HOLA, Bueanos Dias!

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Me hablo Español, pero solo un poco Español. Cuanto Cuesta una habataccion por favour. Puedo tener la cuenta, gracias.

Frightening, truely frightening. Almost as frightening as trying to pronounce the average item on a Chillean menu. Take the nation dish of Chorrillana, as an example - a feat which we have been attempting with vigour since returning to the mainland. There´s a ´y´ sound in there, but we´ll let you work out where.

They´d be better, of course, by refering to the dish as it is known in its natural state under the very tasty guise of Steak, Egg and Chips. Yip, Chillean cuisine seems to comprise of the best the British Caf has to offer. Throw in some hot dogs (completos) and the odd Empanada (Cornish Pasty) and your sorted, with not a noodle in sight (or veg for that matter).

However, we do have a bone to pick with these people and quite a large one it is too. Who ever heard of paying less for your bottle of wine that your average Completo (Hot Dog) and this is not your bargin bin stuff either. The wine here overflows in both quality and quantity. It´s lunch time, have a glass. It´s 11 am, have a glass. Bueanos Dias, have a glass. Perfect! If that weren´t enough you could just have the beer that's cheaper than water and available everywhere from pubs to your local KFC.

As a proper start to our South American adventure (Easter Island was just too easy, too lovely, too ... sunny) we headed for the old pirate haunting grounds of Valparaiso before shooting up the coast to the painfully pretty old Spanish colonial town of La Serena and onwards to the rather dull city of Antofagasta While the former feels like a shell of its fomer glory (although enjoyably quirky), La Serena is pretty. I know we´ve used the word before, but that´s about all that can be said, it´s ... pretty. Nic wants to add ´very´ to pretty status - Judge overrules, simply ´pretty´.

Anto, unfortunately fails to fall into either of these catagories, but it does feature heavily in the ´Is this it?´ league. In fact it scores highly with perhaps the greatest fib ever told by a guide book. Located in the central square is a scale model of Big Ben donated by the British to celebrate 100 years of independence and British-Chilean relations. We´ve included a photo so you can jugde for yourselves, but we´re sure we´ve missed something - either that or we´ve been away a long time!



p.s. The reason for the increased rate of logs is entirely down to the fact that internet access is perhaps the cheapest in the world. Oh and the South Americans sleep in the afternoon, so there isn´t much else to do.

p.p.s Unfortunately, electricity can also be in short supply (now in Bolivia) and hence blog was written not published on time.

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