Hola from Chile!

Apologeis for ayn spleling mitsakes, but we haev jsut retunred from a tuor of a vnieyard!

Last time we wrote, we had literally just arrived over the border from Bolivia. Now we've been in Chile for a week and a half, and we definitely have more of a sense of what the country and people here are like. To sum it up for you: the weather is hot, the people are friendly and the drivers are still pretty crazy. Our guidebook informs us that Chile is the only South American country to be nearing first-world status, but given that we still have to dispose of toilet paper in a bin, rather than down the toilet, we personally think they're still a way off...

We started in the North of Chile, near the border, in San Pedro de Atacama, a little tourist town. It's apparently situated in the world's driest desert, and we definitely noticed the change in temperature as we came from freezing winds in Bolivia into sweltering sunshine in Chile! (No complaints, of course.)

On our first night, we took an incredible stargazing tour in the desert. We arrived by bus at the small observatory, with a group of about 20 other english-speaking tourists. The tour was given by a brilliantly witty french astronomer, who owns the observatory. He gave us a talk whilst we stood in a circle outdoors, from where we could see amazing numbers of stars because of the lack of city lights. Using a rather cool laser beam, he could point out various stars and constellations as he spoke, and he taught us how to stargaze in style. After establishing the whereabouts of various constellations, we went on to stargaze threw some pretty powerful telescopes... we saw Saturn and her moons, the 'Jewelbox', consisting of blue, white and orange stars, as well as a close-up of the Milkyway. All this was followed by delicious hot chocolate and was definitely one of our most memorable nights so far!

After leaving San Pedro in the North, we travelled overnight down the Chilean coastline to a tiny little seaside town called Caldera. After being dropped off in the middle of nowhere at 6 in the morning we trekked with all our luggage for half n hour to the place The Lonely Planet guidebook described as "amazing white sandy beaches and sunshine": Well, while they possibly cannot be blamed for the lack of sunshine, the beaches didn't seem to be too white or sandy either. And so, 7 hours after arriving in Caldera, we found ourselves climbing back on a bus out of there!

Our next port of call was La Serena, a rather-more substantial seaside city. It was nice to finally get back to civilisation and we made the most of luxuries such as hot showers, coffee shops and even a mall. The city itself was really pretty and, much like everyone we'd met in Chile so far, the people were amazingly friendly.

After a couple of days resting up there, we moved on to Santiago, the capital of Chile. We're currently residing in a rather grand old hostel right in the centre of the city, surrounded by government buildings and the financial district and lots of ice cream parlours (it seems to be a national obsession... mel feels very at home!) From what we have seen so far, Santiago seems to be full of blind people, beggars, and basket cases... and yet is still rather nice! We've done a number of walking tours of the city (only getting lost when mel takes charge of the map), visited a quaint artisan market (where Joel is obviously far more interested in the football shirt stand than any local crafts), climbed up to a park at high altitude with fabulous views of the city, tried both the metro and bus system (and we have to admit, were rather impressed), and hunted down every last vegetarian restaurant in the city. On that note, it should be pointed out that Chileans do, in fact, believe that jamon (ham) and ave (chicken) classify as vegetarian and they are generally on the menu at most "vegetarian" restaurants. Yes, yes, we're just as confused as you...

Yesterday proved to be a particularly memorable day in Joel's travels so far... we finally had some kosher meat! After taking a rather long bus-ride out of the city centre to the Jewish ghetto of Santiago (the equivalent of North London), we found our way to Aish Chile, where we'll be spending the Yom Tovim, then to a kosher restaurant (much to Joel's relief. A hamburger for the main course, and then a hot-dog for desert!), then to a kosher market, where we stocked up on everything we could possibly need for the festive season... kosher-for-pesach crisps, kosher-for-pesach chocolate spread, kosher-for-pesach sweets (oh, and some sensible things like chicken soup and pot noodles). It was a relief to finally be rid of our temporary-vegetarianism, and exciting to establish that Chilean religious Jews much resemble English ones.

This morning we were a little more sophisticated than usual, and found our way to the edge of the city where we went on a tour of a major Chilean vineyard, Vina Concha y Toro. 11.30am seemed far too early in the day to begin drinking, but that didn't really stop us! We ate some grapes from the vine, toured the cellars filled with endless rows of barrels, including Casillero del Diablo - The Cellar of the Devil, and tasted a couple of different varieties of their best wine. (The vineyard allowed us to take home our 'Concha y Toro' wineglasses as a souvenir, which was a really exciting prospect until we realised that the chances of them surviving in our rucksacks is fairly minimal!)

Tomorrow we begin the frumest part of our travels. Joel is staying in all-male dorms in the Aish shul and Mel is staying with a frum family nearby. We're being farmed out to various Aish rabbis for different seders and are very much looking forward to sampling some Chilean/Jewish cuisine and seeing how its done out here!

Wishing you all a Chag Sameach,

Love from the Travelling Twosome xxxxxxxxx