At the start of a South American adventure


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South America » Chile » Valparaíso Region
May 18th 2013
Published: May 18th 2013
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I arrived into Santiago, where a strange bearded boy befriended me at the airport. His name's Stu and he'll probably feature in my blogs from now on.

It was exciting to arrive in South America and the laid back attitude of Santiago, lively street-side bars and food stalls were what id expected. We spent a couple of days here, and walked up to the statue of virgin Mary on the hill, which gave a great view of this sprawling and in parts modern looking but smoggy city. But it's not a city that captured me and we were pretty excited to explore other places nearby, so soon headed to Valporaiso.

Valpo is a very cool city, where every wall is a canvas and a mosaic of colourful houses decorates the hills that the city is built on. You can travel up these hills on old furniculars or just walk up the many steps and enjoy the brilliant street art that surrounds you. Valporaiso is also on the coast and has a couple of little beaches and a busy working port. The city is dotted with parks and squares too, which are full of life; People juggle on the band stands- ofcourse Stu had to get in on this. In the past week he's also managed to join some people slacklining in a park too...its like im with a touring circus that performs sporadically. Although as he has a slack line with him I can now walk along it a little bit...I may be a closet circus performer.

One way in which Chile differs from anywhere else ive been so far is that i feel like when Im eating, im in the local's restaurants amd when im travelling, Im on their buses all the time. Its not like things are focussed on tourism, which makes it feel like youre really getting to experience a country. Another factor in this is that no one speaks English. Our Spanish is improving but one night in Valpo we went into a little restaurant with no menu and somehow managed to order enough food for 4 people...including fish and chipsx2 which Stu had to tackle on his own! The local food is tasty, but pretty limited for a veggie...lots of cheese empanadas are coming my way.

We spent a few nights camping in a National Park nearby Valporaiso, as weve got all the camping gear with us now. It was a bus ride to a little town, a hitch in the back of a truck to the campsite and we were surrounded by mountains, in the forest. Athough its coming into winter here the weather is beautiful, so it was lovely to chill out and cook chocolate bananas over a fire. We also walked up a mountain that Darwin ventured up many years ago and had great views across the valley.

Our next stop was the town of La Serena, with narrow streets and a long stretch of beaches. One of the museums here houses one of the Easter Island head; we went to take a look and it was huge, standing over you with an intimidating glare. We also spent a morning cycling along the beach to the neighbouring town of Coquimbo, arriving into its busy fish market; Coquimbo seemed a bit more rough and ready than la serena. Our second and last evening here involved going to see a red bull break dancing contest that wed seen advertised, this was a lot of fun to watch as the dancers had some pretty impressive skills. Although no free red bull...whats that all about?!


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