South America

Chile is so warm and I am loving it! I arrived in the boarder town of San Pedro de Atacama only 1 hour or so from the Bolivian boarder crossing and it was about 25oC! This felt particularly surreal because only that morning I had been colder almost than I have ever been. It helped that San Pedro is about 2000 meters lower than the Bolivian desert that I had just come from, and combined with the spotless cafés and bright clean streets and buildings it all meant that I truely felt that I was in a different country!

I was going to tell you all about the 28 hour 1600km journey from San Pedro to Santiago which added up to about 36 hours total travelling time...but all that would be rather boring and can be sumed up by the words: tarmac is my friend While I was waiting for the bus to leave it was very interesting to watch the other passengers and their families. One of the biggest differences between the South American culture and that of home is the importance of the family in everyone's lives here. They put so much into family life, which always seems to come first, and I really respect that. It is lovely to watch as well.

I did make it to Santiago eventually though! There is a metro here! so with great excitement I bought a ticket and boarded a train. These are very much like the European ones and, coupled with the very western and up-to-date dressing of the locals, made me feel as if I could be in Europe. This feeling strengthened as I got out at my stop and walked to the hostel past all the old colonial buildings. All this made me realise that I am only going to discover the 'real' Chile outside of the cities, but i am realising this more and more on this trip - for me travelling is about the country side more than the cities. At the hostel I had one of the best showers I have ever had (washing 4 days of dirt away), and became silly with excitement to discover that the bathroom soap dispensers actually had soap in them.

So the very next day I boarded another bus (I love Chile's buses...they all have bathrooms!) to the old port of Valparaíso. Before getting this bus however I had one errand to run. I walked to the hotel from which my next trip will be leaving and found to my delight that the package from Mum had arrived already and so I had a Christmas card to open and 14 tiny advent calender windows to open!

I had been looking forward to to visiting Valparaíso and it certainly lived up to my expectations, it is a lovely little port town with all the residential areas on the hill surrounding the harbour. Valparaíso is famous for this and the little 'ascensores' which are like lifts which take people up and down the steepest bits of the hills. It is also a bit of an artisans' town and there are loads of murals and graffiti stencils that are really impressive just painted onto the walls of random houses. I found myself constantly stopping and taking pictures of the walls!

The 5 days that I spent in Valparaíso were a wonderful holiday within this trip. Not only was it baking hot (at least 25oC), but the hostal was very clean and friendly and there was a great breakfast with fruit included (an important detail to a backpacker!). The whole town has a very European feel to it, with little bakeries and cafés on almost every corner and the buildings are of a very familiar style. The hostel has ceilings that are about 15 feet high, no kidding, with cornices and skirting boards and moulded details in the doors; all just like the Victorian buildings at home. It feels almost surreal to find this all so familiar even though I am in such a different part of the world, and compared to Bolivia and Peru.

After this very enjoyable break it was time to go back to Santiago to start the trip that I booked to take me over Christmas and New Year and all the way down to the very south of Chile, into parts of Argentina as well, and ending up in the southern most city in the world Ushuaia. But that is another blog update and another story...

Love bec xx