Blogs from Valparaíso Region, Chile, South America - page 76

English For the second time we crossed the border Argentina-Chile. This time the experience was much more positive, we did not had the same sad feeling of touristic exploitation that we tasted in Torres del Paine. Coming from Argentina we had to switch our brain to the chilean accent with 'ja, ja' again... Ok, we were quite trained this time, but we have to say that even if the language is the same, coming from one country to another in South America one has really to make an effort to grasp the differences in the accent. It takes quite a while to learn the typical essential words that can be very different from country to country. This can cost you some misunderstandings... At our arrival at Puerto Montt at lunch time we were terribly hungry. Since ... read more

¡Hola a tod@s! Guess what I did this weekend! I climbed a mountain from bottom to top. I was a little nervous about the whole trip mainly because of the little piece of metal in my little bone that has been such an annoying problem. But I decided to do it, and man, it was a great decision. We began our ascent at 9:15 and the first half of the trail was like any other trail that I've seen in Georgia or South Carolina, and then we "bouldered" for a few hours to reach the peak. Walking/Jumping/Crawling up the boulders was so much fun. My group arrived at the top at 2:30..having taken our time chatting, taking water breaks, and eating fruit cake (yes, someone lugged a 4 pound fruit cake up the mountain). From the ... read more

It's about time for another update from sunny Viña del Mar... Last weekend the Santiago group came to enjoy the beach with us in Viña, and you know what that means! Adrienne! She stayed with me with my host family and we had a blast. Friday night we explored some of my neck of the woods in Viña and then of course we went out dancing. I don't think I've ever had more fun dancing in my life than that night (well, maybe some nights in Madrid with Tia rival it). amazing! Our late night was followed by an early morning; most of the Vina group headed to a girls' home about 15 minutes away in Vaparaiso where we played for a long time...reading, joking around, jump roping. What an experience. These girls (about 40 live ... read more

We spent our time in Cusco relaxing before our trek. Despite being a lovely town with fantastic buildings and history we were a little overwhelmed by all the people hassling us on the street for everything from meals with free pisco to finger puppets. We spent most of our time in the usual Gringo hang-outs, Jack's, Paddy's (the highest Irish owned pub in the world). After two days in Cusco we were ready to leave on our Inca Trek. We weren't doing the classic Inca Trail but what the tour company called a 'community trek'. This involved walking in a nearby valley and staying with the local communities with a percentage of the money we paid going to projects in these communities. The first day of our trek was spent mainly visiting the ruins of Sacsayhuaman ... 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