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Published: October 27th 2005
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New Clothes!
comfortable and warm in Santiago We had a 6 hour flight from La Paz to Santiago (the flight went via Arica, where we cleared Chilean customs, and Iquique). Being in Santiago is like being in the US or a big, modern European City. It has order, structure and draught beer - all of which are distinctly lacking in Bolivia. It´s a rather disoreintating feeling being amidst such civilization, so what better way to embrace it than with a couple of ice-cold beers?! The beer in Chile is excellent. If you ask for a Schop you get a pint sized draught lager. This, on average, costs about 90p in Santiago. We had a great few days exploting the city, and even went on a shopping spree and treated ourselves to some new clothes! We went to the zoo, and up a fantastic ´funiculare´that takes you up to the top of a hill with some excellent, albeit hazy, views of the city (see photos!)
After our fun filled days in Santiago we got a bus to Valparaiso. Valparaiso is a bit of a rough old port town. There´s not a great deal to see but we made the most of our time there. We were staying in
G&R in Santiago
Hight above the city (and smog) a great little hotsal with a kitchen so it was nice to cook (first time in ages) and we also started to sample some Chilean wines! The vino here is superb, and the cost for a really good bottle of ´tinto´(red) is between gbp1.50 and gbp2.00 (sorry, no pound sign on this keyboard!) Valparaiso has numerous funiculares which go up and down the steep hills. It seems that the further you get away from the sea-front, the nicer things become.
We caught a bus back to Santiago in the afternoon and had a few hours wait until our overnight bus left, bound for Pucon. We used this time most productively by going to Santiago´s biggest shopping mall! Guy was amazed to find the new Depeche Mode album on sale in a record shop (which he duly bought, of course!) and we spent a couple of hours having a bite to eat and looking round before we went to the cinema! We watched ´The Corpse Bride´which is excellent. If you haven´t seen it yet, we both urge you to! Back at Santiago bus station we had a coulpe of pints and a hot dog before boarding our overnight (10hrs) bus.
Santiago...
...you can just make out the Andes through the smog The Chilean bus service is fantastic. We paid slightly more for the ´Salon Cama´service and were glad we did as the seats fully recline and there´s a leg-rest, so it´s almost as good as being in a bed! We both slept all the way through and by the time we woke, we were almost at our destination.
The Chilean Lake District town of Pucon is a great little place. It´s got a real Alpine/Swiss feeling to it. Lots of lakes, mountains and volcanoes in the area. We are staying in a really nice hostal, although our little room feels a bit like the inside of a shed (in fact, ´the shed´is what we lovingly refer to it as). We´ve got our own bathroom and there´s a (reasonably) clean kitchen here so it´s been really nice to cook, especially Chilean sausages with spicy eggs for breakfast! The most exciting thing we have done whilst here is to climb Volcan Villarico. Volcan Villarico (as it´s name suggests) is a volcano. This is a live volcano so we were able to get a glimpse of the bubbling lava from it´s peak, although the view was partially obscured by thick plumes of sulphur.
Guy and Rachel
Happy and in Santiago The climb itself was both exhausting and rewarding. It took almost 5 hours to reach the top and was pretty heavy-going at times. The euphoric feeleng we both felt as we reached the top and peered down into the crater is one neither of us will forget.
Whilst here in Pucon we have also been enjoying many less physically draining activities such as , hot springs soaking, off-roading in a 4X4 (bumpy!), swimming under waterfalls (bruuuuh!), rope-sliding through woods and over rivers and wine drinking (of course!). It´s our last night here tonight as tomorrow we are getting a bus to San Martin which is over the border in Argentina. From here we continue south to Bariloche and then (hopefully) downt through Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia which is the southernmost city in the World! Watch this space to see if we make it!
Hope this blog finds you all in fine fettle...
Pip Pip, Guy & Rachel.
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