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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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Hola todo, ¿como estais?
Our last night in Mendoza and Argentina, was really great. We went along to the annual celebration of the city that takes place as part of the Vendimia grape harvest festival. Situated in the park next to the civic centre there was a range of stalls from different districts of Mendoza offering free tastings of their new wines, or other produce from the region, fruit, chocolate, jams, olive oil etc. There was also a stage with folk music and the crowning glory - a big asado (BBQ). Basically a massive firepit that had animals of different sizes stretched on spits, sizzling and smelling gorgeous! Some fierce looking gauchos hacked off sections of the beasts to eat. Andy couldn´t resist the goat!! So he ended up with a huge plateful of bbq roasted kid!!
The journey from Mendoza the next day, across the Andes, was all going well, amazing scenery until we reached the Chilean border. 4 hours it took our bus to cross border controls into our last South American destination. They are really strict, not letting in anything that has been derived from fruit or animals. One poor guy got a whole box of jams confiscated!
We arrived in Santiago in the evening, and checked into our home for the next few days. An old mansion building that had been converted into a cheap hotel. Really good location, downtown. From here we spent the next few days exploring the city, including the central market that sells all sorts of seafood and the vega market that is crammed full of fruit and vegtables. So many colours and smells. The corn on the cobs were huge!! Probably 3 times the size of what you get at home. Also visited the Plaza de Armas, the main square where the catheral is and a museum that detailed the history of Chile. Santiago is a modern city, small in comparison to South American standards, not quite like the states (as a Chilean girl had proudly described her country on the bus here?!), still lots of stray dogs and visable poverty but easy to get around and feels really safe. Lots more english speakers here (whether thats a good thing I don´t know...)
We then moved to another area of Santiago, Barrio Brasil, here we stayed in a hostel that was another old mansion, with pretty internal courtyards, high ceilings and orginal features! The hostel also had a pool and jacuzzi so was a pretty cool place to stay for a few nights. Some of the architecture in Barrio Brasil is amongst the oldest in the city and its really picturesque. Also some nice parks and plazas in this neighbourhood, perfect for chilling out in the summer sunshine!
Although we haven´t had that long in Chile, because we spent so much time in Argentina, we tried to see a bit of the country so next stop was Valparaiso. Valparaiso is only and hour or so from Santiago on the coast and is a an old port. the town spreads up the surrounding hills. Is a really interesting place, especially the higher up into the hills you get, with poor and affluent people living side by side. Beautiful architect designed houses next to shacks made out of coregated iron. The area is arty and bohemian, and the houses are painted in bright colours, there is alot of graffiti art around, artist studios, bars and cafes. Along the coast is the one of South America´s most popular resorts - Vina del Mar. We spent the day on the beach here, long sandy beach with big hotels (bit tacky really).
From Valparaiso we travelled 8 hours north to La Serena to spend the next 4 days. La Serena and the nearby Elqui Valley has some of the clearest skies in the world and you can visit an observatory there. The observatory we visited doesn´t have the most advanced telescopes but ones good enough to be able to see star clusters and some of the planets. We saw Mars and Saturn. Saturn was so clear it looked almost like a sticker! The guide, a very passionate astronamer, was excellent and we learnt loads about the constellations and the universe. Mind boggling! There isn´t much to do in La Serena, although its one of Chile´s oldest towns, so there is some nice old architecture and some good fish restaurants. We tried Conger eel one lunch time, was real good! But most of the time was spent on the beach, another long white sandy beach, this time wth few developments along it or sun worshippers, but there were alot of jellyfish washed up, so we didn´t brave the sea :(
The past few days we´ve spent back in Santiago, in another area, Bella Vista, set at the bottom of San Cristobel hill (that we intend to climb before we leave tomorrow) it is a funky going out area with bars and restaurants and a young vibe. Last night we went with some people form our hostel to a salsa bar and it was great! A salsa band made up of 10+ musicians, and the dance floor rammed with people, of course all much better dancers than me and andy!! We will learn to dance when we get home!!
Yesterday we also had lunch in the seafood market in town, we ordered a king crab casserole, and it was delicious. Big chucks of white crab meat in a creamy sauce - delicious! In the afternoon we visited a Chilean vineyard, Concha y Toro, they are a huge international wine exporter, so the vineyard was very different from the boutique vineyards we´d visited in Mendoza, but was good to try some Chilean wine.
Tomorrow we leave South America after 4 months for New Zealand. South America has been an amazing first stop, absolutely huge, with so much diversity between countries and the people - the indigenous people and the decendants of the conquistadores and everyone in between. There is extreme wealth here and abject poverty. There are beautiful natural sights, and urban squalor. We have seen and experienced so much, we only hope the rest of the trip lives up to here...
Hope everyones well, will write again from the other side of the world!
Char and Andy xx
previous travel blog entry
Nicky C says:
Hey lad and lady, Sounds like your still having a whale of a time and still lordingit up by all accounts. i'm so jealous, especially as i am sat freezin cold with horrendous storms rattling through the windows. Cant wait to hear about new zealand. We'll hopefully be there in less than a year. missing u millions. x x x x