Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
It´s been a very unique Christmas. Not better than being back in Blighty but certainly different. San Pedro was our first stop after crossing the border from Bolivia and it was a delight.
The first thing that struck me about Chile was that there was fat people in the streets again. This is not surprising in retrospect as Chile does have a higher standard of living, it has a more developed commercial farming sector and there is more and better food to buy in the shops than there is in Bolivia. Indeed, our first night in San Pedro we sat on sumptuous sofas in an open courtyard beside a fire pit and drank mango sours before being shown to our table and gorging ourselves on delicious steak wrapped around creamy goats cheese. Though I loved the Salchipapas of Bolivia our San Pedro meal was divine. But there was more to San Pedro than fat people fed on fine steak. We experienced the driest desert in the world The Atacama. We took a tour through the Valley of the Moon
and marvelled at the giant salt crystals and hollow rock formations from an Ocean long since evaporated before climbing to the top of a vantage point to watch the sunset and the mountains of the Cordilleras and the Altiplano change colour. Thenas the sunset was finishing we were ushered on to our bus and whisked back to town so we could pick up our next tour (I believe some on the Valley of the Moon tour believed we left the sunset to early, and I´m inclined to agree) to an observatory.
The Observatory is the home to a very intelligent and very entertaining frenchman and his Chilean family. The observatory itself is his front lawn which has scattered on it a number of telescopes of various shapes sizes and lengthhs ranging from the shape and size of a kitchen dustbin to that of a backless parkbench. But before we were let loose on these delicate instruments we were given a very good introduction to astronomy. We learnt about how the movement and orbit of the earth along with our position on it related to what we could and could not see in the night sky, we were told how to remember the names and positions of constellations, it was impressed on us how much of a crock of s]]] astrology was and we saw for the first time that the moon in the southern hemisphere has the likeness of a rabbit in it. So when we got to look through the telescopes we saw with a sense of wonder that which we´d looked at but never seen. The craters of the moon suddenly became
clear, like pictures seen on TV of past lunar landings, we saw gas nebulae, the Magellanic Clouds and the Tarantula Nebula all invisible to the naked eye but revealed to us by a eccentric Frenchman and his Garden toys. Laura and I have vowed to get star maps and a small telescope for our flat when we get home. The other occassion of note was that Laura awoke in the middle of the night o find the room shaking. An earthquake!! I slept through it and Laura went back to sleep.
On to Valparaiso. Home of the Chilean Navy, of which Chile is very proud. We visited the Naval Museum where besides seeing a ships coat of Arms featuring a penguin brandishing a trident we learnt that the Chilean Navy was begun with the assistance and by the design of a retired British Naval bod called Captain Cochrane who had a great deal of success harrying the Spanish and others whilst Chile and Peru where fighting for independance last century. The museum though, did have the feeling of a shrine to fallen heroes rather than an educational resource so it was less interesting to us than I expect it is to South Americans in the same way that Londons Churchill Museum is to Britishers.
Santiago is a great city. Though we did very little there other than eat great food at a number of restraunts in great settings we were there to pick up our tour. Following a visit to the Santiago seafood market restaurant Laura became ill during our briefing for our tour. We believe it was the seafood broth. My paella was delicious and did not reappear.
The tour was joined and our first day was a ´travel day´meaning sitting on a bus getting to know our fellow travelling companions and memorising all 33 names. I think we are rather lucky as they are a good group of people and Jo the tour leader is energetic and enthusiatic which makes it all run very smoothly.
Christmas eve in Pucon was spent white water rafting with Jazz and Lizzie from our group. Both a good laugh. Lizzie is only 17 and has chosen this trip as her first ever time away from home and her first time away from home for Xmas. I´m not sure I could have done it at her age nor could I have done it with such good spirits.
Christmas day was spent at Willy´s Ranch. Eighty two hectares of idyllic countryside with views to Pucon smoking volcano on one side and the Andees on the other. If I were to choose a place to spend a Christmas I don´t think I could have come up with anywhere better. We were greeted by the smell of asado, sides of lamb, pork and beef being grilled on skewers over a huge fire pit that must
have been 6ft square. We had sausage sandwiches and barbequed trout from the ranches own trout pool thrust into our hands by Willys wife and sons while we all got stuck in to our alcohol supply.
TheRanch had a 5 a side footy pitch which we had our sports day on (egg and spoon race, melon throwing contests and waterbomb dodgeball) and later played touch rugby and footy on, a 7 hole golf course (very rough but good fun ), hammocks and horses which one could ride as one pleased. I tried two of the horses. One tried to throw me then took me back to its stable at a scary trot and then refused
to come out again and the second started eating grass as soon as I got on and refused to go anywhere or interupt its meal while I sat on it. Horseman I aint.
So after a day of lazing, sports and fantastic food, and being taught how to play dice by Willy (Laura is hooked already) we returned to our campsite very late and quite drunk. It just so happens that parts of Willys ranch are for sale. I do so dearly wish I could afford to buy it.
Chris
- comments