Chile

We arrived at Santiago airport very tired and jetlagged after a sleepless 11.5 hour flight and were immediately scammed by an overcharging taxi b*stard. It mostly our own fault as were knew he was probably overcharging us for the ride into town, but at the time we just wanted to get to a bed. Once we´d spent a couple of days recovering we went out to see what the city was all about, and it turned out not a lot. Unfortunately this seems to be the pattern in middle Chile. We did walk up to the top of a small, but high, park in the middle of the city which was quite good. But after a few days we were ready to leave and were already tiring of the food! Completos (hot dogs with avocado paste and chopped tomatoes), burgers, pizzas and empanadas (pasties with various fillings either fried or baked).



We had a one night stop in Rancagua where they were holding the National Rodeo Championships and we were warned not to leave the hotel at night. The next stop was Chillan, another city that seemed lacking of activities other than wandering the streets and browsing the markets. We seemed once again to resemble something from outer space as we were drawing looks and shouts wherever we walked. Stray dogs also seem to be a common theme in all of the towns, they are quite timid although packs of them follow us down the streets in case we dropped some food - probably the reason they hang their rubbish off the trees here.

Pucon was next on the agenda, a much more touristy affair. The town was built in the shadow of the Villarica volcano, its huge imposing snow capped form could be seen from everywhere. Every building is a hotel/hostel, internet cafe, restaurant, supermarket, tour operator or tourist trinket shop. There are activities abound here and we bravely decided to sign up for canopy. Basically its a zip line on steroids; we were strapped to a huge cable with a harness and given leather gloves to brake with. After some brief instructions in Spanish we were let loose on lines of up to 1km long adding up to a total of over 3km. It wasn´t quite what we were expecting though, not quite extreme enough to be thrilling, but not quite laid back enough to be relaxing.



We carried on our journey south stopping breifly in Valdivia to watch the HUGE sea lions that hung out next to the riverside fish market in the hope of some scraps, along with millions of cormorants. Back on the bus (some of the best we´ve ever travelled on, eat your heart out National express!) we ended up in Puerto Montt in possibly the scariest hostel ever. the room was pretty basic, but behind a scary looking curtain there was... another empty room with its own door! Also we had a door that led out onto the street that was boxed off with its own little viewing room into ours, and the bathroom was made of left over bits, none of which fitted together. We swapped places the next morning. The reason we´d come to Puerto Montt was to catch the ferry south. Once we´d booked our tickets we had a couple of days wait for the next sailing. Another town lacking of things to do, we witnessed the start of some kind of fun run, with the campest marching band ever and wandered round a couple of shopping malls, as well as admiring the giant papier mache sculpture of a man and woman looking out to sea.



After all this the ferry was a welcome change of pace. We were shown to our cosy bunks in a 22 bed dorm (we were the only ones in it), with a window to view the awesome snow capped mountain ranges. A highlight of the trip was seeing loads and loads of groups of seals playing about and jumping alongside the boat. We arrived in Puerto Chacabuco where we got a couple of buses through to Coyhaique, where we are still recovering from the hugest plate of pichanga (chips with various toppings and meats such as pickled carrot, eggs, cheese, olives, avocado, tomato, hot dogs, salami, pork & beef). Tomorrow the plan is to travel to Puerto Ibanez, get a ferry across to Chile Chico then cross the border into Argentina.



For those unfamiliar with the make up the land Chile is separated roughly into 12 regions, 1 in the north and 12 in the far south where the boats heading for the Antartic leave from. Currently we´re in region 11 heading through Argentina to region 12. We´re going to go and get some warmer clothes now...