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The boy Neville!!
and the purple man I arrived in Santiago, Chile, to be met by Kev at the airport. Oh wait, no that never happened, he was asleep in his hotel after not coming out of it for 3 days before i arrived. Luckily he had managed to feed and water himself so no major harm was done. We quickly organised ourselves in town, sorting a weeks intensive, brain hurting, 6 hours a day of Spanish lessons at Escuela Bellavista just around the corner from where we were staying in Providencia.
Here we met Simon and Tammie from Bristol who we were to spend the next week and a half trying to learn a very small amount of the local lingo. The lessons were split into 2 hour sessions, 3 times a day and to be quite honest with you, by the time i finished the first 2 lessons of each day my head was ready to explode and nothing really registered for the last lesson. Kind of reminds me of my whole time at school!
Our professors were great though, even though they only spoke spanish throughout so the whole process meant we had to talk as much as we could in our best Spanglish.
The locals
Some cute old lady screaming at me in Valparaiso I definately think it helped though and i can now at least proudly speak out and ask where the toilet is before walking into the ladies.
Luckily we managed to have the course spread out from a thu to the following fri, with a long weekend off due to the local labour day holiday, where the locals take it upon themselves to march and fight each other instead of going into the hills and playing in the Andes. Neville and me decided a nice trip over to Valparaiso would be a good escape from the unbeleivable smog which completely smothers the city itself like a huge greeen cloud, unable to move due to the surrounding peaks.
We managed to bag ourselves a lovely room in a massive sprawling mansion on the top of concepcion hill overlooking the city, run by an old lady who amazed us with the fact she could actually walk due to being about 110 years old. This is where we based ourselves for exploring the area and its ascensors, which are ancient tram like systems for pulling you up to the tops of this hilly city. The best time we had is when we spilled into
The view.....
from on top of our mansion overlooking Valparaiso one of the local restaurants one evening, propped the bar up for the night and got chatting to the locals. In our state we believed we were making absolute sense in our Spanglish yet most of the time they were talking English to us as we knocked back the local drink, Pisco Sour amid plenty of cervesa (lager) and even tried getting up for a singsong with the purple man (see photo).
Back in the real world and back to school we continued to frustrate the lovely professor Natalia with our rubbish Spanish yet she stuck with us and helped us out no end. So course over we decided to take a trip out of Santiago for the day and into the Cajon del Maipo, which is an amazing valley a couple of hours out of town. We opted for a days trek to the foot of the San Francisco mountain glacier and a little exploring through the ice caves found at the base.
Our guide was an amazing guy called Gui who spoke fluent English due to spending 3 months working with the Brits on a Raleigh International Science Expedition in the South of Chile. What this guy didnt
Schools out!!
Me, Tammie, Simon, Natalia and Kev know about his country isnt worth knowing and he was an absolute character to have take us up. I dont believe i have ever screamed like a wolf at the base of a glacier before or made to drink natural spring water from a puddle of mud which tasted like dissolvable aspirin due to the high iron content in the surrounding rock. A great day was had by all though and it was good to get into the mountains once more.
Back in Santiago, while waiting for our flight to Easter Island we decided to go for lunch in the main square. As we were eating lunch on an outdoor patio area we were approached by a local bum, obviously pissed and high on something asking for money. Politely we refused this offer so he thought the best way to get us to understand would be to scream louder at us. Still no. So at this point the waiter, who i must add is quite a big boy, comes over and asks the guy to move on. Well, drunken man isnt happy at this so he picks up the post next to me and threatens the waiter with it. Waiters
proper not happy so instead of upholding the respectable name of his restaurant he smacks him full on the nose and puts the guy on his arse. Instead of walking away now he continues to pile in to him and give him a good kicking. Me and Kev are cracked up on our ringside seats as another waiter comes over to pull the drunk guy off the floor and continue giving him a kicking. I dont think he will be back begging there for some time.
After this excitement we move over to the other side of the main square to watch a huge traditional dance team dressed in amazing colourful outfits strutting their stuff up and down the road. This was an amazing thing to watch with the band playing away while the dancers who ranged from about 3 to 80 years old bounced around the road. What was even more amazing was to see drunken drugged up begger, smothered in blood dancing in the middle of them all as if nothing had ever happened.
Well, thats it for Santiago and its surrounds, next stop Easter Island and after that we begin to head North through chile towards San
Pedro De Atacama, officially one of the driest deserts in the world with no rain recorded in living history.
¡Asta Luego Amigos!
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