Blogs from Limache, Valparaíso Region, Chile, South America

Our final trek before, very reluctantly, leaving Chile.This national park is right near where Dan lives - in fact where about 80% of Chile's population of 16 million live. The area was visited by Darwin where he climbed La Compagna Mountain and found fish fossils at the top setting him off on the path to the theory of evolution. We didn't follow his example. The ecology is very different here to Herquehue about 750 miles southwards, and thus much hotter and drier. It is not true desert but classed as an intermdiate zone. The trees wre small and there were lots of huge cactuses plus the occasionl pretty flower. ... read more

Hope you all enjoyed the New Year celebrations wherever you were. We´d planned to celebrate in Valparaíso but when we arrived yesterday afternoon it was so hectic that we decided to retreat into the foothills of the Andes cordillera! There was no accommodation available in Valparaíso anyway, so people were camping, jam-packed like sardines, along the side of the motorway! Glad we gave it a miss because we´ve ended up in a village hotel with views of the peaks in the Cerro La Campana national park and guess what we were woken by on the first of January 2006? An earthquake!!! Only measured 3 on the Richter scale and, to a slumbering Jessie, felt like undulating massage pads in the mattress but it was enough to wake us! Apparently it´s quite unusual to be able to ... read more