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Published: August 31st 2010
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The first four days in Santiago were a write off while I was hit by bird flu. Luckily the hostel we stayed at was amazing - La Casa Roja - thanks for the recommendation Miss Lisa Whyte - previously a rich family's mansion, it has massive rooms filled with victorian style furniture. A bit of a party hostel, at any hour of the day there will be someone playing a guitar and a group of people drinking pisco sours. On some of the walls of the building there are some signs of the damage from February's earthquake even though it happened south of Santiago. The staff tried to cure me with a mix of beer, pisco sours and salt but it didn't help and just made me cough even more. I can't say I've missed any home comforts since being away but never have I craved a roast chicken dinner with yorkshire puddings and gravy so much in my life!
So David will never make a career in nursing anytime soon, he became impatient during day 3 of bird flu and we booked a bus trip north primarily to the Atacama desert and San Pedro with a company called
Pachamama. It turned out to be a great 8 days, we wouldn't normally go with a tour for so long but its difficult in Chile to explore places off the beaten track without just getting a bus from one place to the next.
On the first day we stopped in a town called La Serena then from there it was all super long bus journeys through the driest desert in the world, just looking out of the window made you thirsty. Some weather stations have not registered rain for fifty years! We spent a couple of nights in cabins on a beach and had a BBQ and got everyone playing Kings, the drinking game Pat and Tash taught us during one notorious night on Cat Ba Island in Vietnam! The next night we stayed at Antofogasta where there was a small earthquake in the morning, 5.1 on the richter scale. We didn't feel a thing though I think we were sleeping at the time.
I can't talk about Chile without mentioning David's main food source - the completo. Completos are hotdogs smothered in avocado, chopped tomato then as much mayo, mustard and ketchup as you can
Santiago
You can just make out the Andes in the background through the smog fit on top. David so far is averaging about two per day. Thomas, a German on the tour is completely obsessed with them, in fact I don't think I saw him eat anything else but completos - at least four per day. Speaking of avocado, its everywhere! It's a good thing we like avocado as you are served it as a salad with every meal. Even the burgers in McDonalds have lashings of avocado in them!
A big regret so far is not learning to speak any spanish. We had good intentions in Melbourne, getting books and dvds at the library to learn but they ended up on the dining table collecting dust and we arrived in Chile barely knowing our Buenos Dias from our Buenos Noches! David has picked it up quite fast and with a little grammar should be on his way to becoming a proper hombre. I on the other hand am scraping by speaking made up spanish and hoping people understand.
The furthest stop north was San Pedro de Atacama, where we went to an archeological museum specifically to see a mummy called Miss Chile which we saw on Globetrekkers before we
even left Glasgow. Should have done our homework - she was moved in 2007. We had another night of card games then our guide Vanessa found out about a party happening in the desert outside San Pedro. I was still too flu'd and ended up being a loser going to bed but David, Thomas and an Australian girl Jenny went. Apparently it took them about 2 hours to find it in the pitch black but it was good for practicing spanish. Jenny who is as bad as me said there was a lot of fake spanish talking going on, damn I missed out! Also in San Pedro we had the battle of the hot water, who will win today? If you're very lucky, you'll have hot water first time but usually its icy cold or of the scalding variety. Apparently there is a fine line here in Chile between pleasure and pain!
We also went to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) which is supposed to have a lunar landscape, I've never been on the moon so I can't really tell, but it is weird, unique and beautiful at the same time. On the last day
of the tour we went to another space observatory. It wasn't as good as the one in New Zealand, there were too many OMG girls there but we learned some cool Inca constellations. Back in Santiago we checked on the map how far we had travelled to San Pedro from Santiago. Chile is such a long skinny country that you feel like you've travelled a great distance but on a map of South America its miniscule! We've stayed at three different hostels in Santiago now - La Casa Roja then Hostel Bella Vista and now La Chimba. Each one just gets better, La Chimba is probably best if you want some quiet time.
We are off to Argentina tomorrow, David can't wait to eat some good steak and watch football, the boca somethings or whatever they are called. Our thoughts are with the miners, who will still be stuck down there even after we arrive home.
Happy birthday to Stuart on the 3rd. Feliz cumpleaños!
Adiós!
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Graeme
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Rad.
South America looks awesome chaps, I'm tres jealous of that trip! I think I'll need to try and make a completo. It sounds like the greatest food known to man. Only two a day? Are you sure David wasn't sick too?