Buen Dia South America!!

---

As you can see from the title, Spanish is second nature to both of us. We're constantly throwing phrases out there like 'hola' and 'como estas', and understanding every word in response. However if that were the case I'd know what South America was in Spanish. This is going to be a challenge......

Nothing but 11 hours stood between us and touch down in Santiago. What we were about to experience was the longest day in our lives, and will probably remain that way for the entirety of our lives too.

The flight took off promptly, as scheduled, at 4pm from Aukland and landed, as scheduled, at 11am the next morning. We didn't however land the next day, we landed on the same day, both setting off and touching down on the 3rd of March therefore giving us a unique opportunity to live the same day twice! As cool as that may seem, the time difference has caused us to have some pretty severe jet lag which now, 3 days in, is still having a negative effect on us both.

Less of that though and more about South America, Santiago and Valparaiso (or Valpo if your down with the kids). Our Spanish was about as ready as it was going to be and all the preparation we had done was now about to be tested. From the moment we left the airport in Santiago, very few people now understand English, unlike the other countries we had been to such as India and Vietnam. Our first challenge was getting the bus to the right place which we managed to do without any problems, going straight for Los Heroes, a station in Barrio Brazil, an area within Santiago.

That was the first hurdle successfully jumped. The next was going to be checking into the hostel. And luckily for us our Spanish wasn't tested at all, the owners spoke English at a much better level than our current Spanish. So we had made it and got a bed which was all that we needed for the time being, having not slept in 24hours. We tried to do this sleep tactically, thinking the 3 hours what we had would be enough to give us a rest but not that much that we couldn't sleep again that night.

A little refreshed from our nap we went out in search of food, our biggest challenge so far and it made me realise I should have paid way more attention in GCSE Spanish. We went into a little local place and sat down with the menu not having a clue what any of it was. I was struggling to remember what the words for beef, pork and chips were let alone steak and and all the Chilean specialities. In the end we ordered and what we got was a tough-as-boot steak, a couple of small pork chops and a bottle of the most expensive wine in the place! Our/my Spanish needs to improve quickly!

Besides the slight early language barrier, the rest of the night was perfect. We wandered around, stumbling upon a small plaza with a local band playing some live music and a load of stalls alongside them. It was what we needed to help us adjust to this new environment and the new country.

For our bodies it was now the middle of the day but in reality it was getting on towards 10pm and we decided to head back and try force ourselves to shut down. This is when we found out what jet lag really is, which previously we thought of as just being tired. We laid in bed for almost 5 hours before finally at 4am nodding off to sleep, knowing the next day was going to be the same. I left the alarm in the trusting hands of Laura, due to go off at 8.30, and no matter how little sleep we had had that was when we said we would get up and try force our bodies into a new pattern. Even though Laura had turned the alarm off and 8.30 came and went we still managed to wake up at 9.30! The both of us were shattered, agitated and bad company to be around, a nightmare to be together.

Despite all the comments we made at each other that day, we made it through and managed to have a cracking day. We started off at the markets, selling all kinds of fruit and veg before finding ourselves at the foot of a big hill, happening to be the Cerro San Cristóbal, where lies a huge statue of Jesus overlooking the entire city. It seems to be whenever we see a hill we have to go up it. This one was worth the walk, giving us a view of the 5 million strong Chilean capital and our first chance to try the local pie, an Empenada; mince, onion, egg and olive! Strange but rather good! The hill also gave us the chance to see what else we could explore. We could see another hill (not quite as big) down in the city, called Cerro Santa Lucia, this time with a fort around the top and so we went there. It was an amazing spot, filled with character, fountains, a bit of history and a whole load of couples hooking up on any patch of grass, concrete or stair they could.

Laura still hadn't eaten by this point and on a scale of 1 to grumpy was now well into the top tenth of it. Our Spanish today was a lot more advanced, with the help of the phrase book, enabling us to add manners into our basic sentences so if all else goes down the pan at least we do it politely. So we 'politely' ordered a salad which was pretty easy to do, however all that we got was tomatoes and onions chopped on a plate. Clearly still a long way to go.

By the time we had our second late lunch it was 5pm and feeling as tired as we did, we started to slowly plod back. It wasn't long before we detoured, into a region with a London and Paris street. And in keeping with those two places it had umpteen cafes all serving very good coffee. It would have been rude not to have one and test out a bit ore of our Spanish at the same time. A latte and a flat white (adventurous) ordered and a latte and a flat white delivered, we felt like we were getting somewhere. The coffee didn't have much of an effect on the jet lag, we were both still whacked and longing for a good nights sleep.

A half hour later we arrived back into the hostel. I wanted to wear my self out that night in the hope of breaking the jet lag insomnia so went on a run around the city. Pretty stupid idea really at 6pm in the middle of the capital, I'd have made a good bit of money if I was paid a dollar for every sidestep around people/cars/buses that I did. Next time I go running i'll find a park! By the time I got back and made tea it was 8.30pm, neither of us a bit tired and found ourselves at 12 wide awake chatting away to the guys in the hostel. We made for bed but that didn't work either. We both laid in the bunk intent on sleeping not saying a word. 1 hour went by, then another and another. By 3am I was gone but Laura laid there for yet another hour.

We didn't let ourselves have a lie in. We were still determined to shake it off. This morning we both looked like Mum and Dad at lambing time, 90%!a(MISSING)sleep and agitated. We had a rant, probably a shout and then blamed it on the jet lag! With a quick wash, we were on our way to the bus station destined for Valparaiso.

An hour later, exhausted, we walked into the station with all our bags and finally plucked up the courage to ask for a ticket in our best Yorkshire Spanish. Somehow, with lots of 'No Entiendo's' (I don't understand), we got our tickets not only to Valparaiso but to Pucon as well a few days later. Fluent or what? Proudly we boarded the bus, took our seats and watched the Chilean scenery pass by for the next 2 hours.

Valparaiso, which I still can't pronounce, is a city right on the coast line and was until recently the biggest and richest port in Latin America. That was then, and now it is known for much different things. Graffiti being one of those, and not like you find at the skatepark in Holmfirth but huge pieces done by commissioned artists. Some of the work was incredible, from hummingbirds to cityscapes painted onto a staircase. Wherever you go in Valparaiso, round every corner, was the most colourful and unique artwork I'd ever seen. Instead of a brick and mortar exterior, people pay for artists to decorate the exterior of their houses, making the city different to any other.

We saw the majority of this on the way to the hostel, slowly making our way up into the hills where our hostel stood. And in order to get there we had to take a ascendosor, an experience in itself, which in simple terms is a multi person enclosed chair lift taking you from the bottom of a hill to the top in minutes, a thoughtful surprise for the backpackers and locals alike. The hostel was in an immaculate condition, looking far too good to only cost £10 a night. Even with a price tag as low as that and a complimentary breakfast that will not be beaten, we were the only people in the 10person dorm and the entire place. It was a bit bizarre. So we were friendless for the afternoon and the rest of the evening.

Bags down, shoes on, out the door and on our way to explore. We didn't dare to take the camera on the first outing, deciding to leave her behind because we were too scared of getting her robbed which left us, in particular me, feeling bare. It was a good idea really as we didn't have a map and we could have ended up walking into a dangerous part of town, notorious for muggings. We didn't seem to do much there however, we walked around looking at all the graffiti, buildings and boats but other than that we just had a coffee. And by the time we had done that the bellies started to rumble and food was on the mind. In the midst of trying to find food earlier that day we had wandered into a rather rough patch of town, only a block or two away from the main plaza. We didn't know it at the time but we did wonder why there were a lot of police around! We didn't hang around there long and opted for a pizza instead, swilled down with a beer or two, a better option than cooking.

The second day however was much more fulfilled. We hadn't been on a tour of a city since India, and with the opportunity of a free tour in town we jumped on board. The idea of the tour is that we give them money based upon how good we think it is, hence the name Tours for Tips. It was an awesome choice and one that we would do again definitely. It started off in the port, giving a bit of background info on the city before then moving down the former richest street in the whole of SA, before another port overtook it in terms of size and importance. Throughout the street you could see all the intricate designs up high, slowly becoming more and more soiled the further to the ground it goes. So what was the wealthiest and most sought after street in SA is now home to drunks and crooks. This was where we unknowingly wandered into the previous day.

For the remainder of the tour we went up and down the hills, each with a different style and all with their own cliques, contributing to inter-hill rivalries. They took us onboard some of the worlds oldest trolley buses and finished it with a drink. We even stopped off along the way at a local legends house who bakes Alfajores, a type of cookie, and gives them out to the groups, twice a day, everyday. All of this was for free. We didn't pay a penny throughout the 3 hour duration and at the end we just gave a donation. We wished that we did it the day before leaving us with a full day to explore the rest of the city however we were left with a couple of hours.

The day had warmed up by this point and the thought of trudging round the city again didn't bode well, so we had a coffee, and an ice cream and an empanada and didn't do much else.

Valparaiso had been and was an amazing city, filled with abstract buildings and quirky cafes but we couldn't stay there for any longer. We had now spent 4/5 days in the cities and no matter how good they are we always want to leave. So its time to leave the city for the countryside and start weaving between Chile and Argentina on our way down to Patagonia. If you look on a map of the world you'll realise we have a long, long way to travel to then travel all the way back to the top. Let the good times roll.

Next stop, Pucon.

Hasta Lluego.

---