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19/4 walking tour
We are 6 months and 1 day into our travels!! So far we have almost completed the most expensive part of the trip.
We got up in our great little hostel/hotel (it's very cheap and we got a private room with cable) and we prepared our own breakfast, eggs with avocado and tomato, which goes down a treat. Off to try the second free walking tour ran by this company. It starts at 10 so we made it down there early and met up with another couple. The tour starts at 10.... Or 10:30 as its Chilean time, but we head off with the local guide Pablo and 5 dogs to start with, one that won't shut up. We weaved our way up and down the hills past a total array of colors of houses and different art or graffiti. The colors and styles are amazing and they bring the maze of streets to life. This tour is run differently and neither Sarah or I think it's as good as the tour in Santiago, it's still great but not delivered aswell. Highlights outside the colors are the different vernaculars and the justice building. The vernaculars are of varying length and the big bonus (other than not walking the hills) are the views they presented. Out of the backs of buildings they rise above to give 270 degree views.
The other highlight was the justice building, with a variation on the usual statue out the front. In this statue, Lady Justice is not blindfolded and under her right arm is both the scales and the sword which is facing up and unholstered. Therefore the law is not blind or even and in my interpretation since the sword and scales are on the same side (they could easily have been on either side as usual) and crossing with the sword over the scales, power conquers everything. Power takes away the blindfold. Either that or technically if you remove, unbalance or change one of the 3 elements it's corrupt anyway.
We wrapped up the tour and headed to a Cuban sandwich shop which is so nice, and the price to flavor made it GREAT. The sandwich was packed with toppings of avocado and tomato - very common here. Avocado is so cheap that they serve it with even the cheapest burgers, like a substitute for lettuce.
As the day went on it got colder and colder, and after a late lunch and hours of drizzle, we headed home to warm up with a couple of cups of tea. We headed out again to shop where i bought a checked shirt, bought some food bits and back to run photo backups and blog photo updates.
20/4 mmm cooking time
We walk the entire length of town to meet Boris our Chilean chef (and chef of the company Chilean Cuisine), and not long later we meet Anne and Mike who will be sharing the experiance with us. We were told that today there is a very special guest. Someone with immense experience will be joining our class... It is Boris's mum, Nefer. It's the first time in the two years he has ran the course that she has attended. To put it in perspective Boris has no formal training, just everything he learnt from his mum!!! We run through possible menu items when Boris tells us its not long till HIS book comes out, his own cooking book to be published in the US and UK.
He gives us a great intro into Chilean cuisine and we choose a menu. From here we headed down the hills to get to the markets for ingredients. On the way we get a small history of Boris's family as they were part of the local history and buildings. We caught a bus to the market and the six of us piled out onto the busy street. The market was so colorful, such a vibrant and amazing place. Cats and dogs, kids playing, people carrying huge crates of goods, others putting crates back together old ladies working old jobs and not even watching, and on top of it all Nefer being a mother chook watching and worring about us. Turns out when Boris broke up with his partner his mother pushed very hard for the 27yr old to return home. She is so caring. We got sone photos of a man selling a live rabbit, got our meat and fish and got on another bus. We were all hungry so Boris bought an alfajor biscuit (caramel inside biscuit) for everyone while we waited for the the vernacular. One of the best snacks I've had. Into the kitchen and we all prepare different parts on Boris's command. Sarah begins with corn and blending the kernels for the pastel de choclo and I am flaking raw fish for the first time to make ceviche. We produce the pastel de choclo together, and the empanadas. After this step the knives go away and we make two types of pisco sours, jengibre (ginger) and a green chili and basil version. Both are amazing. 3 servings of pisco, 1 lemon juice and 1 sugar syrup, shaken over ice with the fresh flavor. We set up the table and sit down to an amazing meal of home cooked Chilean food, with three bottles of Chillean wine between five!! We all dance around for a bit to local music and enjoy poached pears for desert. Then the local digestif is produced, one for each person and a double for the best cook of the day, Nefer. She shares the winning glass with me and after this we all roll home. One great day.
As a footnote, we have the recipes in English and they are not difficult to make if anyone wants to know just email.
21/4 Pablo and Fénix
We bought two tickets to Pisco Elqui which is in the middle of the Elqui Valle, a beautiful pisco grape growing region on the edge of the Atacama desert. We had to book it early in the morning just incase we needed to stay one more night where we were. The best option, believe it or not was the 23:17 bus, so we were left with all day to look around the city. We have two objectives, to see Pablo Nerudas house called La Sebastiana and to see the Fénix, which is the oxygenated capsule used to get the 33 chillean miners out after the mine collapse in 2010. If you cant remember they were trapped down at 700m for 69 days.
We packed everything up and headed for an early lunch as we didn't know where this house was. Lunch was at Famous Empanadas, but the famous might simply be how long they have trading for. We then set off for the hard to find house, the one we were told to take a taxi to. We start by heading straight up Ferrari av.... Oh there's the house. The road was really steep but it wasn't hard to find.
The hardest part of walking it turned out was breathing. Sarah started choking and after a small choking fit, got out that she swallowed something. She was eating an unidentified flying insect and continued dancing with it for 10 minutes. We tried to drown it but it took a Chillean rice puff version of a kit-kat to get it down.
We looked up at the hill info ahead of us worried we would be walking a long distance further when we realized we were beside Pablo's house!! That was easier than we thought. Pablo's house was high enough so he could see out over Valparaiso and he loved to people watch. He would joke about being able to see some topless sunbather at the same time everyday and wait for his friends to visit at that time the next day.
We picked up the free audio tour, held it to our face like a phone and started to learn about this amazing man who is such a huge part of Chile's history. We moved from the first of five floors through a quick history of the poet and politician. Then up to see a lounge and dining area which is open to the view and ocean. Pablo was afraid of the ocean but he loved it so he bought it in to every aspect of his life, a 'land sailor' as it was. The collections of everything was interesting and painted a picture of the man. A raised circular section of the room was around 80% of the space and it had a retired french merry-go-round horse on the edge, like it's still in motion. The painting of a lady looking across the room at a painting of a man, so she is not lonely. Old collectible plates with hot air balloons on them as that was the most amazing thing of the time the plates were made. Two of my favories were the teardrop shaped fireplace and the red and green thick glass water glasses, because he believed water tasted better out of green or red glass. The dinner table was always set for many, the man believed that meals were always to be shared and he always had an open door policy. This is the main reason all three of his houses are musuems now, always an open door! The house was full of presents from all over the world, mostly from his time working as a foreign diplomat.
Pablo loved his naps, it is told he would often slip off for a nap and his wife would have to finish the party off and let people out. Even when visiting friends he would ask for a place to lay down, or people coming to visit him and leaving annoyed as he was napping the time of the visit. A serious napper.
Each of Pablo's houses had a bar, and a great entertainer he was with a cocktail he made to keep the party going. He commentated the addition of each ingredients addition with the superlatives it would bring to the drink. He would even change outfits during his own party just for fun.
The whole house was fun and this is just an insight into a truly amazing character.
We left the house, made our way to town, across it and up the other side to see the nautical museum and the Fénix.
We stepped inside to an interesting map, an old map that showed the world only partly complete. This map was a time in history when the east coast of Australia was unknown, just Tas (Van Demon's land) and the desert west coast. It was very funny as in the corners it had 4 explorers faces the fourth of which was Neil Armstrong!! We really enjoyed the exhibits and were amazed at the amount that was in brail, making the museum accessible for the blind. This was surpassed by the items in the cases being replicated and on show so that they could be felt. Below these replica's was a mat, so a blind person knew there was an exhibit there for them to 'see.' Wow, our museums could learn a lot from this.
We had some light fun in a room for the pirates of the time and another where we played with and sat astride warheads. The only other thing to note was how there was an unsigned room of native Indian artifacts, just in the middle of the exhibit. Very interesting but very confusing at first.
After this we went to the place that started the Chilean dish Chorrillana - 'mountain of chips with steak and onion and eggs ontop.... It was an expensive oily disappointment but that happens. We spent the rest of the night until out night bus at 23:17 camped in the hall of last nights hostel. A cold walk and sleeping on a bus again. Goodnight.
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