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Published: October 14th 2010
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After spending an action packed last day with Christine and Steve in Auckland (pancake brunch, walks around ancient volcanoes and lamb petting!) we + didgeridoo took our delayed LAN flight to Santiago in Chile and began the final phase of our trip....South America!
Chile is 16 hours behind New Zealand so it was weird living Sunday all over again. This meant we were knackered and slept for 16 hours straight on our first night! Stayed in Casa Roja Hostal, a huge old converted mansion in nice Barrio Brasil near the city centre. It was mostly full of Brits and Aussies so we didn't have to worry about the language barrier! Spent a few days exploring Santiago and it's skate parks. The didgeridoo got posted home. The 8.8M earthquake that rocked Santiago in Feb 2010 was still very evident with many old buildings and churches left to crumble. We liked Santiago, a nice easy introduction to Sudamerica!
Joined an excellent
Guachaca walking tour, organised by our hostel, through the city centre and to the huge, fresh fish and vegetable markets. Stopped for a coffee at one of the infamous
cafe con piernas cafes, which means 'coffee with legs'! A most
strange experience, we entered what looked like a nightclub from the outside (blacked out windows, pumping rock music, UV lighting) and were served coffee by tiny bikini-clad lovelies. The place was full of smartly dressed business men. A phenomenon only in Santiago! To finish the tour we went to a fantastically gritty locals bar called
La Piajera (which means 'lice pit'!) and sampled a
Terremoto (means earthquake!). A pint of cocktail containing fermented white wine, a scoop of pineapple ice-cream and a dash of bitters. Interesting and lethal. The bar was heaving with friendly, lively but drunk locals including young girls being sick into their empty Terremoto glasses and smartly dressed mature business women falling all over the floor. Such a good laugh, kinda reminded us of Northampton on a Saturday night! Home sweet home!
Next, we got the bus north to Valparaiso, a wonderful artsy old port and hillside city declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city is made up of the port and main city centre in the flat land next to the sea (El Plan) and the colourful, hoge-poge of houses, churches, galleries and cafes that cling to the steep hillsides overlooking the port (Cerros).
Valparaiso (6)
Dee, Alfonso, Holly and Jorje To get up the hill, we walked up the very steep narrow cobbled streets (good training for Inca Trek) or took an old funicular. There were many hills and funiculars, which we spent a lot of time walking up and down and around. Stayed in a brilliant hostel called 'Hostel Casa Valparaiso' on Cerro Concepcion run by Jorje and Sergio and ended up staying a week because we loved it there so much! Sergio made us breakfast every morning and Jorje was forever making us Pisco Sour cocktails and letting us sample is homemade
Pebre (Chilean tomato salsa) and
Ceviche (salad of raw fish marinated with lime juice!).
We loved Valparaiso because every wall and fence in the city was painted with wacky and colourful murals and stensils. This city is a full of creative and bohemian types and many artists and poets call it home. We visited the beautiful home (now museum) of the late Paulo Neruda, Chile's most famous poet who also collected quirky objects. The views from his writing room were to die for! There were many nice colonial style buildings in the city and a big Naval presence. Apparently, the British and Chilean Navies are
great admirers of each other and Chile supported Britain not Argentina during the Falklands Conflict. Fact!
When we first arrived, on the Friday, there were hundreds of young people in the city with drums and musical instruments, mostly congregated in a large square/plaza on Cerro Alegre. We went to have a look and realised we'd stumbled across the first evening of the 'Mil Tambores' Festival (a thousand drums). There were drumming troops in matching outfits, girls braving the cold wearing only body paint, confetti being thrown and clowns on stilts parading through the streets so we bought a beer and joined the crowds of spectators! Great fun! The festival was supposed to carry on all weekend but we found out the next day that there had been trouble in the city after the parade (naughty drunk people throwing glass and smashing shop windows) and the police cancelled the event. Shame but glad we saw it when we did. On Saturday, Jorje took us plus his other house guests (Germans and Chileans) out on the town to some bars and Dee and a German chap called Daniel ended up in a Chilean Salsa nightclub called
El Huevo (Eggs!)! Good times.
Jorje and Sergio only spoke Spanish and we realised quite early on that our knowledge of this beautiful language was rubbish so we signed ourselves up for a week of intensive beginner Spanish lessons at
El Escuela Espanol Interactivo with local poet, musician and Spanish tutor Arturo. He only spoke to us in Spanish so our learning curve was very steep. For the first couple of days we struggled a lot and we had a particularly embarrassing meeting with one of Arturo's friends, where we were supposed chat and ask her questions in Spanish but we just looked at her, lost for words. Thankfully, after many hours of revision and homework and practising on Jorje, we got the hang of it and felt pretty pleased with our progress. To celebrate our final lesson, we made a typical 'English' afternoon tea of Lipton Tea, sandwiches and homemade scones with jam and cream, which Arturo and his wife Maria really loved. Maria also provided wine, mussel Empanadas (just like Cornish Pasties) and a Chilean tomato and onion salad so we were all happily stuffed and were sad to say goodbye! Our Spanish is still very ''you Tarzan, me Jane'' but we
get understood and hopefully get brownie points for effort!
After a couple more days of sightseeing in Valparaiso and nearby beach resort of Vina del Mar, we got a night bus north to La Serena...........
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Celso
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Brahma
kakakaka, this is from Brazil.