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Published: October 25th 2006
Where did the criminals take the loot, flipper?
These are beautiful animals to behold, especially 1 metre away surging ahead of the bow, below the water's surface, with effortless grace!! I laughed and almost cried!!Nick:
Well, picture the scene. Two fools hurtling as fast as is possible toward a city 40 miles away, at 7am in order to meet a tour guide. Not strange you might say, but then you notice the first of the two is squinting into the peasoup fog all around him, in the morning twilight, wearing sunglasses…. As it happens said fool had been wearing said sunglasses for 18 hours already, the normal pair had gone missing the previous day…. And how did we reach this stage?......
We leave Valpo via the coastal road and see stunning coastline, atrocious driving, and pelicans. After an hour we reach the autopista (motorway) and head North to La Serena, 270 miles away and then another 40 miles East, inland. The route was long but manageable, and we finally arrived in the small town of Vicuña. As well we did, because we already had an appointment. Yes! An appointment with the heavens!! We had places booked with the Mamalluca Observatory, where we had a guided tour of the mechanics of the universe, the universe. A few goes on a big telelscope, telescope, and then a goes on a smaller one, smaller. No, you are not
Walkies!
We want one, alone with a dog, a ferret, some chickens, sheep, pigs and a squirrel. How easy are they to walk near the Thames?! Just throw them in, job done! reading incorrectly, only this is a written rendition of our guide’s unique brand of diction (must repeat last work again, with mucho emphasis!!) See Kris’s entry below for an explanation! The next day we took it easy and decided to mooch around, do some internet surfing etc. During the course of a phase of applied mooching, this foolish blogger managed to place his glasses case to one side. Some local git saw the "Ray Ban" logo and decided to 'ave some of that, and took the case! Unfortunately for both me and the would-be criminal mastermind, these contained, not a pair of ready to go designer shades, but my regular glasses as the designer shades were nestled on my nose at the time. I could and can still only console my self with the prospect that this individual wore my maxi-strength lenses, got a shattering migraine, tripped and broke their leg (Please lord, let it be....). So now, on a Saturday afternoon, I was left with only sunglasses to aid my myopia. This was fine until dusk, when I spent the night looking like a self obsessed, decadent, drunk westerner wearing sunglasses at night, when in fact I was a
Do you want cream with that?
Courtesy to our penguin guide, we soon learn exactly how hazoardous the sun is under the ozone-bare South American Continent. Make mine a double factor 65, please! very irritated, blind, stumbling westerner, desperately trying to define pavement from gutter, in the dark Andean night...
So we finally made it to the North Chilean city of La Serena to meet the above mentioned tour guide, paid our 25 pound per head ticket, left the bike in a petrol forecourt (Yikes, Scoobie!) and jumped in the minibus that took us 2 hours North to Puento de Choros, a little fishing village were we climbed into a small boat and were sped across the pacific swell to see sea lions, dolphins, various birds and the year round sanctuary of the rare Humbolt Penguin. We then had one hour to saunter around Isla Damas, another small reserve. The tour ended with lunch in a restaurant and the drive back. We ended up back in La Serena, and spent the evening, after trawling the local shopping centre for a miracle working optician (with no success), in the rather cheesy, grotty hostel. We woke, Kris with a cold and me with an upset tummy, with a 290 mile ride ahead of us, all in the glorious tech-NO-colour vision of sunglass world! Happy-bloody-birthday!! Yes it was the 23rd and my 33rd. Grumble and
Riding with grim determination
The long haul to Santiago, all the while fighting a sore behind and some carburation issues with the GS moan. Still all this was offset by a particluarly brilliant present from Kris and numerous wishes from my pals (cheers guys!). So we rode and rode, and finally arrived in Santiago, the Chilean capital, located our hotel, and promptly tried to distance our selves from it: we had found it, and reserved, given the low price. It seems the low price had a price of its own. The lady explained that the $9000 (9 GBP) tag applied when "night starts" at 21.00 !?. If we came in before it was $15000. So 21.00-14.00 = $9000 and 24 hours = $15000!! I had not stayed in a by-the-hour hotel yet and I was not starting now!! "Yeah, we'll be back at 9!" Like hell! We then went looking round the compass-confounding streets of Santiago looking for any place to stay, my 33rd in tatters, and night time well and truely upon us (remember the sunglasses?).
All was not bad as I did spend a fun few minutes with some show-boating police bikers on Moto-cross bikes escorting me to the tourist office: pedestrianised zone? Traffic island? One-way street? Not a problem, we'll just ride over it! I want to be a Chilean
A birthday feast to remember
Cellophane: makes you chew longer and the taste last! bike-copper!!
We finally found a place and feasted, exhaustedly on supermarket food, and a squashed avocado, followed by a drink in a local wine bar where my broken brain managed to confuse a picture of an ancient Edith Piaf with a photo of George Michael.... Oh, senility, I welcome thee...
Next day, sunlight blazed and all was well. We found some opticians that did work miracles and ordered the new frames based on my slightly old sunglasses! I then dropped my bike off with the dealer for some bits.
Santiago: a pretty overwhelming place to arrive in, but with nice architecture and a bustly, energetic feel. But, I shall opt for the Mastercrap advert to illustrate:
Overpriced rear tyre: $150,000
White knuckle ride in a Santiago bus (with after-burner, it seems): $380
Belated birthday dinner in a Chinese restaurant with The Cranberries "Dreams" being sung in Cantonese: $10000
Late thirties muscley Chilean bloke who fully expects to bask in female udulation, all the while wearing a tight "Thundercats" T-shirt: Priceless
What's in store for tomorrow? Well, its about time we enjoyed our surroundings and visited Santiago, instead of using it as an administrative stop. But
Wham!
After a long day, a bout of mental exhaustion and wearing sunglasses: I promise you this can look like a grumpy George Michael. It was dark and it was sideways!! for my part, I miss some of the isolation that we have met in the past. Valpo was a wonderful place and I enjoyed it for its soul, but since then the abundance of humans in these other cities is a little claustrophobic and I look forward to breaking free again, on the route South. It seems, despite how hard we found it, the emptiness did leave its mark, and it was not a bad one.....
Kris:
21st October 2006, Saturday: We are 500 km from Valparaiso and in another world, in the Mecca of the New Age Worshippers 😊 We were riding like mad, the Pacific following us on the left and our shadows chasing on the right - and we did not stop until we met our destination, the place that is known to be close to the brightest and unpolluted skies of the world, Vicuña. We had to be here on time as we had booked the observatory tour for 22:30. I have never ridden in the mountains after dark and liked it lots (not that Nick necessarily did...) : bendy roads, stars above us, embraced by the evening warmness of the valleys. We checked in
How you doin?!
Having spent 20 minutes chatting up a young Chilean girl with no success, it was finally decided that Nick really needed to get normal glasses again to the Residencia Mistral, a true backbackers nest with clean rooms made of cardboard and shared communal showers. The landlady fed us each half a chiken and allowed us to play with her coughing mini-poodle (the poor thing had chronic bronchitis) before we set off to the Mamalluco offices. My guide book described the tour guides as astronomists / comedians and I can see why. Alfredo, a skinny guy with a pony tail and our Spanish amateur astronomist explained the concept of closed and open star clusters, nebulas, galaxies, stars and concellations using 5-word sentences and he carefully repeated every sentence three times 😉 But I was most grateful for the English explanations! The skies were all around us and filled with stars. Milky Way, Orion Nebula, the Head of Taurus - you name it - it was there! That night we both saw the brightest shooting star ever...
We'd decided to stay an extra night to appreciate the local treat called Picso (fortified wine, a bit like cognac and very specific to the II region of Chile). We even took a trip up to the sacred valley called Esquil - a rumour says that NASA measured the strongest electromagnetic
Silence at the back!
If you could hear the cacophany of this street then you would realise the irony of this street sign... currents in Planet Earth in that very valley and therefore it has healing powers! (it certainly was magnetic to the New Age people) The valley was beautiful, very hot, surrounded by naked sandy mountains touching the bright blue skies. I was hoping that maybe it would cure the annoying head-cold I had caught in Mendoza... but no. So we treated ourselves with Pisco Sour instead 😊
22 October 2006, Sunday: We had to get up at the crack of dawn to get to La Serena for the penguin tour. The alarm went off at 6am and our worst nightmare had become true - the sun had not yet risen and as an added bonus, as far as our eyes could reach a thick cloud of fog was sitting in the valley... And Nick had only his sunglasses... The ride back to La Serena was going to be... hmm... interesting... Luckily, it was getting lighter by the time we hit the road (it was the first time when I actually appreciated the time and effort involved in getting ready for a bike ride) Everything was OK in the end and we both enjoyed the trip to the Isla Damas National Reserve, to say "hi" to the playful doplhins, cute (and stinky!) sea lions, little gray penguins who live in the middle of cactuses and other numerous sea animals.
23 October 2006, Monday: It's Nick's birthday and I feel very sorry for him for the horrible stomach cramps he had suffered from all night. That's Chilean sushi for you! I, of course, was feeling fine in that "department", only the usual croggy head and Barry White-like voice. Sometimes we really compliment one another 😉 Unlike the skies above Vicuña, our hotel in La Serena had no stars. Quite opposite, it was one of the most desperate accommodations we've stayed at until now. I discovered in the morning that the other "lodgers" in our room had had a feast on my backside as it was covered with a rich itchy red pattern. La Serena is known to be the summer capital of Chile, sunny and fun. Unfortunately, I will always remember it in conjunction with the misty rain and Jumbo Supermercado where we had our rushed brunch before heading back towards Santiago. And the big TV screen in the supermarket had a cooking show on - a Chilean-Japanese chef preparing sushi!!! You've got to laugh 😊
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Külli
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Palju õnne!
Kallis Nick palju õnne sünnipäevaks ja musi ka! Meil on siin tööjuures suur maailmakaart seinapeal - Tshiili on ikka täiesti uskumatu riik oma kujult juba. Nii tore on teie reisile kaasa elada :-)