One day in the holidays we travelled from Chillán, a shopping town in the Bío Bío district, to a place called Cobquecura. This particularly sleepy town on the pacific coast is famed for it resident sea lions, and so we decided it was definitely worth a look.

The three hour bus ride cost the equivalent of £2.50, and if this price wasn't cheap enough, the beautiful views that dazzled us as we wound our way through hills, fields and woods to the coast meant that we really got our money's worth. Priceless!

When we arrived, we were confronted with the dangerous situation in which our geographical location left us. Walking up the road towards the deep blue sea, we came across sign after sign signalling that this beautiful, passive place could turn into a tsunami risk area and it really took me by surprise. After a slight internal panic, I resulted to the "when in Rome" mentality and decided only to run for the hills when the locals did so. As no one in the shops seemed particularly pressed to leave their daily routine, and we had heard no news of an earthquake on the radio blaring from the bus, we headed in search of Lobos Marinos at their home, a rock called La Lobería.

We found said rock with certain facility, but our search for the creatures was to no avail. We soon began to feel dejected, wondering if this excursion had been for nothing.

All of a sudden, I was convinced that I had seen a sea lion thrashing around on the beach! Poor Claire had to give me a "pitty pat" and advise me that it was nothing more than a small child playing in the sand...Oh the shame hehe!

After staring at the large rock for what seemed like an eternity as the waves crashed against its jagged edges, finally what I can only describe as "the daddy bear" raised his magnificent head and gave a large honk. Immediately the rock sprang to life and mummies and babies were squirming all over the place. It turns out they were so well camouflaged; we had no idea that we had been staring at hundreds of sea lions for about twenty minutes before we realised. From that point on it really was a magical sight to take in.

I know I will never forget that day for the rest of my life.