Hola Beast Crew

We have spent the past week trying to hone our Spanish to enable us to converse with the locals and learn more about wonderful South America. The Spanish has played havoc with Alexis’s Portuguese but Brazil is still a while away!  Apologies for no new pictures on the webpage but we have been moving over webpages onto a different host, so you will shortly be able to see our South American Adventures.

Santiago (Chile) – Vina del Mar – Valparaiso

13th October 2006 – 23rd October 2006

Some would say that Friday the 13th would be a bad day, and that, coupled with a weak earthquake that hit 4 on the richter scale, made it a bad day for some who died the freak floods that caused road accidents during the heavy rains.  Luckily for us the worst thing was that we got soaked in the down pour in the walk from the car into the hostel we were staying at in Vina del Mar.  The rain streaked vineyards were a blur as we drove past to the coast. 

Vina del Mar is the Chilean’s coastal escape, with ugly high rise buildings crowding the hills with the prettier wooden clapper board houses serving as weekend holiday destinations.  There are long golden beaches crowded with fantastic restaurants to watch the seals play in the surf framed by the red sunset.

We were destined for Valparaiso, to learn Spanish.  Valparaiso has just started hitting the tourist route because it was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 2003.  It is well known for the stunning scenery that the houses create as the crowded hills with splashes of pinks, blues, yellows and red jostle with the dark blue of the Pacific Ocean.   Artists graffiti line walls with pretty scenes of the surrounding hills. Cobble stone streets wind up into the hills.  Balconies with washing lines streaming across the streets crowd the skyline.  There is a bohemian atmosphere as you see artists drawing the beautiful buildings, musicians wander the streets, back allies squeeze between the buildings and at night music wafts down onto the street over the balconies. 

There are 42 hills that make up Valparaiso which makes getting up to the top a strain that only the fittest can accomplish without collapsing.  There are however 15 ascensores (or funiculars), box cars on a counter-balance pulley system, dotted around the town to ensure that you can still climb up to see the magnificent views.  The whole area has crumbled under the impacts of devastating earthquakes but new buildings are now required to have earthquake protection from the tremors that occur every week or two through to the devastating earthquakes that occur every 5 to 10 years.  Valparaiso (or Valpo) used to be an important port used as a stopping point for those rounding the Cape Horn.  Because of the demand for Chilean wheat, brought on by the Californian gold rush in the 1850s, there was a population boom from 5000 (1818) to 55,000 in the 1850s.  A devastating earthquake in 1906 and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 stopped the growth of the city and now the port has dwindled in size.  We even found it difficult to ship the Beast into the port!

It is an interesting city with the rich and poor all squeezed onto the hills together.  We have experienced the poor first hand as one of the girls in the hostel had her passport stolen and Greg got his pocket felt up by a taxi driver (although he was quite drunk so whether it was his pocket or crotch we will never know!).  This is where we have spent the past week… learning and improving Spanish, finding out about the socio-economics of the region, looking at house prices and wandering the brightly coloured cobble stone streets.  Unfortunately we have to leave and head south to the Lake District otherwise we would stay here forever!

Notes from Chile: