Chile

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We crossed the border into Chile and were immediately met by a tarmac road, the like of which we hadn´t seen for about 5 days. We were soon in San Pedro De Atacama which is a little oasis in the Atacama desert. The town and the hostel were nice enough but it is a tourist town and didn´t feel real. Saw the second oldest church in Chile, had a nice traditional Chilean meal though and a couple of nights polishing off the last of our Bolivian wine. There were tons and tons of huge dogs in the area, I don´t know what they are fed here.

We then took a 17 hour night bus to La Serena which is the second oldest city in Chile. We wandered about for a few days doing not much. The beach was nice enough but the water was extremely Chile! (boo) At the beach, we were also followed by a mental dog. The state of his mind must have had something to do with the fact that he had something very wrong with his downstairs mix up. Nuff said, it was horrible and he wouldn´t leave it alone. It also felt like he was really trying to impress us by......... chasing cars and nearly getting himself run over. In the end we had to chase him away.

Santiago was a very big city but very nice. We found a beautiful park in the centre which was a mixture of hills, old buildings and cavorting couples. The next day we took the metro and then a bus to the Concho y Toro Winery. The grounds were beautiful with an old colonial building in the centre. We tried a white wine which was called Amelia. It was lovely, Amy´s new favourite. We also tried the Casillero Del Diablo which is a red wine and again very nice but not as expensive as the first. As Bernard Black said ´All wine is good wine, but expensive wine is gooder wine also.´

Arrived in Valparaiso after a couple of days in Santiago. The bus journey was relatively short, unlike most of our journeys so far and as we hopped off of the coach we followed our compass and landed in the city´s plaza. Again as with most plazas, it was littered with mangy dogs which seemed to be automatically drawn towards us. We sat in the plaza considering our options, left or right and opted to head towards the hills where we had heard that accomodation was cheap. Jumped on a local bus and took a 10 minute journey to plaza Sotomayer where we later saw Prince Charles and Camilla. This was not a highlight for us, but as neither of us had seen him in our own country, we thought we´d try and get a glimpse.

We caught the ascensor 100m up the hill side. This is a kind of lift which has been around since 1887 and as you can imagine the pullies and mechanisms were a little creaky but successful. As we reached the top we headed upwards towards where we thought we´d find accomodation. LIttle success here though. As we wondered though the streets looking bemused, a man shouted at us ´sewer, don´t go up there. Better for you down here.´ What do we do now? With no reservations and little knowledge of the area we sauntered back towards the ascensor upon which we stumbled, quite gracefully, on a hostal which housed us quite comfortably for 2 nights. We went into the basement cafe underneath to meet the owner. There was also a french arty type in there who had been living in the hostel with his girlfriend for the past few month. He was very nice and helped us a bit wi th some translations, after which he broke into song and serinaded us with a french little dity. The hostel had a kitchen and we had our first home cooked meal all trip. From the kitchen table there was a fantastic view out over the harbour, It kind of reminded me of Portsmouth, but a nicer version obviously.

We are now in Argentina and about to go camping for the rest of the trip just ouside Mendoza.

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Photos

Tony and Ron
We named the dog after Rum and coke which is called ron and coke here