The end of chilling in Chile

Thanks babel fish (from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "don´t panic" web translation tool) with out you it would have been a lot harder!


We have now come to the end of our chilling out in Chile. Going back to school and leading a "normal" life for a week has been strange but nice, Bianca has been lovely and the people at school have been great as well. I cannot say that I am fluent in Spanish but my ability to hear key words and get the gist of the conversation has greatly improved and I feel confidant in getting around asking for bus tickets and hotel rooms, etc. Eleanor was the star pupil and really raced ahead of me, on the third day she left me in the A1 dunces group and joined the A2 I kind of know what I am saying group. She can now hold a broken conversation with Bianca now and can even explain complex cultural differences like married men "walking the dog" (going down the pub).

School outing to the market, I bought some for a pizza they seemed to work!


We took Bianca to a restaurant called the Vaca Gorda (fat cow) to say thank you for her hospitality, we had our first Pisco Sour and a lovely bottle of the local diablo vino.

We managed to finally get out of the city yesterday to visit a port town called Valparaiso, a two-hour bus ride out of Santiago. It is famous for "knee trembling" buildings and old lift-cum-trains as the town is built on the side of a hill and these lifts really help getting around. I am not too sure if my knees trembled at the buildings but they did going up these antique wooden lifts. I think that that makes up for not doing a sky dive in New Zealand.

Going up


There was a massive scouts jamboree going on that was a bit random. Even more random was the fact the policeman had a few riot vans ready around the corner, maybe they were afraid that the girl scouts would run havoc on the streets.

We wondered around a bit lost until a woman came up to us and said no mapa no camera. We got a bit freaked out and escaped the rough end of town and headed back to the tourist part of town.

We ended up in a lovely restaurant and met a English couple (Rob and Emma) who are going almost exactly the same trip as us, just a few months behind us, we had a good bitch about India and swapped email address, so maybe we will met up in Bolivia

Vamos lets go to La Paz, and hope that we do not get altidute sickness as it is above 3000 metres.