Chile...and so the tour begins

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So...after a 11 hour flight from Auckland to Santiago (on the best flight I´ve ever been on - good old LAN airways) we got settled into chile and all Santiago had to offer. Everyone had jet lag and were feeling thwe pinch of the drastic time change from being 13 hours ahead of home to being 3 hours behind so as soon as we got into the hostel Conan booked us into for the first night some of us headed to bed for a snooze and others took a quick walk up the bar strip to check out the look of the city, but eventually ended up in bed. Having got a nap me McCarry and Mully headed to get food. A nice change to the riches that had been spent on shite food in NZ we all had a steak which probably cost less than a single chip would have in Oz and NZ. Though again we hadn´t realised that Chile was one of the dearest South American countries so we were glad we had our tour beginning which meant all paid accomodation and travel...or so we thought. Anyways a very quiet night and everyone was happy to get into bed, having been able to find a good number of bars for later evenings in the city.

We realised soon on that the language barrier was going to be tough as unlike asia people didn´t try to speak english to us the way they did in Thailand or any other of the countries. My GCSE spanish was coming into play nicely (the best C grade i ever got) and I´m sure that Mrs O´Hara would have pissed herself laughing at the mess of me trying to order food but was worth a shot and after a while it was actually working well (as well as it could possibly work!)

The next morning we got up checked out and headed to the hotel Riverera to meet up with our tour group Gap adventures. Our tour guide was Alex, a brazilian who seemed quite reserved at first and later who would show his true colours as great craic and a good laugh. Also on the tour we had an older couple called Keld and Pia, an english guy called Matt from London and two canadians called Brandy and Josh. We were informed that the tour wasn´t just asfree as we were hopingand all owed local charges of $250. This was a shock to the system. To say the least everyone was looking forward to the cushion of the free accomodation and transport and of course food for some of the trip however this hammer blow wa going to cripple everyone. We sat down to the meeting and at first I questioned the creditials of our tour guide as he had never been to a lot of the cities that we had planned along the way on the tour. However, not like me to complain, everyone got on with it and got ready to enjoy another couple of days in Santiago. Mully, McCarry, Lenssy, Sean leo and myself had set our sights on heading out in the bar strip and so we headed out looking around all the different bars. We finally settled on one even though Mully was convinced a wise move was going into a gay bar to find women who had gay friends. We were in to a bar with a band playing and a lot of people and it was quite cool but nerve racking as none of us had a hope in hell of speaking spanish to the locals. Ordering drinks was ok but apart from that we were in at the deep end here. Luckily enough we got talking to a photographer who told us to head to the dance floor and that would make things easier and that the line of gringos would look more normal. Lenny was aloways going to take the first step and found himself suitable prey similar to a water buffalo in every way. However his mating call was wasted on her and he moverd onto the next, a girl who we´d later find out was called Karita. McCarry had made his way to the other side of the dancefloor and me and mully stood refusing to dance and make fools of ourselves. This was when the line "Tu es muy guapa" (meaning you are very beautiful) would first be tested and Mully used it on Karita´s friend Karlina
who thought it was me saying it as mully hadn´t learned it off quite as well as he´d hoped. The rest of the night Mully, Karlina and myself talked and she tried to teach us spanish unsuccessfully. Lenny appeared with the new love of his life and we went back to a ´party´ in a flat owned by the girls´friend Marco. We stayed there till 8.30 the following morning and made our way back to the hotel to bed.

The next day, wait no, later that day Mully and I awoke in our room at 5 and went to get food and then climbed the mountain to get a few pics of the city. Good old sunset mode on the camera makes everything look as awesome as it was on the mountain. We arrived back down to the hotel and sat and watched lenny talk to his new girlfriend Karita over facebook and discover that she was in love with him not helped by the fact that he was saying he was in love with her to. We where moving on the next day so we headed to bed to await the bus trip to la serena.

The following day we got up and got the bus to the northern town of la serena where we were staying for a couple of nights. We arrived into the town in the evening and headed for food finding a cafe doing steak dinners and free pisco sour (chilean liquor) for around 5 quid. We headed back to the hotel and had been offered some activities to do the following day including going to an observatory and a peguin reserve. Some of opted for the peguins while barry sean leo and conan chose the observatory. We slept in for the trip to the peguins but were actually glad we ended up not going. Later that night after exploring the town all day ciaran, mccarry, lenny and me went out to try and find a night club. We had been told there was nothing there but earlier in the day whilst at the beach Ciaran and Daly had spotted a few places. We got into a taxi that we whistled down and asked him to take us to the disco at the beach, my spanish probably asking him what time the disco in the beach. Thankfully he understood and we got into a club with Mccarry and ciaran fighting the whole way. We got in and started chatting to a few people and met c guy called Nicco who had to end up helping us back to the hotel because we hadn´t a clue where it was or what it was called. This was after Ciaran knocked into a policeman in a drunken state and then laughed at him while Nicco and me tried to apologise. We eventually got a taxi after getting food and we got home by a miracle and woke up the hotel porter who hated opening the hotel after dark and complained in spanish while again we apologised.

Another day in la serena and mully, lenny and me dandered the streets stopping for lunch and lenny almost buying football shirts he didn´t need. That night we were getting a night bus to san pedro which was in the far north of the country and was meant to be a 17 hour bus trip away. After Daly and McCarry were late for the taxis to the bus we all got to the bus station, Alex Mccarry and daly having an eventful taxi ride with the driver explaining about ¨Gringoes foocking¨. We got on the bus and it turned out to be a 19 hour bus trip but on a bus that was comfortable and had movies playing although the films were shit.

We arrived into san pedro and it can only be described as a textbook example of a town that looked like it belonged in a western or mexican village. It was a cool place and right on the edge of a desert. Alex offered us the prospect of going sand boarding and then to moon valley which the majority of the group wanted apart from Pia and keld the older couple from denmark and Josh. San Pedro was a cool wee town and we thought about heading out that night and sat that evening with alex and matt and we all drank, alex getting hammered and being great craic ending up moon walking and getting the nickname MJ and then fading and heading to bed cause he was drunk. The rest of us went ot head out and realised that the bars where all empty or just cafes and everyone was sitting round eating so we gave up and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we got up and killed time before we all got into a bus and land rover to go to death valley to go sand boarding. This was at a higher altitude than we were used to and climbing a sand dune about three or four times the size of Portstewart´s was tiring but heading down on the board was awesome. Pretty safe to say that everyone had a few big falls and Mully was the quickest to master it but everyone loved it. After that it was off to la Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) to see round the national park and get some pictures of sunsets. Was breathtaking views and along with conan singing the national anthem in irish for the chilean tour leaders we got about 800 profile pictures for facebook and headed on back to the hotel. Later a few of us headed out to get food and then headed back to the hotel as we were moving onwards to the atacama the next day. We had all got a lot friendlier with alex and were starting to have the craic and enjoy the tour. The next stop was the atacama crossing in bolivia where I had been looking forward to seeing the salt plains in salar de Uyuni. Chile had set the tone for south america and already I was loving it and I´m pretty sure the majority of the lads were too.

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