Sea Lions and Dolphins and Penguins, Oh My!

While in La Serena, Matty and I took a boat trip to Isla Damas, so called because the rocks on the horizon resemble a woman lying down with her knees pointing skyward. En route we saw the most astonishing sight of several dolphins guiding our boat inland. Having never seen a real life Flipper before I was absolutely beside myself with excitement. One of these photos is of a group of Humbolt penguins, although you´ll have to squint to see them through their highly effective camouflage of turning their backs to blend in with the rocks. Other interesting wildlife we spotted were, sunbathing sea lions, red-headed vultures, many types of cormorant and a whole load of pelicans. It was a truly spectacular experience and so nice to get out and about with all 'The Nature'.

Chile. It´s Spanish for Chilly. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

By day, Valparaiso is a sunny, clement and bijou little place, splendid for al-fresco drinking and dining. By night, however, being outside becomes tantamount to sitting in a fridge. We went for dinner at a place called ´The Brighton´ on Paseo del Atkinson. The place was irresistible on so many levels. Apart from the name of the location, we had wonderful views of the glinting city below. This is all well and good when the temperature isn´t about two degrees centigrade outside. Like true English people abroad we stuck it out, very much enjoying the picturesque vistas if not the icicles that were beginning to form on the end of our noses. When it became obvious that our beflip-flopped feet were probably in the early stages of frostbite, it was time to take it inside.Thankfully the anti smoking laws in Chile are a bit more relaxed than on our beloved isle, in that one can usually choose from ´fumadores o no fumadores´, just like England used to be in the good old days (nostalgic sigh). We found a convenient bolt hole from the cold at a bar called Sabor Colour, an arty little place with wildly pigmented walls and paintings to adorn them. The Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra and assorted jazz were also a welcome change from the usual selection of angsty Latin American Power Ballads that we´ve mostly been subjected to. Being my first indoor smoking experience since the ban was introduced back home, I did feel extremely naughty about lighting up inside. Here is a picture of Matty sheepishly offering me a Pall Mall menthol. Such a bad influence...

Bringing out the blankets in Vina del Mar

After Valparaiso the next stop was Vina del Mar, a naval port, fifteen minutes up the coast on a little train. The town itself lacks the colourful charm of Valparaiso but Vina still has a lot going for it. For one thing it was the location of our next blessed laundry session, which wasn´t to be sniffed at, unlike our heavily soiled garments. The town also has a beach or two which, although the water was definitely too cold to go paddling, were quite acceptable for a spot of relaxing and getting sand stuck to everything. While strolling along the promenade we chanced upon some gigantic navy guns pointing out to sea. Later that day we did the allegedly short walk, according to the clearly not to scale map, and were delighted to discover, amid the low-rise blocks of the town, one solitary, ill-conceived sky scraper protruding incongruously on the horizon. So, as you can see, it really was all go in Vina del Mar. I still don't know how we coped with all that adrenaline. Apart from the aforementioned mad capers, a lot of sunset watching took place, mainly because the colours looked beautiful and eerie in contrast to the cold metal bulk of the menacing war ships. Probably the highlight of our short stay occurred on our last night in Vina del Mar. While sitting at a beachside bar staring ourselves blind at the dipping sun, it became apparent that we had underestimated the need for warm weather gear once again. Obviously accustomed to the stupidity of these ill-prepared gringos, the kindly waiter brought us out some fluffy blankets, thus stemming the onset of hypothermia and possibly death. Thanks Nice Waiter Man!

¨It´s like that house from ´The Shining¨

Our hostel in Valparaiso was a giant pink and green candy-box. It housed a gothic grotesque mix of predominantly faded rose tinted floral walpaper, artificial flowers, doilies and kitsch, gurning figurines, a cabinet of which was strategically placed in the breakfast room to suppress the guests´ appetites. Contributing to the aura of eeriness were the oversized creaking staircases and the fact that we were apparently the only two people who dared to stay the night. A well appointed roof terrace afforded magnificent views of the technicolour tenements below, the port and its contrastingly menacing and incongruous warships that littered the near waters. The guesthouse owners were an ancient, convivial, Spanish-only speaking, very eccentric couple. Propriety dictated that the chap had to offer us the twin room first, spying no obvious symbols of marriage. Sinners that we are, we took the double. ¨They want to get into the Twenty First Century¨, suggested Matthew, helpfully. Personally, I thought the decor had more chance of an update.

Vibrant Valparaiso

You must be bored of all these alliterative headings by now. I know I am. Please keep reading. I promise to think of a new literary trick soon. Maybe. After waving goodbye to our congenial hosts, Sebastian and Toni, at our hostel that never slept in Santiago, we caught the bus up the coast to Valparaiso. A mere and blessed hour and forty five minute trip took us to the hilltop neighbourhood of Cerro Conception. There really is little else to do here but admire the array of brightly painted buildings in all their arty-ness. The bohemian abode has been the birthplace of more Chilean writers and artists than any other city. Pottering about its richly adorned cobbled streets it´s easy to see this as an inspirational environment. Heading down the hill into the town centre opens up a whole other world of grey, seedy working men´s bars, banks and gritty tramps. We soon found that we needn´t have bothered making the descent, not least because of the calf-crampingly steep hike back up to civilisation. Apologies to anyone with a delicate disposition for the picture of the stripey harlequin. I meant to Photoshop out the suggestive outline in the vicinity of his crotch but frankly lacked the inclination to do so.

Sayonara Santiago

If South America is famous for its seafood it bloody well shouldn´t be. Throughout Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina any order of pescado was met with a plateful of suspicious stodge, usually with a piece of unwashed iceberg thrown on top in an attempt to disguise how completely unpalatable it looks. If it was once fish, any resemblance had been absolutely obliterated by a seventeen hour boiling session. With the faint hope that the Chilean attitude to cooking fish might be a tad more delicate, we ventured to Santiago´s Mercado Central, a fish market that was built in Birmingham and is apparently an exact replica of the old Spitalfield´s meat market in London. ¨Thank God!¨ we exclaimed with relief as we virtually inhaled our first piece of properly cooked fish for approx. two months. Look how happy Matty looks at the fish market! Behold how he beams! After lunch we went to look at this peculiar statue in the main square, a landmark that went apparently unscathed during the earthquake. Frankly, I dread to think what the other less fortunate ornaments ended up looking like. And so it was that we waved goodbye to Santiago. The only thing left to report is that my darling sister Chloe (or Clo, as the Tidman´s call her, partly because we can´t spell for toffee but mainly because the effort of those two extra letters would be too much to comprehend), has had a brand of cartoned wine named after her. Clo, you´ll be pleased to know that despite the inferior quality that the packaging represents, your wine is surprisingly drinkable and extremely reasonably priced (not to say cheap) to boot.

More Jesus-Related paraphernalia in Chile

In Bellavista, Santiago, Matty made me get on a funicular to the top of a big hill that overlooked the city. Far from being ´fun´, as the name laughably suggests, these vehicles have patently been devised as instruments of intimidation and toture for vertigo sufferers such as myself. After a blood-curdling but mercifully brief trip uphill, we were greeted by beautiful panoramas of the city and Santiago´s answer to Rio de Janeiro´s Christ the Redeemer. These religious icons must have been placed up here for funicular travellers to worship as they arrive, having cheated peril, at the summit.

Art-quake in Chile

In Santiago we stayed at what is commonly referred to as ´a party hostel´ on Trip Advisor and other such travel forums. This is basically a succinct term for ´place with a bed that you won´t end up sleeping in because everybody is getting rat arsed till all hours of the small morning and so are you´. Despite the inevitable lie-ins that ensued , we did manage to explore some of Santiago´s more interesting sights. These photos were taken in quite a ramshackle neighbourhood called Bellavista. It was uncertain whether everything was falling down because of the recent earthquake in Concepcion, just south of the city, but the disrepair seemed to date back much further than a few weeks. The only thing that prevented Bellavista from being just a load of once beautiful colonial buildings was it´s abundance of imaginative graffiti. The eathquake damage in Santiago wasn´t as dramatic as we´d expected. Some of the museums and galleries we tried to visit were part closed for essential repairs but there were no giant cracks and craters in the road like in that film ´Tremors´. ¨How disappointing¨, we huffed, before turning on our heels in disgust and seeking out a more disaster-stricken location.

Super Santiago Segways

My beloved flatmate Holly and I once went to Lille and enjoyed a rare old caper, riding around the city on one of God´s most inventive of vehicular creations, The Segway. Somebody in the Santiago Tourist Information Marketing Department clearly had an epiphany and thought this the ideal mode of transport for conveying essential facts to gormless gringos. How right they were! The chap in the foreground noticed me trying to take a discreet photo, promptly approached us and filled us in mainly on the best places to get pissed. True, he did mention something about a cathedral or something, but by that point we´d both switched off. Thanks a lot, Ask Me man!

The Long and Winding Road (insert your own drumbeats)

We finally got our act together, bit the bullet and got on the bus from Argentina to Chile. Everyone we met told us to go during the day so that we could appreciate the beautiful mountainscapes en route to Santiago, so this is what we did. Take a look at this improbably bendy road! Have you ever seen the like of it before? Remarkable. If we happened to get bored of looking at The Nature we could always resort to the on board bargain basement dvd entertainment - a schmaltzy but surprisingly diverting Jack Nicholson number and a Vin Diesel atrocity that you can only imagine was produced as an instrument of torture. The uncaptivating film proved to be the least of our worries when we arrived at the Argentina/Chile border and had to dispense with all our edibles on the advice of an eccentric Chilean woman who had clearly been stitched up by the border officials in the past. Not wishing to be issued with a hefty fine, our delicious sweets and crackers went in the bin. Better safe than sorry, we thought. Some other mental broad on the same bus as us obviously thought the gigantic signs reading ´No dairy products´ (in Spanish) were some kind of elaborate and late April Fool. Everyone stared daggers at the meddling cheese bandit as she attempted to smuggle what appeared to be seven kilos of Gouda over the border, arguing the toss as she went.

Psycho Killers

After a few days of outdoorsy, wholesome activity in the mountains, we needed a place to crash while reaclimatising to the rancid stench and cocophonous noise of city life. In other words, getting back to normal. All that fresh air was making me nauseous. We stayed for a couple more nights in Mendoza city at a hostel that might as well have been called The Bates Motel. Our room had original 1950s wood panelling and we saw some fabulous retro lino on the wall of another room. Lino on the wall! Just imagine... There was a little speaker with a dial that you could switch on to pipe Argentinian Easy Listening into your room. It was one of the best mod-cons I´ve ever encountered. The hostel was definitely the stuff of horror films. Inspired, we spent much of our time there motioning the Psycho knife jab, feigning terror and generally hamming it up in a cartoon ´Carry On Haunted House´type fashion. Note Matty´s excellent rendition of Edvard Munch´s ´The Scream´.

Yeee Haw! Ride Em, Cowboy!

In Mendoza we hooked up with these other gringos, who were from North America and therefore very enthusiastic (Behold their shiny white teeth! Look how they smile!), to go and pretend to be gauchos for the day. Naturally it pissed it down for the duration of our trek, so the amazing Andean panoramas that should have opened up before us turned out mainly to be grey fog. The heinous weather didn´t prevent us from having the best time ever. Our horses were terrific. Matty´s was the biggest horse I´ve ever seen. It made him look like a tiny lilliputian by comparison. I asked one of the guides what my horse was called. ´Dick Face´ he replied.I thought this kind of rudeness was a tad uncalled for. I was only asking a civilised question. No, Dick Face was the name of my horse. How we all laughed (shortly before being thrown to the ground and trampled underhoof). This last bit was a joke. There have been no broken limbs or tramplings so far. Rest assured Sue. A jolly day was had by all and we finished off our trek by heading back to the ranch and settling ourselves down by the crackling log fire.

Head for the Hills

Having explored Mendoza city for a few days and sampled its diverse culture and nightlife, a relaxing break in the mountains was in order. ´Ah yes. A rural retreat where we can be at one with all the nature and those great Andes over there while at the same time getting a chance to catch up on all our emails and stuff´, we thought. ´How perfect´. Then we got there and found that, not only was there no internet, there was naff all else to do but go up mountains. So that´s what we did. Here are some of the lovely picturesque Andean vistas. After a long day of trekking around at three and a half thousand meters with mild altitude sickness, what better way to wind down than in front of a roaring log fire. Turned out there was no other way since it was approx. minus 2 degrees outside and the cabin had no central heating. Maybe we´re not cut out for this country life after all...

Mmmmmm Malbec

While in Argentina it was clearly imperative to show some sort of an interest in where all this vino collapso we´ve been drinking is produced. Mendoza has quite a number of vineyards and it seems that Malbec is the pride of most of them. Something to do with the dry soil, sunny climate and range of temperatures in Mendoza makes it easier to grow the grape here than in its birthplace, France. Having snooped around the vines and cellars full of expensive Reserva we sniffed and swilled our way through a couple of the cheaper drops. For some reason the winery people wouldn´t let us near the posh plonk. Bizarre.
No matter, after considerable research, we came to the conclusion that wine really is amazing and that the people of Argentina should definitely carry on making it for our continued delectation.

Matty´s Mate

This is Matty énjoying´his first experience drinking Mate, a green tea sipped from a leather gourd via a metal straw, or ´swizzle stick´as we like to call it. Mate consumption is observed with almost religious fervour in Brazil, Argentina and especially Uruguay. People walk around with their cup, straw and a thermos flask full of hot water to top up the tea leaves. There are special satchels for transporting the various cumbersome paraphernalia and holders in cars for on-the-go mate-ing. We wondered what all the fuss was about until we tried it. Now we know that it´s obviously an acquired taste.

Corking Cordoba Culture

We got to Cordoba early in the morning the Sunday before Easter and everything was....shut. Everything, that is, except the church. Yes, people here are god fearing, which always comes as a shock to us secular sinner types from London, aka City of Satan. Mobs of people were thronging to the various churches of Cordoba, spilling out onto the pavements and waving palm leaves. This rings a faint bell as an Easter thing, which the people here spread out over about a week and a half. You thought you were lucky with your lame four day weekend. In South America you get a fortnight off on account of the crucifixion. Talk about benefitting from someone else´s misfortune. So the locals were all standing outside church like low budget Morrisseys in a gladeoli drought until well after lunchtime when things began to re-open. We went along to the Museo de Bella Artes. Every South American city has one. One of the highlights of our visit was these amazing carved wooden warriors adorned with armour, spears and spikes fashioned out of scrap metal. There were about thirty of them standing around looking at once menacing and strangely comical due to their jagged but benevolent facial expressions. One of the best things about visiting art galleries in Argentina is that we´re always the only ones there. Maybe it´s just that everyone else is at church while we´re hanging out with the pagan idols.

A bit of schoolboy humour in Cordoba

Sorry everyone, we just couldn´t resist...