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After leaving Santiago, the Mat and Vernon fiasco show continued. After a fantastic day of sightseeing in beautiful old Santiago, we headed west to Valparaiso via incredibly comfy bus. Two hours later we checked into a lovely old ´Residencial´. We decided to go wandering (my favourite past-time), and found ourselves walking through the streets of one the most colourful cities Í've ever been to. Every building was different to the previous, in colour, shape and size. The skies were as blue as I've seen and the gradient of the road extreme!! We walked high up into the mountain side, and found a stunning view point where we relaxed our aching calves. That afternoon, with Chile only being 3 hours behind England in summer here, we searched for a sports bar to watch the footy. Found a typical old mans bar, and just asked the bar lady 'Ola, urm, ESPN por favor???'. Our spanish not quite up to full sentances yet.. We ordered in a few 'cevezas' and half watched the Chelsea Everton game half watched the group of local old men playing cards/getting smashed on red wine. About 60minutes in, and one of them came over and just bought us a full botle of red! Baring in mind we have just had 2 big strong bottles of local beer and it being around 4pm, we thought this could be an error. But if in doubt, just get on it. Half thinking there could be a catch, half not really caring, we sunk the wine and started up a useless conversation with the predominantly spanish speaking heroes. One guy spoke fairly good english, and we spoke for a good few hour during which we had another bottle bought for us and to our joy, a huge salmon platter! Went down very well. Especially as all the affordable Chilean grub is complete and utter crap. All they seem to eat is either a plate of chips and old meat or manky mayo and mouldy avocado baps with thin slices of kebab meat in them. So as we were getting a bit slaughtered with these guys, events naturally turned a bit crazy, and before we knew what we were in for we were in a sing-off with the locals. They sung some old Bolivian song and we naturally banged out some Wonderwall, before regretably singing a football chant 'oh south london..is wonderfull..etc'. Seemed to go do a treat, we polished off our wine and before outstaying our welcome, we retreated to the blazing sun drenched streets, and staggered home. Crashed out until well into midday of the next, and proceeded to change location. We somehow managed to get my surfboard and our huge backpacks onto the tiny local buses, and arrived 20mins down the coast at Viña del Mar, instantly overjoyed by the site of the long stretch of golden sand, big surf and an overflow of hot chicas sunning themselves in the must-be-government-inforced thong bikinis. Grinning, we just went straight to the beach fully clothed with all our bags and baked all day long. Spent a night at a more than unfriendly hostel, before checking into where we are now (next door to the previous place-piss take?!). Another great day at the beach followed, but unfortunately s*** hit the fan again and we were victims of crime yet again.. Had a 2 minute dip in the sea to cool down, came back and our bag had gone, despite having groups of people around us who knew us. One guy said they were literally in and out in a second, they must have been watching us waiting for the opportunity. Massive lesson learned. The main disappointment was that we were probably the happiest we´ve been since the passport raider in Brisbane, it brought us right back to Earth.. The other massive annoyance was that I had brought my wallet with bank card to the beach as I needed cash out on the way home.. Gone was any means to get money! Annoyance major number 2- my mp4 player, complete with all the travel photos and videos, and all the music, vital for those long bus journeys and for getting me to fall asleep. s*** happens, we have now dealt with it and learnt yet another valuable lesson in life! A huge huge thanks, goes to Kelly, an old friend from my Forestdale living times and a friend of Josh's, who was luckily still in Santiago, and was able to lend us some cash til we got sorted. I refunded a nights accommodation, enough for the night bus to Santiago, and met up with Kelly and Luke-another friend of Josh's from Riddlesdown, and she took me out to get fed and paid for my nights stay at the Andes Hostel. In the morning, spoke to Mum and we arranged to get a western union transfer over to us. Mucho Gracias mum!! XXXXX. What would I do without you.. probably busk and love it but that s not the point. So all happy again now! Major fiasco #2 over! I returned to Viña, to find vernon still in bed happily watching TV, chilled out. We went out and got some food and water, paid the legend downstairs for our room, and I went to get a new set up keys cut for him.
ps the streets of downtown Santiago have music playing through concealed speakers above the pathways- to my sheer delight they play such tunes as Aha-Take On Me and Goegre Michael- Careless Whisper. Very surreal
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