice warm sun. I was starting to get hungry and so was my Mom. The Churro Lady came to the rescue! She took a while to set up, but it was worth the wait.  While we were waiting, one of our trivia team members from the ship stopped by and said hi. Finally, the Churro Lady opened, so we walked up and ordered 2 churros. She pumped the dough out into the hot oil and the churros were on there way to being golden brown! After they cooled down, and she soaked up a bunch of oil from the churros, she injected warm homemade caramel. That churro was probably the best churro I have ever had in my life. It was warm and that was great because it was really windy. Sadly, it was so hot that I burned my tongue. After enjoying the wonderful churros, we walked through the stalls again. I saw a skirt that was pretty but the lady who was running that stall wasn’t there. Then we left the market and found a bunch of Christmas stores but nothing super interesting. We found a store called Tricot and it was having a Christmas sale, so we went in. I wound up buying a t-shirt. Tricot had 3 floors - accessories, clothing, and shoes. After we walked through clothing we went up to shoes and I saw a pair of high-heels that looked nice but did not come in my size. Then I walked around some more in the shoe department and found some really comfortable hiking boots that were in the half off section. My Mom found some too. Then we went to the accessories floor and nothing looked too interesting, so we checked out and walked back to the ship. Puerto Montt was very fun I enjoyed being “adopted” by the stray dogs and shopping in the market.