Valparaiso

The port is in an awesome bowl of land with mountains heading down to the sea. At one point it was the busiest port in South America but the Panama Canal nicely shafted it.

The bridge leads to an ascensor (lift) to take you down to the other part of town.

They get everywhere...

Sunglasses and Xmas decorations. What's wrong?

Election campaigning Chilean style. The Chilean spin doctors obviously decided subtlety was best left to other countries. Kara is working on posters like this for her dad's next campaign...

Lots of old, graceful buildings. This belongs to the Chilean Navy. When approximately 50% of your living space is sea front, you take the navy quite seriously.

Street scene. Doesn't quite convey how fast they are all moving.

For 3 pound each, we had a two course meal. This was our main course. Chocca full of sea food.

Typical view here.

Dinner with Celiane and Fabian.


Food market. This is just one stall. There were about 50 like this.

Fish, luverly fish. We've seen lots of stalls like this in Chile.

Valparaiso and couch surfing

We arrived in Valaparaiso as sun was setting on Thursday night, to see the lights twinkling on the 20 or more hills that sit in a bowl around a port area. We promise you you have never seen anything like this, a truly unique city.

After an "interesting" short taxi ride (who'd have thought you could do a hairpin bend, going up a 45 degree slope, while in 3rd gear), we arrived on the narrow street where our couch surfing hosts, Celiane and Fabian live.

But what is couch surfing? No Simon, it is not the lowest form of swinging. It is a way to meet locals as you travel and enjoy seeing a place from their point of view. www.couchsurfing.org for more info.

Within an hour of arriving we were tucking into a hot meal, a glass of wine and having a complicated but fun 3 language conversation in French, Spanish and English with Celiane, Fabian and Celiane's uncle.

Yesterday Fabian showed us round his city. It is hillier than Bristol. Much hillier. So hilly in fact, they have a series of very old lifts to take you up them. Which were all shut yesterday. Our legs hurt. Fabian said the local obesity is quite amusing as no-one can put weight on their lower halves leading to a lot of top heavy poeple (not in a good Page 3 way. Note - this is Martin's comment!!)

Valparaiso (or Valpo) is described in guidebooks as having a "faded charm" ie it is run down and dirtier than anywhere else we have been, with lots of street art / grafitti, the mangiest dogs yet spotted in South America, a compliment of cats living off all the fish from the markets, and chaotic traffic. But... it is great. It's lively, beautiful, loads of hidden gems, and surprisingly friendly for a big city.

We spent yesteday taking in the different scenes, with Fabian taking us to fantastic view points. We had lunch at the local fish market, where there are quite a few restaurants, cats, kittens, and people playing football with dogs. Then in the evening they took us to their favourite restaurant in a very well known barrio, with lots of brightly coloured houses clinging to the edge of hills.

Today was market day. So much fruit and veg. So many colours. Such great prices. Great fun, great atmosphere.

Errr... we kind of caused the loo to flood (clean water not dirty) so have just spent a bit of time mopping the floor of the three storey house we are in... all part of the fun...fortunately our hosts are out and it's very warm, so we expect everything to dry nicely. If they ask any questions, we'll say we mopped the floor out of gratitude...

Photos of Santiago & Santa Cruz

Vineyard we visited.

Lots of great views like this.

busy street, Santiago.

Plaza de las Armas, Santiago's main square.

View across the Plaza de las Armas of Santiago's cathedral.

View of the city. Check out how close the Andes are!!!

The hill in the right was where we took the other photo of the view from. Our hostal is just to the right of that hill too.

We told you it's a large statue.

Bright lights, big city

We continued our exploring of Santiago yesterday by heading to the barrio (neighbourhood) of Bella Vista. It's a chilled out, arty, crafty type area with brightly coloured houses and lots of craft stalls, cafes, bars and restaurants.

It also has a great big hill, which is a promontory (good word) of the Andes, there with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary.

When we got to the top to see arresting (another good word) views of the city, we went to the huge statue of the virgin. Inside it were... two teenagers snogging each others' faces off. Maybe they thought the location was a form of contraception?

We also met up with another Engish couple, friends of Ros. Together we went on a cultural tour of Santiago involving, ale, wine, sushi, cake, dingy bars and various street performers (the little drummer boy is our favourite. Seen him twice now).

The best laid plans....

So we woke up this morning with a plan. We were going to go back to the coast, further north than we had been before, for a few days of sun and sea before hitting the city of Valparaiso on Thursday. 3 nights in Valparaiso, then Santiago (capital city) on Sunday, ready to fly out Tuesday.

It turns out you can't get a bus north out of Santa Cruz without going via Santiago. That's fine, we get to Santiago and change to a bus for the coast... but....we got to Santiago and couldn't be bothered to wait 2 hours at a bus station, so we dug out a flyer for a hostal, and have spent a pleasant afternoon in the capital city.

It's not the coast, but at least we've been enjoying the sunshine, rather than sitting on a packed bus with smooching teenagers. In fact, we are surrounded by people smooching. We just went up to a tower on a hill with a park, full of people smooching. If you burnt it down you'd halve the teenage pregnancy rates.

Santiago is a bustling, busy city. We hit the Plaza de Las Armas - a central square with the cathedral and various other grandiose buildings on its edges. Here we figured, do as the locals do. So we bought ice-cream and sat on a bench. We decided not to embarrass ourselves and join the games of chess taking place in an old bandstand.

Make me beautiful
The observant among you might have noticed how Martin has been looking a bit bouffant and Kara a tad tangle-headed.

We've been talking about getting our barnets trimmed for a while but have been a bit too scared (Kara's not had a haircut since the UK).

By accident, we found ourselves in the hairdressers mall. We kid you not. An entire mall devoted to hair salons. We picked a unisex one, with friendly looking folk and sat down in adjacent chairs, like gossiping old ladies. The clues were there. The 80s music. The way they were all smiling in a kind of we're laughing at you but in a nice way. The man with the long, curly black hair and tattooes (think Slash from Guns n Roses but a bit more feminine). The slightly camp older man doing Kara's hair. The semi pornographic, but discrete, photos of buff young men. The photo of Martin's hair stylist (Ahmed) dressed in drag.

Yep, we managed to find Santiago's gay hair salon. And our hair looks great.

Oh I do like to be beside the sea side...

Martin ordering powdered mash. He fits in quite well.

Church in main plaza, Santa Cruz.



Beach, Pichelemu

Breakfast at Pichelemu, in the sun.

Sunset.

Little critters on the beach. We think these might be krill...not sure though.

Pelican. We think.

Stuff we like about Chile

• Pisco Sours - Pisco is the national alcoholic drink, like brandy. Pisco Sours are made with pisco, sugar, lemon juice and, occasionally, egg white. We like. A lot.
• Sea food (we've covered this before!)
• Breakfast - unlike their Argentine cousins, the Chileans understand the concept of food before 11am that isn't coated in vast amounts of sugar
• Scenery. Kara read a quote that said "When God made the world, he had a little bit of everything left over - glaciers, mountains, deserts, lakes, coast line. He put it in his pocket and went for a walk but there was a hole in his pocket and as he walked it all leaked out onto the land that is now Chile."
• Sleepy towns and villages.
• the local Spanish. Very frustrating for anyone trying to learn or satisfying if you've just begun to learn, as all foreigners are in the same boat - no-on understands what their saying.
• The weather forecast. Everynight, they forecast the weather for Chilean Antarctica. Cold. Windy. Snowing. Never changes. Cracks us up everytime.
• Their dislike of Argentina. Very very funny. We met travellers yesterday who were thinking of skipping Argentina as some Chileans they'd met had told them it was a land of robbers, rubbish, and not much else...(and don't get them started on Maradona).

Other observations

We've decided the Chileans are a lot like the English. Generally, they are not over-whelmingly helpful or friendly on first acquaintance. There are some friendly ones, but it's like the UK, you don't expect it everywhere. However, like the English, they get warmer with more time.

Pichelemu & Santa Cruz

Or: Here comes the sun... but we've got colds

This is a direct result of having told our mothers that we've not been ill at all. The next day we both had little colds. Before you overwhelm us with sympathy, it means we are sniffing a bit and sneezing a bit. Nothing drastic.

So, Pichelemu, surfing capital of Chile. Gorgeous beaches, slightly odd town (overrun with teenagers, full of angst), and site of another great cabaña for us to stay in with sea views from our veranda.

Even better, the beach was full of interesting stuff that had been washed up or lived there, namely:

• massive, dead crabs, everywhere
• a long line (100m ish) of fish heads (no sign of the bodies - makes you a bit scared about what it was that bit them off)
• massive sea-weed, longer than us
• clams, mussels, shells
• Pelicans
• sea gulls and other more interesting sea birds
• One single solitary sea-lion
• surfers of varying ability ranging from Martin to Chilean surf gods
• girls watching the surfers
• usual host of stray dogs (including a doggy orgy taking place on the beach. Quite disturbing.)

We've moved on to the sleepy town of Santa Cruz, which is the heart of the wine region. The town was nicely summed up by our hostal owner, who on our arrival said "Pero hay nada aqui, nada" "But there is nothing here, nothing". Closely followed by "Y todo es muy caro, muy caro" "And everything is very expensive".

However, following his tips, pretending to be students we got a 75% discount off the regional museum entry. It was a great museum, in an old colonial hacienda. However, it did feel like each display area was there because someone had gone "Look, I've got some really cool old guns. I know! Let's have a weapons room! Oh, I've found some cool fossils! Let's have a fossil room too. But where can I put my old cars... mmmm.... will this fit in with the steam train engine and carriage I also have? Maybe they can go next to the life size replica of the indigenous people's hut...mmm, right next to the display on farming equipment...."

In the interest of saving money, our hostal owner also sent us to the local canteen style restaurant. While the cuisine is nothing to write home about (powdered mash - who knew it still existed!) it's well worth a visit as it serves a large 3 course lunch for about 2.50 each, and we were lucky enough to be surrounded by the local campaign workers trying to elect Eduardo Frei as the next President of Chile. (we're very au fait with the elections now).

Having met fellow travellers who warned us that internet in New Zealand is exorbitant, we're making the most of Chile's cheap internet before heading out this afternoon on the tight wad wine tour. No! We are not paying 100 US dollars for a wine tour! No. our hostal owner has organised a collectivo (shared taxi) to do the job for us and take us to some other vineyards. It's still pricey, but hey, why not?

Exciting update!

As of NOW our blog has a counter on it so we can see if you really are logging in! We started it at 0 today so we don't have back stats but hey ho...!!

Martin is surfing. I'm on a PC. Such is life!

Donatus and Kara. We're 65km from the Argentine border here.



Peter's truck

Martin, Peter and the aforementioned whisky.

the 7 Tazas. Well, 3 of them in this photo.

Very bad photos of some very nice people (Vilches).



Can you see what it is yet?

The kindness of strangers...

When you backpack you meet all kinds of people - which is part of the interest and fun.

So, we've already mentioned Alex, who lent us his 4x4 to go do internet stuff. Well, generous people seemed to stay at La Suizandina.

After a well lubricated night, Donatus, a German guest, insisted on picking up the bar bill, and then offered to drive us round a trip of the country side the next morning. This was how we got drive through the longest tunnel in South America (over 4km long) and see some resplendent foothills of the Andes.

As a parting gift too, Alex gave us a bottle of cask strength Talisker whisky to enjoy at our leisure...and we've been pretty damned leisurely since then, we can assure you.

We also got the answer to the question, what happens when you get a lift off a German gelogist who works in a salt mine where they store Europe's nuclear waste? Well, you have a great few days riding round in his hired pick up truck (at one Martin was riding in the back as we had run out of room and had to give a lift to our chef from the night before) visiting remote bits of Chile.

We fetched up at Vilches (try finding that on a map) just the other side of the Andes to Payunia National Park (home of the goat herds we stayed with). As Maria, our chef /waitress/shop keeper/wife of local guardaparque, explained, you know it's remote in Chile when the election posters for candidates are non-existent in that area (they are on every lampost in most places).

Peter and ourselves stayed in a log cabin, heated by, well, logs. In true Ancient Greek style, it was here that we discovered a new department in hell's ironic punishment Division.

• a beautiful log cabin in the countryside
• where it gets really blinkin' cold, especially when you've been out in the rain all day
• however, crates of logs and wood ready to burn in our wood burning stove
• but they were all too large to fit in the stove....
• ...and the only means we had of cutting them up were by pen-knife saw blades...

We were near a beautiful (splendiforous) national park, where the park rangers were saddened we weren't staying longer (so were we!).

We also met the locals over dinner. Two local park rangers (one was Maria's husband) and two visiting Spanish Park Rangers on an exchange programme. They were all really friendly and jolly, like the guys that ran our cabana, Flor and Misile.

Fun stuff that happened in Vilches:

• food shopping. Turns out that the "supermarket" was a shed with a hatch, 3km down the road, that had some stuff to sell.
• Strangely she claimed not to have eggs or chicken, despite about 20 chickens clucking round the shed. Hmmmm.
• She did have beer, wine, pasta and fresh bread. Oh, and carrots. And local honey.
• This led to a surprisingly tasty meal of carrot pasta surprise.
• On the drive to the shop, down the "main" (read not as dirty dirt track) we had to stop until the flock of green parrots moved out of the road.
• On the way, it was because there was a calf drinking from its mother. Both of whom were in the road.

Checking out and paying was... different.

Turns out procedure for this was:

• look around for Flor and Misile. It's too early (at 9am) and they haven't arrived yet.
• go find Maria (we get the feeling nothing happens in Vilches without her!)
• who disappears...
• then reappears asking for a lift to the local doctor's (12 km away) and saying we'll pass Flor and Misile's on the way.
• Put Martin in back of truck to make space for protesting Maria.
• Some of you may be thinking this is common in Chile. It turns out not. People stared at him. A lot.
• Go find Flor and Misile, pay and say many goodbyes and thank you (at no point did anyone give any indication that their guests turning up at their front door with their mate was out of the ordinary).

Then on to the 7 Tazas - a waterfall that comes down via 7 pools. Pretty.

We said our goodbyes to Peter yesterday, after he kindly dropped us off at a town to get a bus. He went home to Germany, and we came to Pichelemu, surf capital of Chile. That probably says it all!

All very splendiforous

They have some quaint customs here... this is in the place we are currently staying, where there's a Hansel and Gretl trail (Swiss hostel again. Very nice).








View of La Suiza Andina... yet more bus trips where you get off in the middle of nowhere... there is no internet so we have borrowed a fellow traveller's 4x4 (!) to drive to the nearest village, to use the local library's internet. This is how much we love you all.

It's a lovely sunny day here and we are heading out soon to walk up that valley you see in the photo, to another volcano.
We hope the storms aren't affecting you all... bwah ha ha ha ha ha!


We've had Argentine tea, Welsh tea, Chilean tea, and now German tea, note the beer, with Jamie and Ellie.







Pulchritudinous (did you know this word comes from the Latin "pulcher" which means beautiful?)








Ellie, Jamie, Me and Martin. Volcano Martin climbed is in background.

Volcano photos - Martin had the camera that day

Smokin!









At the top








The view from half way up








the same view in the opposite direction








View of volcano from Villarica, where we stayed. It's big.

Your feedback

We value and appreciate feedback from our extensive (ahem) reading audience. Thank you to Mr BP, newly of Clevedon, for the following gem. We have, as you may have noticed, made the suggested improvements.
Team Stanford

"Hola the Stanfords,

Upon reviewing your latest blog entries, a view was expressed that you may be overusing the adjectives "beautiful" and "stunning", whose occurences are surely now in double figures.

For the continued entertainment of your readers, we challenge you to employ the following alternatives in your next updates:

"Splendiferous"
"Exquisite"
"Picturesque"
"Pulchritudinous"
"Resplendent"

Hope you encounter an array of arresting scenery you can use them on ;-)"

United we stand...

...divided we have fun as well...

So, we spent a day apart - our first in 6 weeks. Did we cope? Was it out of sight, out of mind, or did absence make the heart grow fonder...was it coincidence that Martin found himself in a group with 9 20 year old Scottish girls? Read on...

Martin's day (Weds 11 Nov)
So basically, I climbed an active, snow capped volcano using an ice axe, admired the view from the top, stared into the cauldron, then sledged back down. This is the sort of thing I used to dream about as a 7 year old until I was told there were no active volcanoes in Britain, not much snow, and my parents had no holiday plans to such a destination. So you see guys, dreams can come true...

The climb involved the following:

• ascent from 1200m to 2800m - that's a lot of climbing
• walking in anywhere between 1 and 4 foot of snow
• carrying cramp-ons the whole way to not use them once, even when walking over ice
• breathing in sulphuric fumes from the very active volcano
• admiring the pulchritudinous views
• sledging on little collapsible sledges you strap onto yourself (think Teflon style nappies)

Various nationalities reverting to stereotypes when tired:

• The English and Scots whined a lot about being tired (except me, obviously!)
• The English drank all the free beer on offer (mostly me this time)
• The Germans and Swiss discussed the most efficient way of climbing the moutain and issued lots of orders - "1-2 1-2, keep walking, ja" - I am NOT kidding!!!
• The Brazilians were very laid back
• The French looked beautiful wearing Dolce & Gabana jeans with Calvin Klein and smoked cigarettes at the top in iconic poses (still not kidding!!).

All in all, a fantastic day, with only a minimal risk of death.

Kara's Day

Woke up. Looked wistfully at smoking volcano and pined.

Took Ellie and Jamie (UK couple we hung around with) on their offer to join them for the day. Did 37km bike ride through lush green meadows, past little rivers, looked at volcano - pined. Past cows, hens, sheep, birds of prey, the odd villager, and not much else. Clear blue skies, sunny, great view of active volcano (pined).

Really relieved I didn't do the death hike. Had great day but very different to "Action Man Stanford".

Martin would like to point at at this point that he was pining all day too but in a stoic and manly way.

We did it!!








A rare moment of sun on the volcanic beach








Check out the black sand!


















Stunning views....








The waterfalls - they were very wide and loads of them. This photo does it no justice.

Turquoise colour...