Chile

---

I had a pretty nice time in Santiago. The weather was pretty nice while I was there too. I went up to see a huge statue of the Virgin Mary in the city park and and a lovely view of the city and the andes in the background. The smog is crazy here and you get a great view from the top of this semi perminant haze. I strolled around town for the afternoon stopping at a few of the many churches, some of them right in the heart of the commercial area. Its pretty safe to wander about here during the day anyhow. Well then i heard from an Irish girl in the hostel who had her camera snatched in the Mercado Central. The hostel always have different events going on and had a great bbq on the nights and our team won the quiz too, a proud moment for us all!!

Valpariso is about 2 hours from Santiago and poverty is a lot more visible here. The first evening i´ve seen a lot of homeless and beggers on the streets. Most people seem really friendly and eager to help. An old man walked me all the way to the bank and was trying to warn me about the dangers here. The first guesthouse i went to here was closed so i´ve been staying in another with a really friendly host. Its mostly students from Chile staying here with a few Europeans aswell. The mother has 4 sons and a few of them work as ski - board instructors and are slightly mad. The second night here they took me out for some drinks. It was good fun and for the walk home they had some Piscola - a mixture of Pisco and Coca Cola and some completos to finsish off the night (hot dog with avocado, mustard and tomato sauce - a Chilean speciality!). I got my own room here for a pretty good rate too.

The Spanish classes I took here worked out quite well - it was meant to be a group lesson but i´m the only one taking the class. Lets hope i can pick up some basics quickly. 5 days is not too long but i´ll try my best to speak un poco espanyol! i took a quick trip out to Vina del Mar -not much happening here in winter but its probably a pretty cool spot in summer.

After Valpariso i went north to La Serena (about 7 hours away). On the bus to here i met a Chilean girl who was heading to visit her brother. WE arranged to meet later and headed out for a crazy night with her brother and some of his friends - didnt finish till very late and spent the next day recovering. I went on a day trip out to Villa del Elqui by local buses as i was the only one booked for the tour so it wasn't running. I rented a bicycle for a few hours out in Pisco Elqui and had lovley views of the valley and stopped at a family fun pisco distillery for some samples!

I took a 16 hours bus up to San Pedro de Atacama. Its a town in the middle of the desert,the driest desert in the world and its really touristy here. There seems to be a lot of south americans travelling in this part. The first afternoon i booked a trip sandboarding in Villa del la Muerta (Devils Valley)- we used actual snowboards and it was great. After the trip included sunset at Villa del la Luna (Moon Valley) - pretty nice too but way too many people about. My second day here a few of us rented bicycles and had some amazing trails in the Devils Gorge..my descriptions wont do it justice, you´ll jus have to wait for the photos. Its so bare everywhere around with lots of hills and dust and no sign of any greenery in any direction. We had to wade across a few streams and carry our bikes down some parts and walk parts because the sand was too soft but it was a great day.

Tonight i´m going to take an overnight bus up to Arica which is near the border with Peru and hopefully cross into Peru tomorrow or day after and head for Arequipa.

---