Chiling out in Valpo

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We are officially sick of �Mendoza but forces of nature, quite literally an earthquake in this case, are conspiring to keep us from Chile.

Chile got a light earthquake some days back and as a result the border was shut, the same thing happened last year, when quakes resulted in some deaths. Thankfully this quake appears to be an aftershock from last year and there have been to our knowledge no fatalities or significant damage.

The border was reopened to a massive backlog and we had to depart a day later then planned. The good news is that we get to watch the Ireland vs. France match on the hostels flat screen TV, the bad news of course being Ireland’s massive desire to help my fantasy six nations team by gifting Morgan Para lots of needless 3 pointers.

Alarmingly, we got so carried away watching the match a thief was able to swoop in behind us and steal a rucksack belonging to another Irish couple who were watching the game with us, bear in mind that this was behind two security doors inside the hostel, you really cannot take your eyes off your belongings for a nanosecond on this continent!

Feeling a bit short changed after the game, we went down the town and decided to have a boozy lunch to pass the time, during which time we met the same English couple, Tom and Laura, who informed us of the young kids who go around Mendoza’s restaurant strip asking for food and then upon begin refused stick there hands in it.

Well they say them in action first hand the previous night and apparently it’s a spectacle. There are two young kids accompanied by their mother and two older brothers. The apparently quite well feed mother walks up and down with a big sack carrying on reconnaissance on the meals being enjoyed and when she sees something she likes she signals her little urchins, who walk in formation on either side of her, to move in for the kill.

And move they do, breaking formation like spitfires and zeroing in for the kill. Tactics to make the diner part with their food involve spitting on their dishes via plastic straws, having it drenched with mustard and even having your beer or wine snatched from your table and summarily emptied all over your meal. Diners that attempt to fight back do so with all the futility of King Kong fighting the fighter planes atop the empire state building, these little guys are too small and quick to stop. Apparently the whole scene is morbidly thrilling to watch provided you are the spectator and not the target diner.


The boula bus left Mendoza at 9 in the morning and after about an hour we felt better about taking this trip during the day rather then the usual overnight journey when the Andes began to loom around us.

The peaks are simply huge and the boula bus felt like a matchbox car as it drove through them. The sides are scared with indentions from landslides; the cracked spaces shaded the colour red looking like huge dry gaping wounds. Occasionally the bus passes through a dug into the mountain and everything goes dark and then suddenly you exit and your eyes get blinded as the light gets magnified by the sun reflecting off the sheer columns of rock.

The peaks themselves, while biblical in scale, feel as if they have been moulded form massive hands and if you star at them long enough you swear you can see faces in them. The floor of the valley is littered with clumps of tough rugged bushes and dozens upon dozens of cacti. The only man made items bar the road or any cars are a network of train tracks, the tracks being so small that appeared that they couldn’t hold anything bigger then a mine cart; I didn’t see anything using them.

In the distance you could see clouds over the further, snow covered, mountains and it causes the shadows to smear irregularly over the peaks like spilt treacle. I tried to get a snap but the digital camera doesn’t do it justice.

Half way through the mountains, the traffic goes up a notch and suddenly we are by the Chilean border. There’s a big snake of lorries, buses and cars going back about a kilometre and ahead of them is a big hanger type building with a very weathered Chilean flag fluttering in the breeze. There’s a few Chilean border guards scattered about, their uniforms look a bit like the blokes Arnold ploughs through in the last act in commando.

We have a good feeling about Chile; we met some lovely Chileans in the last hostel and found them very friendly. As well as being friendly they are a very passionate bunch, eager to tell us how happy their nation is now that it has shoved off pinochet’s rule and how much they are fond of their president, remember the really happy fella who was there to greet the miners after they came out of the mine?

The Chileans told me that their president “is hands on business man who has no time for bullshit and get things done, he wants to transform our country”. When I’m in Santiago in a few weeks I might ask the Chilean government if us Irish can borrow him for a while, I reckon we could use someone like that about now.

Our first stop in Chile is Valparaiso, Chile’s major port and a city know for its hills, several districts are accessed by ascensors, think of a cable car mixed with an escalator, they have the same things on the Eiffel tower in France.

The philistine within me knows Valparaiso from Battlefield bad company 2, a game on the Xbox 360 that’s sadly overlooked by a that mongrel of a series, AKA the Katie Price of the electronic entertainment, called Call of Duty. It felt strange to be near Valparaiso without Charlie ready to stock up my plastic explosive, Bilo ready drive a bomb strapped Quadbike into nearby buildings and Gav hiding like a big chicken in the buses with his sniper rifle miles from the action.


Valparaiso is quite a different beast from Battlefield bad company and is described in the guidebook in travelsnobese as having a “darkly bohemian atmosphere” which translates as its bit dodgy. The streets are narrow and winding like a cobbled corkscrew, not a grid system they have in most cities we have visited. Graffiti is as rampant as glandular fever is in teenage disco, in keeping with the “dark bohemian atmosphere” outlined in the guidebook; some of it takes the form of really classy murals.

However, a Google search reveals that despite Chile’s rep of being one of the safest countries in South America Valparaiso apparently gives this rep a good dig in the ribs, some of the hills are downright dangerous to go exploring and its advised you have a stash of money to hand to hand over to anyone that looks like Colin Farrell from Intermissions Latino cousin. Take this blog for example

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/muzz_travelling/argentina_2005/1137798000/tpod.html


Mugger money was employed, the humble plastic bag replaces out backpack for day to day necessitys and there was at least two occasions where we were convinced we were going to get mugged before the some Arnold fodder i.e Chilean policemen appeared from a laneway.

Funnily enough despite our best efforts to look unmuggable occasionally you walking the streets to come across some fellow tourists, flashy ipods around their necks. totting Nikons sporting lense add-ons big enough to masquerade as telescopes. I’m sorry to say the sight of such people gives you the same morbid feeling of reassurance a healthy zebra must feel knowing upon seeing the sick and lame animals languishing at the back of the herd, clearly advertising their availability to the lions.


While Valparaiso is nevertheless interesting and a huge hit with travel snobs(I will go into detail to what a travel snob is in future blogs, far too tired to do it now and this entry is long enough as it is!) to honour my promise to David and Lillian to keep their daughter safe, I decided to move Blondie up the coast to Vina Del Mar after doing a day sightseeing in Valp, as the locals call it.

By far the best sight in Valp is the naval museum, you take the assensoer up to the top and it’s waiting for you. Outside we encountered an Asian man who took a huge shine to Niamh and insisted she posed for a photos. I took a sneaky snap of this when he wasn't looking!

The Valparaiso Navel museum has one message for its visitors.

No one fiddlesticks with the Chilean Navy.

With regard to fiddlesticks my darling mother Bronagh insisted I tone down the use of swearwords in this blog so you can substitute that word for another one that you find more fitting. With regard to fiddle sticking with the Chilean navy in question the navy itself is made up of naturally tough seamen, Cape Horn being only to the south is one of the toughest sailing environments imaginable.

For the price of a choc ice you can spend an hour exploring the exhibits, patriotic marching music is blared from the speakers and every exhibit concerns Chile opening an Aldy Xmas sale sized can of whupass on Peru, Spain or any other country that decided to piss them off at any stage in history.

Unlike the museums in Argentina, the exhibits in Chile have English translations, in the case of 99% of the exhibits in the Chilean navy museum all these translations end with Chile kicking several shades of excrement out of there opponents or at least the antagonist concerned routing like pigeons to a clap of hands. Closing sections on the English translations end with such statements as the “Spanish fleet fled before the glorious Chilean navy” and they get more jingoistic from there!

The visit to the museum was best summed up when Frau power herself after an hour walking around a museum, posing doing salutes in front of billowing Chilean flags and listening to marching songs that would stir anyone up enough to gleefully fling themselves face first a barrage of cannon grapeshot, suddenly said “ANDDDREWWWW ALL I WANT TO DO NOW IS MARCH”

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Photos

Snow covered peaks in the distance
Look closely and you might see the ethereal haze but watch you don't step in the chunder

The Chilean Border
Took about 2 hours but I sampled my first Chilean beer...gorgeous!

Niamh poses with a sailer
Thankfully they didn't elope!

Valparisio port from the hill
One of the busiest ports in the world

Asian man takes photo of Blondie
So priceless I had to take my own snap for slagging purposes

The Museum courtyard
Niamh getting intensely patriotic