Adios Argentina...hola de nuevo Chile!

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Hola a todos! (Hello everyone!)

I haven´t been embracing the blog writing as much as I'd planned recently, not that I haven´t wanted to but we've been up to so much! We've definitely been embracing the travelling lifestyle, although moving on every 2-3 days and never really unpacking can get a bit much so I'll be really happy if we can settle in one place for a while soon... hopefully very soon as christmas is coming!

I'm writing this entry from Sucre, the capital city of Bolivia. We've only been here a couple of days but we already like the city and Bolivia is by far the poorest of the South American countries which means everything is cheaper here. It is heartbreaking to see some of the poverty, particularly the working children on the streets from the age of about 4 years old.

So, since I last wrote a blog we have travelled a lot of distance. From the east coast of Argentina where we did our whalespotting, we crossed the country to the western side, close to the border with Chile, where we stayed a few days in another town of welsh colonial origin. We spoke to a welsh couple in our hostel who'd been whisked off to a community meeting to speak welsh with all the locals, who they said spoke much better welsh than that spoken in wales today! The other very "welsh village" stereotype that we couldn´t help but notice was that everywhere we went, the locals knew who we were, where we were staying and where we'd already been that day! It was a bit Hot Fuzz, as if they all had walkie-talkies behind their shop counters and museum desks ... "those two gringos are heading your way now, over and out!" There was a museum in an old flour mill set up by a welsh settler who I forget the name of, but his surname was Owen or Evans! It was fantastic, there were posessions of the original settlers, including prams, cookers, washing machines etc, but my favourite by far was an old clipping from a magazine giving advice to young women entering into a marriage. It contained highly useful snippets of information, along the lines of: "Listen to your husband with care and attention. Do not suggest contrasting opinions or offer your own," and "A young lady should never argue with her husband. Firstly, you are too beautiful for this. Secondly, your love for him will enable you to remain understanding and a source of pleasure for him at all times" and finally, "Even an ugly girl is able to love her husband and always maintain his attention." Charming! Also, they had a collection of money from home, which, amongst the shillings and ha'pennies, contained modern day one pound coins and those big old fifty pence pieces, as well as a Diana Memorial medallion. It was funny to see those in a museum in a town in Argentina.

After that we went north to a very touristy city called Bariloche which is firmly on the gringo trail and we didn´t like much, possibly because we had awful weather, but in my opinion it was a tourist hole! However, we did hire a car for a day and do the 7 Lakes Drive which was a beautiful route with lots of tranquil lakes of various shades of blue and towards the end, an hour of mountain roads with elaborate rock formations, we even saw one cliff with a door built into it as if somebody lived there, literally in the middle of nowhere! We were lucky as we hardly saw any other cars that day, so we almost had all of the amazing scenery to ourselves, apart from (and we were very grateful for these) three 4-wheel drives which passed us just as we were contemplating a bit of a situation - we'd hit a river running across the road which was certainly over a foot deep in the middle, and whilst I was not at all confident about taking our little 1.6 VW "Gol" through it (not a golf but actually a polo model called a "gol" in Argentina!) Mark was ready to power on regardless!! Lucikly one of the 4-wheel drives stopped to watch us through and Mark navigated little Golly safely through. Phew!

From Bariloche we went north to San Martin de Los Andes, a teeny town situated on the edge of a lake, snuggled into the base of the mountains. We rented bikes on a beautiful sunny day and cycled up a tough mountain- uphill for a good hour or more - for some stunning views from the top. It was also here that I learned I'd been accepted for the Master's Degree in the UK, so we had a good night celebrating before we moved on again - crossing the border into Chile.

On arrival in Valdivia, a town on the west coast of Chile, where we watched pelicans and sealions waiting by the side of the fish market stirring up a feeding frenzy whenever a fish or three got thrown their way, we decided that we defintely wanted to go south to visit the Island of Chiloe. This would add another week or two to our plan but we felt it couldn´t be missed. Chiloe interested me because when the native tribes of South America rebelled against the spanish rule, expelling them from the mainland, the spanish settlers on Chiloe were very much cut off from the rest of the world. They lived alongside the native Chiloen people, who were of polynesian origin and would have reached Chiloe by boat, and once the Independence Wars of South America began in the early 1800s, the "spanish" community on Chiloe were the last supporters of the Spanish crown in South America. On Chiloe we stayed in a beautiful wooden cabin style hostel which smelt of sweet woodsmoke all the time (as did the whole island), and hired a car to explore. The abundance of wood and lack of other building materials led to almost all of the houses on Chiloe being constructed of wood, and along the sea front there were lovely little brightly coloured "palafitos"- houses built on stilts. We saw amazing photographs in the local museum of a "moving house" party, where the community get together, put a wooden frame underneath a house, and literally pick it up, using their buffalo to tow it to the new site! Incredible. Chiloe was very green and reminded us a lot of home, especially the weather, as one moment it would be sunny and warm, yet seconds later the clouds would roll in and rain down for half an hour, only for the sun to come out again. We visited the Chiloe National Park which was lovely, and we saw some huge birds of prey up very close which was breathtaking. On our way home we picked up a hitch hiking fisherman who loved to chat, and after he'd got out, we noticed had slopped fish blood all over the back of our lovely hire car. Oh well!

From Chiloe we headed north to Santiago de Chile, the capital, where we spent a few days but didn't manage to do much due to strike action. Elections were upcoming, so anyone and everyone who worked for the state was up in arms protesting, attempting to the get the current govermnent to sign up to giving them all lots more money, before the new government is elected and has to find the money to fund any such agreement! After Santiago we spent a few days in another seaside town called Valparaiso, where we found elaborate mansions and very poor slums intermingled, covering every inch of the sprawling hills which ascend sharply from the coast. We mainly liked Valparaiso because we stayed in that flat of a lady called Senora Elizabeth, or Ellie as we came to call her, who proudly announced "Soy joven" (I'm young!) before telling us all about her 8 children and 8 grandchildren, of whom we saw many coming and going during our few days in the flat, all with little babies bundled up in blankets, in the arms of their mum's, the oldest of which couldn't have been more than about 20! Everybody was solovely and friendly, we really enjoyed our stay at Ellie's.

From Valpo, we kept on going north, stopping briefly at Antofagasta, a town with a mini replica of London's Big Ben in it's central plaza, given as a present by the british community in the early 1900s, but not a lot else. We have learned the hard way that it's not a brilliant idea to arrive in a non-touristy town at the weekend... tourist information was closed, the museum was closed, and although there were plenty of taxis about, or so it seemed, they were all special ones, similar to a bus, that you can hail but only if you want to go somewhere on the route that it is going! In short, there was no way of getting anywhere that we'd have liked to go, and it was only due to the generosity of a local bus driver and the amazingly friendly and helpful locals on the two buses that we had to take the next morning that we actually managed to make it back to the main bus terminal in time for our bus to San Pedro de Atacama, an oasis town in the middle of the desert, which was to be our last stop in Chile before we would cross the border into Bolivia.

Once we'd got to San Pedro, we felt that our journey into Bolivia had begun. As such, I´m going to leave this lovely long blog entry here, and talk about San Pedro and our plans to settle for a little while in my next one, which, I promise, will be coming VERY soon!

Much love to all at home!

Hasta muy pronto!

Amy & Mark xxxxxxxxxxxx

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Photos

Golly
Mark driving Golly through the stream

Scenery
Some of the amazing scenery on the 7 Lakes drive

San Martin de los Andes
The view from part way up our mountain bike ride over St Martin, it looked a bit like a swiss ski resort.

Sealions
Sealions lazing on the docks

Feeding frenzy
Feeding frenzy for the sealions and pelicans, amongst others

Moving house party
Photos of the moving house party on Chiloe

Palafito houses
The pretty little palafitos

Church on Chiloe
One of the many churches on Chiloe made completely of wood

Señora Ellie
Señora Ellie with one of her many grandchildren!

Valparaiso hillside
Colourful houses and shacks sprawling over the hillsides in Valparaiso

Comments

[Sally]

Happy Christmas
Hiya Your blog is great and envy all your amazing adventures! Here I am stuck in the office - snow threatening outside and struggling with tiredness after the sales Xmas do last night (it was a good one as usual!) Just wanted to wish you both a very Happy Christmas! Love Sally and Dvid xxx