The Austral University in Valdivia, Chile is quickly becoming one of the top Universities in Chile. It is one of the few Universities in Southern Chile that regularly lures away top students from Santaigo's Universities. One of the reasons for the reputation of the Austral University is that it is conducting cutting edge science. Recently however a fire in the Science building resulted in the almost total destruction of priceless research of professors and students, including a one of kind collection of Charles Darwin's specimens that where recently repatriated to Chile for a new Natural History museum. There where no injuries in the Fire. The University is however getting some international help in recovering in the form of an upcoming lecture by Steven Hawkins.

The Valdivia is a relatively small and fast growing city in Southern Chile. The city obviously puts a great deal of effort in to building a tourism industry, and it also has a well established agricultural industry that works well with strong environmental awareness of the community. Just a few minutes up river on a tour boat, the city of Valdivia melts in to a marsh land nature reserve built out of the confluence of several rivers as they flow from the South American Andes mountain range. Among other things you will find small Mapuche village, a Chicha brewer, and of course lots of animals that call the nature reserve home. We took a ride on one of the many tour boats in Valdivia, and it did not disappoint.

A big problem in the city of Valdivia southern Chile, becomes a big tourist attraction. Sea lions weighing up to 2,000+ pounds recently discovered that the fish market along the river was a great place for a free lunch. That is not really the problem however. The problem is when they decide to take walking tours of downtown Valdivia. The city of Valdivia had a good solution to this big problem.

The Los Rios region (The rivers region) was recently split from Los Lagos region (region X), and will be numbered officially as region XIV. The new region will have Valdivia as the capital. The Los Rios region was not the only new region created. In Northern Chile, the Arica-Parinacota Region was also created and will be numbered as region XV.