Saturday, April 30, 2016

Day 69 - Slowing down a bit

Sucre

We've booked a few days in Sucre to slow down a bit as all of the early starts and long days while we were in San Pedro and on the Uyuni trip have caught up with us.

We slept in and wandered around the city, getting our bearings which was made easy by the fabulous location of our hotel. For once we were staying as close to the centre as possible, and in a nice hotel rather than a hostel.

We wandered over to the market, it was very busy and had all sorts of things for sale - from cakes to veges to fruit juice to spices to cow snouts ... just your average Bolivian market I guess.


Sucre is known as the white city because of all the white colonial buildings, pretty much every building in the central area of the town is white. We walked up towards the mirador (lookout) at the top of the city, it was very steep and made us feel we were back at Valparaiso, but this time with the complication of being at altitude.

On the way up we visited the very interesting indigenous arts museum and textile exhibition. Normally textiles wouldn't interest either of us that much, but it was amazing to see the intricate weaving done by the indigenous peoples of the area.

The mirador bordered a plaza which was obviously a teenage hangout, but it had a lovely cafe which pretty much had only gringos in it, with deck chairs overlooking the city, so we decided to stay for a drink while we admired the view. Of course, no gringo hangout in Bolivia is complete without a visit from some local musicians playing the pan pipes, so we had some musical accompaniment as well.


We tried to visit the church of San Felipe Neri a few times as it was meant to be open but the door was always locked. We later read online that you are meant to ring the bell and they come and let you in - but how are tourists meant to know that when there isn't any info anywhere about it, including on the map given to us by our hotel?


Friday, April 29, 2016

Day 68 - Now we can breathe again!

Uyuni to Sucre

Now that we are in Bolivia there is a much stronger presence of indigenous people. The women around town in Uyuni are a mixture of the traditionally dressed with their tall bowler hats perched on the top of their heads (it's not obvious how they stay there), wide pleated skirts, and hair in two long black plaits well past their waist, and the younger ones in western clothes. In fifty years will there be anyone left dressing traditionally?

After another $10 visit to the physio, we hopped on the bus to Sucre. Once we were out of town it became a bit of a rollercoaster ride, it seemed that the driver was taking the winding road downhill at up to 100kmh without using his brakes - we had no choice but to trust him, but without any seatbelts it got a bit hairy at times.

Clinic San Pablo ... for all your physiotherapy needs!
We had to stop and change buses in Potosi, the highest city in the world. We'd thought about staying over here, with the main attraction being the mines, but M had been here before (which was when he was able to buy and explode his own dynamite), and K wasn't keen on crawling on hands and knees in toxic mine air, so we just passed through.

We arrived in Sucre in the early evening, already noticing the difference, as Bolivia doesn't have all year round daylight saving like Chile. It is never fun arriving in a new city in the dark but our hotel was only 50 metres from the main square, so it was easy to find our way around.

It was also immediately noticeable how much poorer Bolivia is, there were children about eight years old running out in front of cars when the traffic stopped. They would throw a rock up in the air and catch it, then ask for money, all this is in the dark.

We had dinner at a nice gringo restaurant, M tried the Bolivian dish pique macho (sin huevo por favor!) and found it to his liking, while K played it safe with lasagna.

The lower altitude meant we had our first good night's sleep in a while, unsurprisingly it's easier to sleep when there is more oxygen in the air.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Day 67 - A salty time

Villa Candelaria to Uyuni

This is the final day of our trip from Chile to Bolivia and we had to be ready to go by 4.30am to see the sun rise over the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flat).  K felt she could easily live without seeing the sunrise but she was out voted (of course).

Photographer's shadow!
We were driven for about half an hour over the salt flats towards the Isla de Incahuasi, not an island in the traditional sense though, as it is surrounded by salt rather than water. You are immediately struck by how massive the salt flat is, at over 10000 square kilometres it's the world's largest. The sunrise was beautiful and we could easily see our long shadows grow shorter as the sun rose.

At the place where we watched the sun rise there were only a couple of other cars in the distance, but as we walked around the corner of the island to meet our driver for breakfast we found that we were just one of the many 4WDs with a horde of people just like us, all eating pretty much the same breakfast, and taking photos doing weird things with perspective on the salt.

After breakfast we took a long walk on the salt plain until we were collected by our car and continued driving across the seemingly endless salt flats. The famous Dakar car rally that used to be held in the Sudan has now been moved to here and you can see why, a great place for driving.

An island with no water
After being picked up, we were driven a little further to another spot where more photos were taken, then on to see the first ever salt hotel (now a dining room and mini museum), and finally to the small town of Colchani right on the edge of the salt flats where there was a long strip of souvenir stalls. We were given a bit of time to peruse the shops, before having lunch in one of the small restaurants.

Get your llama products here ....
After lunch we moved to our final stop, the railway cemetery in Uyuni, full of rust old trains (and backpackers posing for silly photographs). Then it was into town to drop the boys off at the bus station to continue to Potosi. We were staying Uyuni for a night, while Pan had a night bus to La Paz, so we were dropped off at our hostel by Rudolfo.

K was in need of a physio, but we weren't sure how to find one. Rudolfo had given us the address of a medical clinic to try, but had no luck there, though they directed us to another clinic on the other side of town. Incredibly when we walked in to the other clinic on the outskirts of this tiny Bolivian town we found there was a physio, and K could be seen immediately.

It turned out to be one of the best treatments K had ever had, and as a bonus the hour long appointment cost us less than $10! K booked another appointment for the next morning, and we walked back to our hotel.

Appetising, no?
Dinner for M was llama steak .....  salty and a little tough, but still quite edible. Our hostel was up a few fights of stairs which is really tough going in the altitude but it was comforting to see the young hotel staff were puffing as much as we were!



Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Day 66 - Barbie is everywhere!

Villa Mar to Villa Candelaria

We were told breakfast would be ready at 7.30 and we would be leaving between 8 and 8.30 - of course none of us were prepared for "Bolivian" time, which is pretty similar Island time, Indian time, African time, and lots of other international times!

Today the scenery on offer was quite different, today was a day of rocky landscapes and greenery in unlikely places, whereas yesterday was a day of lakes, mountains and desert.

First rock stop was to see formations like "World Cup" and "Camel Rock", and there was a little bit of rock climbing involved so we could get up high to see some great views.

Funny looking camel if you ask me
As it was early in the day we kept running into groups like ours at the same stops, not a bad thing in itself, but we had to be patient for our photos while waiting for some groups to finish with their "special" poses .... what is it with backpackers and stupid photo poses?  Arms in the air, everyone jumping in the air at once, one arm up and one down, the list goes on. There was one particularly loud group that K was sure was a bunch of Americans (yes, we have found on this trip that the stereotype is common), and poor Derek (who was nothing like that) said he was used to it .... we later found the worst person in the worst group was an Australian ..... lesson learned, you should never stereotype in public!!

The lunch stop was in a beautiful valley with great rock formations and icy water flowing over what seemed to be a type of grass, into a lake with bullrushes, with llama grazing close by. We did a bit of rock climbing while lunch was being prepared, and then relaxed in the sun until it was time to head off again.


We've been doing well with the lunch stops
After lunch there was a view of a huge canyon, then a bit of a drive during which the signs of habitation increased. At one point we had a flat tyre, but Rudolfo had it changed over in about 10 minutes, while we all stood around gawking like tourists! 

We stopped for a short time in the small town of San Augustin, where we were able to buy an ice cream, after which we pushed on to Julaca, an almost derelict railway town, where K saw a traditionally dressed woman hand in hand  with a little girl dressed incongruously in a pink barbie dress carrying a barbie bag.


We arrived at out salt hotel in what we think was the town of Villa Candelaria (based on Google Maps, we didn't see a sign). The hotel was amazing, everything was made out of salt - the floor (crushed salt), the walls, the pillars holding up the roof and even the beds!

After this, I think I would now like to stay at the world's first pepper hotel
The first room we were shown had two single beds with a shared bathroom and shower across the hallway. Neither K or Pan were happy with this, so with some money changing hands we were "upgraded" to room with a double bed, ensuite, hot (well, lukewarm) water, and electricity. Our fears of very basic facilities have proven to be unfounded, we've stayed in worse places (e.g. in Africa!).

Salt bricks ... lucky it doesn't rain much here
Dinner was held in the huge salt dining area, we sat at our salt table on on salt stools (with cushions) - an amazing place. Once again we had no trouble with the cold, although the altitude made sleeping a little difficult, and the dryness meant dry mouths and cracked lips - nothing we couldn't handle though.



Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Day 65 - Don't inhale

San Pedro de Atacama (Chile)  to Villa Mar (Bolivia)

The tour company we picked for the trip from SPdA to Uyuni in Bolivia takes people by 4WD in groups of 6. We were collected by a mini van pretty much on time at 7:30am. Our travelling companions for the next few days were three guys in their late 20s to early 30s - Glen from the UK, Michael from Switzerland, and Derek from the US, as well as Pan, a lady in her fifties from Thailand.

The driver took us to the border, where we sorted out the border formalities (exit from Chile, entry to Bolivia), then taken to meet our driver/guide for the trip, Rudolfo. Rudolfo made us breakfast, after which we moved our luggage to our 4WD, and started our trip through Bolivia.

Nice spot for brekkie, if a little cold
We had read enough to know it was going to be pretty basic, no phones, internet, heating and maybe electricity? We had chosen this particular tour company because of very good reviews (including no mentions of the drivers being drunk, which is apparently happens a bit), and because we were told we would have our own room.

The car wasn't as roomy as we'd hoped, there were seven of us including the driver, and we hadn't put our day packs up on the roof with the rest of the luggage, so space was at a premium. It was all bearable though, just a little uncomfortable at times.

We drove on to see Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde, with the snow capped peaks of Volcan Licancabur and other mountains all around us. We then stopped at the Salvador Dalí Desert, with lone rocks rising out of sand, you could why it was named after Dali.

No, Dali was not here
The lunch stop was at a thermal bath, only Derek decided he'd give it a go, the rest of us were still feeling the cold and didn't think getting out of our clothes was a good idea, though Derek did tell us it was nice and warm.
Cold air, warm water - but not for us!
After lunch we drove on to Sol de Mañana, a geothermal field with fumadores emitting hot gases (we were told to go no closer than a metre, but that didn't seem far enough to us), boiling mud, and steam vents. At this point we were up around 4850 metres, and although we were fine, some of the others were impacted by the altitude, especially Pan, who ended up being given oxygen.

Glop, glop, glop
Our last sightseeing stop was at Laguna Colorada, reddish in colour due to algae living there, as well as sediments in the water. There were lots of flamingos here, but we also noticed a number of unhatched eggs, and many dead flamingo chicks. Rudolfo told us that there hadn't been much rain this year so the water level was low and this had also impacted the flamingos .... global warming strikes again?
How does that flamingo song go again?
We eventually arrived at our hostel in the small town of Villa Mar (at "only" 3990m) to find that we were the last group to check in, and that's when the issues started. We had been promised a private room as had Pan, however there was only one  empty room left - ours. Pan had been quite sick and didn't want to sleep in a dorm room, so we decided Pan could sleep in our room. Quite disappointing for all of us, although the upside was that we had a private bathroom, meaning we didn't have to use the outdoor toilet at all. We found out the next morning that the couple who stayed in the double room next to us were told on arrival they had to pay extra, when they refused as the tour was supposed to be all inclusive, the owner locked their ensuite and made them use the outside facilities!

Dinner was pretty basic, just some spaghetti followed by tinned peaches, but it was tasty enough and we didn't go hungry. We had initially been worried about what the beds would be like and how cold we would get, and though our bed had a sag in the middle, it had plenty of coverings and we didn't suffer too much at all!





Monday, April 25, 2016

Day 64 - Red rocks and high lakes

San Pedro de Atacama

Today we had booked an all day trip to the Lagunas Altiplanicas for our last full day in SPdA, so after being picked up around 7:15am our first stop was at the small town of Socaire for breakfast.

After breakfast it was on to Piedras Rojas, a rock formation right by the Salar de Água Calientes. The scenery was amazing, the view of the red rocks, blue icy water, salty shore and surrounding mountains was well worth the visit, though it was incredibly windy and cold, with the altitude and the wind chill factor it felt even colder than yesterday. At that altitude any exertion also makes you puffed very quickly, so we had to take it easy when getting around.


After that is was on to see the lagunas - Laguna Miscanti and Laguna Miñiques, both close together and surrounded by mountains. We walked along the edge of Miscanti for a while, and were then taken on the bus to see the nearby Miñiques - more beautiful views.


It was back to Socaire for a nice two course lunch, then on get a closer look at the Salar de Atacama. We stopped by Laguna Chaxa to see a large number of flamingos feeding and flying about, then proceeded from there to the village of Toconao to see the old church, and also browse the souvenir shops (along with all the other tour buses that arrived at the same time).




Back in SPdA we spent some time finalising our preparations for our trip to Bolivia in the morning. This included buying "emergency" supplies of food in case the food on the trip wasn't up to par, and getting ripped off at the money changers as we had no choice but to use their services to get the Bolivianos we needed along the way (for park entry fees, for example) until the next ATM in Uyuni three days later.

Happy Birthday M!




Sunday, April 24, 2016

Day 63 - Coldest day ever!

San Pedro de Atacama

The alarm was set for 4am this morning for our trip to the geyser El Tatio, as we were due to be picked up from our hostal some time between 4:30 and 5:00am. As it turned out the bus didn't arrive until 5:15, and we were the first ones on .... so by the time everyone was collected it was approaching 6am .... could have done with a bit more sleep!

The reason for the early start is that the geysers are more active in the morning, since the steam (and other gases) leaving the geyser are more visible in the cold air of the morning. We arrived to see numerous plumes of steam over quite a large area. However it was also very cold ... we were at an altitude of about 4320 metres and the sun was barely up, we were told the temperature was about -10 degrees.

The temperature wasn't cold enough to stop some brave souls from jumping into the warm water, our excuse was that we forgot to bring a towel .... instead we tried to stand in the sun and hopped from one foot to the other trying to get the cold pain out of our feet and hands while waiting for eggs to be cooked on a small gas cylinder.

On the way back to SPdA we stopped at the almost deserted indigenous village of Machuca, with an interesting church as well as the income sources of barbequed llama and a paid toilet. The church was nice enough (though M was told off for using his flash) as were the skewers (which tasted like salty beef). K asked the guide where all the people were, as the village as pretty dead and the houses were all locked up. It seems that everyone was out tending to their flocks, but we also get the impression that the village is now just used to support tourism in the area. Along the way back to SpDA we also stopped to see some flamingos and vicuñas (a member of the camel family, along with llamas, alpacas and guanacos).


At 4pm we headed off from SPdA to Laguna Cejar, a salt lake in the Salar de Atacama (or Atacama salt flats) which is comparable to the Dead Sea in salt concentration and floating ability. We had our bathers and towels for this one, so we changed and headed toward the edge of the laguna. However by this time the day had turned overcast and windy, and it was surprisingly quite cold. The encrusted salt at the edge of the lake was quite difficult to walk on in bare feet, so right at the edge of the water K chickened out, leaving M to brave the freezing water alone (and after the initial shock of the cold it wasn't too bad).

After drying off (though not quite recovering from the cold), we drove to a new spot to watch an amazing sunset while we were served pisco sours and snacks.




Saturday, April 23, 2016

Day 62 - To the moon!

San Pedro de Atacama 

We started the morning walking around town to work out which tours to do and which companies to go with. We followed the advice we'd read online and went to the tourist office, although the woman behind the desk seemed really put out, and we also saw her being quite rude to other people. In the tourist office was a list of accredited tour companies, and folders with customer feedback. We worked through the information (nearly all complaints, many about not being collected for a tour) and narrowed it down to three companies with good reviews, for the tours around SPdA, as well as the three day trip to Uyuni in Bolivia, which we planned to do after here.

We visited all three companies, we'd read that the overnight stops on the Uyuni trip were in poor conditions i.e. dorm rooms and cold showers, so K was very relieved when the third company we visited offered private rooms - crisis averted!


We headed off at 4pm on the tour to the Valley de Luna not far from SPdA, which took us to an area with an amazing moon like landscape and huge sand dunes and canyons, and returned after watching a great sunset.


The atmosphere is so dry that apparently you sweat but it immediately evaporates so you sweat more, meaning you have a constant feeling of dryness and thirst. Luckily we were both coping with the altitude so far, though we are aware that we are in training for our trip to Bolivia, as the altitude change on the first day is pretty big, and we had heard that it can be difficult if enough time hasn't been spent acclimatising beforehand.


Friday, April 22, 2016

Day 61 - To the desert

Santiago to San Pedro de Atacama

We had a flight early this afternoon to Calama in the north of Chile, which is the closest airport to San Pedro de Atacama, our ultimate destination. Right from the beginning of this holiday many other travellers we had met had told us that Atacama is one of the highlights of Chile, so finally after 2 months we are making our way there.

We left earlier than needed to get to the airport as neither of us likes the time stress involved with flying - lucky we did as that tourist bubble we live in was ready to be pricked. We hailed a taxi only to find that the streets were gridlocked, the taxi driver told us that the first president of Chile after the dictator Pinochet was deposed had died three days earlier and his state funeral was today, only a few blocks from where we were staying. It took us almost an hour to get to the bus station, but fortunately we were able to get straight onto a shuttle to the airport and arrived with plenty of time.

We had picked up a US$17 fare with Sky Airlines, a real bargain, though we were still a little dubious as Sky had cancelled on us when we tried to fly from Valdivia to Santiago, but our fears this time were unfounded, as we had no trouble checking in and the plane left on time.

We landed in the incredible barren landscape of Calama, a mining town in the north of Chile. The airport was very new and modern, and as we exited the baggage area we were greeted by touts for the shuttle buses to San Pedro de Atacama, there were at least half a dozen different companies vying for the tourist dollar.

The shuttle bus ride was 90 minutes through desert with snow capped volcanoes visible in the distance, a real contrast to the green landscapes we'd visited in Patagonia. The shuttle dropped us at our hostal - that's service!
Desert and snow .... interesting combination
We had booked four nights in SPdA as that is the time recommended to acclimatise to the altitude. The town sits at 2400 metres, but the sights accessed from the town, as well as our planned future travels are at levels as high as 4000 metres. We had a little trouble checking in as the room we had booked had been mistakenly given to someone else, so we walked into town to have a look around while it was sorted.

The main square was full of people and vehicles participating in the Atacama Solar Challenge, we had passed solar powered cars on the trip from Calama, so we had a quick look at some of the cars, then had a drink, followed by dinner at a very busy restaurant. Fortunately when we returned to our hostal the issue with our room had been resolved, so we didn't have to worry about finding alternative accommodation.

Plenty of sun around to power these things



Thursday, April 21, 2016

Day 60 - Dealing with dodgy taxi drivers

Easter Island to Santiago

This morning at breakfast we met a couple who were staying 8 days on the island - that's what you call relaxing especially as they had already been there two days and were yet to see a Moai! How that could be possible we weren't sure as they are everywhere, especially around the town.

Come get your leis here...
We were driven to the airport to wait for our plane, the airport was tiny so we sat outside watching the woman lei sellers doing a huge trade with all the hotel cars arriving to collect new tourists. Our plane arrived and we watched as the arriving tourists were greeted with their leis - another plane load in, another plane load out. Many people posed for photos in front of the fake airport statutes - now that we are Easter Island experts we can differentiate between the real ones and the copies - plus you would be in big trouble if you sat on the edge of one like us and lots of others were doing!
Get off that statue now!

We'd been to Santiago so many times now that we were old hands at getting the shuttle bus from the airport, then the taxi from the bus station. We did have some trouble with the taxis though this time - the first one decided he didn't know where we were headed and made us get out of the cab, the second one decided he'd try to take us for a bit of ride. Fortunately the combination of Google maps and having been here before foiled his evil plan, we were able to direct him to the precise spot he needed to drop us at, back at the same apartment complex we'd stayed at just before going to Easter Island.

The apartment was right in the centre of the Lastarria district, which is a great location as we had plenty of restaurants to chose from for dinner just a minute or so from our apartment, even at 11pm.


Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Day 59 - Mo' moai

Easter Island

We'd booked three full days (four nights) on Easter Island, since that's what all the guide books recommended and we were also worried that if we had a day of poor weather then we might not have had enough time. However we are generally pretty quick as far as sightseeing goes, so in retrospect we really only needed two full days.

In the morning M did the walk up to Orongo while K enjoyed the veranda and the garden back at the hostel. There was a bit of drizzle but it wasn't cold, so it was good walking weather. The path up the volcano was interesting, it was almost a straight line up to the first mirador (lookout), then followed the rim of the crater around to Orongo.
There's that crater again
After going through Orongo again, M decided on the way back down to walk part of the way around to the other side of the volcano. There was a path but it wasn't used much, so the combination of the earlier rain and the up to waist high plants either side of the narrow track meant it was a wet walk at times.

This guy looks a little sad
In the afternoon we walked into town and headed a little further north along the coast to take in some of the moai we hadn't yet seen that had been re-erected along the coast.

The place we were staying at was further out of town than we liked, up to an hour's round trip to the main part of town, which became a bit tiring after three days. We decided we'd revisit the restaurant that was closest to our hostel, which fortunately also had probably the best food and atmosphere of all the ones we'd tried.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Day 58 - More craters

Easter Island

The jeep we had rented yesterday was scheduled to be returned at 11am, so this morning we drove up to see Orongo, not far from where we were staying. Orongo was a site of much significance for the islanders, and sits on the edge of a huge volcanic crater filled with water and supporting a unique biosystem.

We were the first ones to arrive for the day, so we had the place to ourselves for a while. We walked along the path to the old village, which consisted of tiny houses (with even smaller stone doorways) which were used when the islanders came up to the crater for special ceremonies. The view over the crater was impressive, as was the view to the smaller islands of Moto Nui and Moto Iti, which were significant in the ceremonies.
They must have been small to fit through those doors
After returning the car we visited the cave across the road from our hostel, which had some old rock paintings. We had a nice picnic lunch sitting near the cave looking out into the small bay nearby, after which we headed back into town for another enjoyable dinner with ocean views.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Day 57 - A bit of a pushover

Easter Island

Something we didn't expect is that a large number of the moai have been pushed over and are lying face down on the ground. At one time (by the 1830's) practically all of the moai had been pushed over, and have only been erected again in the 20th century. It's generally believed that warring clans on the island paid each other back by pushing over their very important statutes.  About 50 moai have been stood up over the past 50 years and many of the areas have been reconstructed.


We picked up our hire car around 10am and headed off around the island in an anti-clockwise direction, stopping at each site along the way. The first few sites all had fallen moai and platforms (known as ahu) that were in poor condition.

We eventually arrived at Rano Raraku, the quarry where all of the statues were created. The quarry is the most extraordinary sight, moai after moai appearing as if they are walking down the hill out of the quarry onto their destination. There are many moai in various stages of carving - it's almost as if someone yelled, "that's it we're out of here" and everyone downed tools and walked away - leaving the moai stranded. The quarry was on the sides of an extinct volcano, so we also walked up to see the crater lake, as well as more partly built moai in the distance.


After the quarry the next stop was Tongariki, where fifteen moai have been re-erected. They were originally toppled in the island wars and later swept inland by a tsunami.


Further around we saw some rock carvings, and then we stopped at Anakena, a bit different to the rest of the island, as instead of rocky shores and the crashing waves of the Pacific there was an idyllic beach with beautiful sand, waving palm trees and a lovely row of Moai, that until recently had been buried in the sand.

After Anakena the road circling the island headed inland, meaning we were unable to drive to a section of the coast with more moai sites. We drove up to the quarry at Puna Pau where the red scoria topknots (called pukao) were manufactured.

That was it for today's sightseeing, after Puna Pau we arrived back in Hanga Roa. Even though it had taken us all day to travel around the island, it's only 20 minutes in a car from one end to the other.

Tonight we found another lovely restaurant a little outside of town with a great view over the water, and a great vantage point to see the sunset and also watch groups of islanders powering through the ocean in long outriggers.




Sunday, April 17, 2016

Day 56 - Happy Easter

Santiago to Easter Island

An early four and a half hour flight to one of the remotest places on earth. Easter Island really is in the middle of nowhere and we were surprised by the size of the plane and the number of people that pour into this island six days a week.

The island has a real Polynesian feel which is hardly surprisingly as it is believed the Polynesians were the first inhabitants. It was lovely to finally break out the shorts and t-shirts again, it always feels more like a holiday when it is warm.

We were greeted at the airport and given leis to wear, then transported to our accommodation. After checking in getting the lowdown (in Spanish) on where to go, we headed into Hanga Roa, the only town on the island.

There are a number of the famous Easter Island statues, known as Moai, on the coast not far from town, so that gave us a quick taste of what we would see later, since most of the moai are spread all around the island. Interestingly they nearly all face inland, not out to sea.


We arranged a hire a car for the next day, then found a nice restaurant right on the water, next to a spot where we could see turtles swimming. We had a couple of drinks and ended up having dinner there, before a long walk back to where we were staying, which was a little bit out of town.


Saturday, April 16, 2016

Day 55 - So much rain

Valpo to Santiago

It bucketed down pretty much all night, but there was a welcome break as we were heading to the bus station to return to Santiago. The very nice owners of the airbnb apartment we stayed in drove us to the bus station .... an advantage that airbnb sometimes has over other forms of accommodation.

Today's bus was a premium one .... really comfy seats and USB ports, too bad we were only on a short trip - it would have come in handy on the 10 and 12 hour bus rides!

It was a soggy Santiago we arrived into, a city feels more comfortable when you have been there before and because we now kind of know what we are doing we booked into a cute studio apartment in the Lastarria area, with lots of cafes, bars and restaurants at our doorstep. Last time in Santiago we stayed in downtown and although it is close to the museums and the plazas, it was a bit dead on the weekends and doesn't have the buzz of some of the other parts of town.

Our apartment here also had high speed internet provided via optical fibre .... makes us look pretty poor when a country like Chile can have state of the art internet, but back home we struggle to get a decent network up and running!!

Friday, April 15, 2016

Day 54 - Get yourself a pooper scooper guys

Valparaiso

Rain had been promised in Valpo for the last few days and it finally arrived overnight so we spent most of the day as a lay day and used it do some forward planning. We went for a walk later in the day and even in the drizzle it's still a vibrant colourful city, with so many murals and lovely graffiti. However the streets are also spoiled with the spoils of having so many strays, you need to watch where your feet are going at all times. It's a shame the local government doesn't invest in a few pooper scooper men or maybe even a dog pound.

As much as Chile doesn't seem a particularly poor country compared to some we've visited, there are still people on the buses and sitting on street corners selling things like individual bandaids and nothing else, that has to be a hard way to make a living. However we haven't seen much in the way of homelessness or beggars, in general it seems most people have a purpose and somewhere to go, though that may just be because we are tourists and hang around in tourist areas.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Day 53 - ¿Eres un gringo?

Valparaiso

This morning we walked along Avenida Alemania, which took us along the top of the Valparaiso hills, with great views along the way and without too much variation in elevation either (yes, we are tired of walking up hills). We ended up at Pablo Neruda's house, which is now a museum. Pablo was a Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet and a bit of a national hero. The house was very interesting, and had amazing views of the city, which inspired him to write this great description of Valparaiso:

"‘Valparaíso, how absurd you are…you haven’t combed your hair, you’ve never had time to get dressed, life has always surprised you.’"

K had read about an authentic Chilean restaurant, J.Cruz, so after Pablo's house we walked down the very steep hill (passing many tired looking tourists heading uphill to the museum) to have lunch, The restaurant was so authentic that when we asked for the menu they said there wasn't one as they only served one dish  - chorillana - so we said we would have that then! It was a huge plate of soggy French fries mixed with fried onions and egg, with beef strips on top. To add to the atmosphere a local came in and played his guitar and sang. The restaurant was jam packed with all kinds of collectables, and the walls and cabinets were plastered with customer ID photos (passport size). People who didn't have a photo had written on bandaids, so we did the same. Although the experience was interesting, we're in no hurry to have any more chorillana after this.

Possibly the effect of a chorillana only diet
We caught the bus back to Viña de Mar as we had decided to visit the Natural Museum. Though small, the museum had really interesting exhibitions - Easter Island (with a statue out the front of the museum), real shrunken heads with an explanation on how it was done, a mummy, and many stuffed animals, which were quite interesting to see as it's not often that you can get up close to a condor or a puma.
Comes with instructions
We stopped in at a shop on our way to the funicular as we headed home when the girl behind the counter asked K, in Spanish, if she was a gringo. When K confirmed that yes she was (of course she is!), the girl asked her if she could teach her to say "my name is" in English (which she did).

Baa Baa Baa Baa Black Black Sheep Sheep


Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Day 52 - Melbourne is famous for ......

Valparaiso

Give me a "C"
This morning we headed down the hill to join a walking tour and one of the first things they did was take us part of the way back up the same hill on a funicular (locally known as an ascensor) - pity we didn't know about that funicular yesterday. We retraced some of the area we had walked yesterday but this morning we had someone pointing out the interesting things that we had missed, like the set of steps that we had walked up that had been painted like the keys of a piano, apparently done for a photography shoot for a local band, now famous and known as the "Piano Steps". This was just one example of the street art that we saw all over Valparaiso, much of it was quite impressive (not all of it though .... taggers are everywhere!).

Apprentice tour guides
Of course a walking tour in Chile is never the same without stray dogs joining the group - this time we had an incredibly clever dog that left us at the start of the funicular and met us at the other end after climbing the steps! Valparaiso is also famous for mountain bike racing down the stairways and narrow lanes. Since dogs hate bikes (well they do in Chile anyway), they collect all of the strays beforehand  and keep them locked up, then release them when the event is over. Some other useful information the guide gave us was showing us the boundaries of where we, as tourists, shouldn't go as the areas are considered unsafe! Valparaiso has had a bad reputation for petty crime, although we were told it's no worse than Santiago.

 No idea what this means
After the tour we went for coffee at the interestingly named Melbourne Café, which had lots of pictures of Melbourne on the wall. We had a flat white (which they call an "Australiano"), which actually wasn't too bad! We then walked along the waterfront (avoiding the "no-go" area we had been told about just one street back) and caught the Artilleria acensor to the 21 de Mayo promenade, which had some great views over town, and the usual tourist stalls (where K found an alpaca scarf she wanted to buy, but when they were taken out of the huge pile they were in each one she looked at had dirty and faded lines where they had been sitting exposed to the air and the sun).
Not a bad looking (or tasting) flat white
We then caught the bus to Viña del Mar, not too far out of town, which is a beach seaside holiday area with a lot of high rise apartments along the beach. As it's autumn it was a little cool with drizzly rain so the place was pretty quiet, We walked along the beach for a while, having seen enough for today, then headed back to Valpo. Once there, we caught a different funicular to take us up the hill towards our apartment. This one was really old and a bit shaky, they don't look too safe from the outside but they do the job, many of them have been working for well over a century.

Reminds me of someone I know .....

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Day 51 - Use the bike!

Santiago to Valparaiso

We're really getting the hang of bus travel in Chile, a couple of hours on a bus is nothing and we are starting to think the same about 8 plus hours as well .... we'd never even consider a bus ride to Sydney or Adelaide though!

The bus to the the port city of Valparaiso (meaning "Paradise Valley") was a cruisy 90 minutes, no need to book as they left every 15 minutes from Santiago. Valparaiso is built up on a number of hills, your address doesn't just include the street name and number, but the name of your hill as well ... and some of the hills are pretty steep too!

Use the bike!
We arrived at our nice modern airbnb a bit before check in time, so we left our luggage there and walked downhill to find somewhere for a quick lunch .... we were told the cafes were a block away ... 15 minutes and numerous wrong turns later we found somewhere that was open .... maybe their idea of a block is different to ours.

After lunch we wandered all the way down the hill to find a supermarket, then trekked the long hard slog back up the hill to our accommodation, stopping along the way for a Pisco sour, the national drink of Chile, made of Pisco (a type of brandy), lemon juice, and egg white - very easy to drink indeed!

Based on our experience walking Valparaiso today there shouldn't be any overweight people in town, though that's probably nullified by the effects of the Chilean food!

Pisco sours with a view