Chile - Valapraiso & Santiago

---

After my long bus journey I was up early for a 'free' tour of the city it was great there was me and one other person the guide was from the US and told us all about teh city and it history, building and statues. It was really good and ended up send the rest of the day site seeing then people watching with a glass of wine from a roof top bar. I went out that evening with the people form the tour for a traditional meal and then a club. It was good but strange as you can smoke inside in Chile so was not nice - so pleased the uk has a smoking ban!!

On Sunday I got the bus to Santiago where I met up with Danika and Natalie who I met on my tour of Peru. After a few hours on the bus I was at their hotel, it was great to chatch up with them and swap updates on our travels. We went for some lunch and then did the free tour of the city its a great way to learn about the best parts of a city and decide where you want to go back too. After 3 hours walking around the tour finished and we had some cocktails and dinner whilst deciding what to do with our few days in the city.

We decided that a wine tour of Concha y Toro Winery would be the first thing we got up early and got the metro to the end and interesting experince for someone who doesn't speak spanish but we did well. The metro is a smaller version of the tubes and just as busy in the morning I found myself in the morning rush trapped between lots of people with nothing to hold onto other than the window - it made stopping interesting!! We got off the metro and got a taxi to the winery where we had a private tour and tasting of 3 wines it was great and the red wine was amazing!! On the way back to the metro we did some shopping and went for sea foor for dinner.

The next day was another early day as we decided to go to the Ski resort Valle Nevado were the girls skiied and I people watched sounds boring but it was good just to take in the atmosphere. We saw the paralympians training which was great to see they were so fast and fearless. After a long day at the resort I went back to the hostel and relaxed.

The next day I went to some of the museums with Andrew a guy from Oz that waas in my dorm, we also went to the fish market for lunch. Not understanding the menu we asked them to recommend something and out came a massive platter of sea food, mussel the size of my hand, prawns, squid and some other sea food I had never seem or heard off. It was interesting but I was deffinately not as brave as Andrew as I refused to eat a purple fish with a claw!! (he said it was bad anyway) The next day I was heading back to Valpariso and Andrew to Vina del Mar the neighbouring city we got on the same bus which made the journey so much better then my previous bus ride. I checked into my hostel and then went out on a bar crawl with the other people staying there. It was good to be shown the places to go we started in the oldest bar in Valpo which had old new paper stories and bar signs from when it open it was good but we stayed there for about 2 hours (not like a bar crawl back home) before moving onto the next bar were we had some food, I had a local dish of stewed beef, fried eggs, chips topped with fried eggs - some horrible but was great!

As the weather was good the next day I got on the metro to Vina and meet up with Andrew for a day at the beach. There isn't much to do in Vina if the weather isn't good so was lucky. After spending the day in the sun eating ice cream we went for dinner on the sea frount and then watched the firework display that had been put on for Chile's independence celebrations, there was dancing and music before and then the fireworks set to music set off on the sea, they lasted 30 mins and where brilliant - even if they were 25 mins late starting.

I spent the next few days in Valpo walking around the city visiting the sites, going out for dinner and drinks even a couple of the clubs. The hostel was great it was busy and everyone was so nice their was a bbq one of the nigth and the steak was amazing - Im so pleased I started eating meat again before coming here! the celebrations went on for a few days and there where more fireworks but the 18th was the main day of celebrations most of the city shut and all the local people went to a massive outside party called a funda when we got there is was crazy everyone from the city was there. We walked around and you could buy all types of food and drinks, there was 5 different sites that were playing live music and traditional dances where being preformed in the resturants. There was bouncy castle and slides for the kids, with games and fair gound rides - it was big and busy with a fantastic party atmosphere.

---