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Published: March 14th 2006
So... we arrived safely in Santiago - I nabbed the window seat to once again compete with the Japanese on tacky photo taking. View of the Andes was spectacular - seemed stranged to see that just an hour after leaving BA.
Due to us being on a pretty tight schedule we decided to leave Santiago immediately to go onto Valparaiso as we have to fly back out of Santiago next month and can spend more time there then.
Valpo was just a two hour bus ride out of Santiago and just from the airport to the hostel we met lots of lovely Chileans helping us with directions etc. All of us have made a note to ourselves to be more helpful to lost tourists when back in the UK.
Picked a random hostel out of the lonely planet and despite from the outside looking a bit tatty once inside we realised how nice it was. Large rooms with incredibly tall ceilings - imagine Hove or for the Scottish relative Boat of Garten house.
Valpo is Chile´s second biggest city but situated on a harbour surrounded by steep hills so we ventured out for something to eat at
the main cente down the hill, unfortunately forgetting to take note of where we lived! so after a nice meal and not finding any bars we decided to take ourselves home. map in hand i led the girls up the hill, then up a bit more until we realised we didn´t really have a clue where we wer going! A stray dog, who we nicknamed bladder due to his incontinence issues, joined us in wandering aimlessly - at one point i actually thought maybe he was lassie´s cousin and was going to lead us home then he started to run head on into cars and i realised maybe not!! Killer canine man!
Anyway no help from bladder we found our hostel - ok we got a cab really and decided I cannot be trusted with a map anymore!
Visited a few of the areas sites - lots of statues, and acensores (rickety lifts up the steep cliffs), also south america is big on its murals around the cities and Valpo has an open air museum of different mural - however we were more into the rickety lift than the art apparently we have no appreciation for modern art
as i prefer the graffiti mural next to our hostel! Also went down to one of the beaches but yet again waited until it got chilly(yes it is chilly in chile) to go so we only managed to lay for about half an hour before the shorts and tee shirts were back on.
Considering the lack of bars we decided to go for the healthy option and went back to the restaurant for cake. It became evident that i should not try and eat with the big girls as i only made it half way through my chocolate cake much to jem and gina´s amusement. However the tables were turned when they ordered a te con leche and got a teabag and hot milk - Karma!!
next day decided to go to vina del mar and catch a bit of sun to try and hide our obscure burns from yesterdays walking adventure, Got there quite easy on one of valpo´s micr(party) buses - it had neon disco lights and a pretty extravagant horn! Wandered down to Acupulco beach where we lay, turned over, lay a bit more and got a massage to ease our backpack sores.
Rather than
navigate our own way back to the bus stop we got a horse and cart ride round the city - Gina loves pretending shes the queen!
Hoping to get the bus to Calama tomorrow to go onto San pedro de atacama in the desert so have booked a meal in a nice restaurant round the corner for tonight so we don´t get too hungry on the journey tomoz.
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Paul
non-member comment
Taylor, sat here on a Monday morning 0906 and you're making me thoroughly sick....sounds like you're having fun!