Chile

After leaving behind the thoroughly uninspiring Santiago time to spend some love and attention on the body by subjecting it to 40 degree heat on a beautiful sandy beach! Those of you who know me well know that would never happen.....the skin just can´t take it! So Iquique then......about 18 hours north of Santiago on the West Coast and famous for surfing - yippee, back to the Ocean - was having withdrawal from it so really good to be back in the water again.

The journey on the way up was pretty - on one side the coastline, on the other the edges of the Atacama desert so beautiful sunset and sunrise. Iquique itself is a nice enough town but with quite a lot of development going on, as appears to be the case in most of South America, but has plenty going for it too (mainly the beach).

I stayed in the usual HI hostel and its here that I met my travelling companions for the next couple of weeks - Claudia from Venezuela and Elena from Spain who both bizarrely enough had spent the last 4 years living in Dublin! Great girls who I had a great laugh with and shared murderous thoughts with towards the local canine population - how much noise do dogs need to make in the middle of the night eh????

Was also glad to note that I wasn´t the only one who was capable of being burnt alive by the sun....Claudia - the one with the dark Venezuelan skin got absolutely toasted - swollen legs, nausea, need for antibiotocs to bring the whole thing under control and take some of the pain away! I was amazed - as was she! Never happened before so she didn´t think it was possible! Anyway - the thing we all shared that week was a dire desperate need for the loo every hour or so if not more often.....very pleasant eh? Not quite the diet I was looking for! That put paid to doing anything too adventurous so had to lay back and take the time to recover - first time though so I couldn´t complain too much.

Apart from that I did get to go swim in the sea and get knocked over by huge waves (nearly losing the bikini in the process and giving the locals an eyeful after a particularly large wave sent me into a tumbling spin and rearranged the position of the aforementioned bikini!). The water temperature was pretty similar to home which was quite surprising but apparently that´s common on the coast of Chile - to get warmer water you need to go north to the beaches of Peru.

The other thing that you can do in Iquique is paragliding which the girls did but I didn´t due to restrictions on the old budget - still might get around to it before I leave the continent if I can find a better deal elsewhere.

On nightlife - well there is one particular area filled with nightclubs, bars, etc which to our credit we only visited once. Pretty good bar with live salsa and a singer all the way from Cuba - excellent. Our night out also coincided with the local football team who were celebrating winning their national football division so plenty to look at.....if you know what I mean (mullets once again in force). This town like everywhere else only comes alive after midnight and that includes the shops and stalls along the seafront - many many opportunities to spend your money on the way to or from the restaurants/bars. In the town centre usual things apply - dodgy shops and even dodgier toilets! Beware!

Oh one other thing of interest - an aussie soap ´star´ came into the hostel I was staying in looking for a bed......never thought I´d see that! For the Irish/Brits amongst you it was Leah´s brother from Home and Away - wierd eh?

Not much else to tell you here - next stop Arequipa in Peru.

Well this was my third trip across the border into Chile although it has to be said it lasted a lot longer than my previous times (about an hour each - if you recall I had to cross the border on my way to and from the end of the Earth). Destination this time Santiago - the most exciting place on earth...... The trip there from Cordoba was pretty non-eventful as per usual, just another 20 hours on a bus and the usual official nonsense crossing a land border - although it has to be said the trip through the Andes was beautiful if not a little repetitive as I had done the majority of the trip before on a day trip from Mendoza.

So anyway I rock up to Santiago and the first thing is to get the bag of the bus (now weighing 22kgs - am I strong or whaaaaaaaa?) and try not to lose my temper with what seemed like hundreds of taxi drivers vying for my business. 15mins of haggling later I persuaded one of them to take me and use his meter instead of trying to charge me the rip off price of 5000 pesos, turned out the rip off price was pretty spot on....... after taking me on a magical mystery tour, surprise surprise, the price came to 4950 - convenient eh? The hostel had advised it shouldn´t have been more than 2000 but what can you do apart from swear loudly at them for ripping of visitors to their country and hope their conscience plagues them for....oh at least 5 minutes! Let this be a lesson to you - travel in pairs and argue loudly and preferrably in fluent spanish! This experience of taxis drivers continued throughout so not a one off - complete rip off merchants. And talking of Spanish the accent here is much different to Argentina so trying to tune in was very difficult, most chileans speak a million miles an hour and don´t finish the end of their sentences or even sometimes their words, whilst of course absolutely normal there it was a little frustrating but that can´t be helped can it!

So on to the hostel - I stayed in a little place called La Chimba in the Bella Vista part of town which is kind of the artsy area, lots of theatres, galleries, etc and apparently really dangerous - my ass - never saw anything untoward happen in my week in town around the area. The hostel was spot on and I´d recommend to anyone wanting a homely feel, friendly staff, comfortable beds, cleanliness, etc.

In terms of things to do....well the post colonial museum has one of the best collections in the world and is well worth a visit, as is the musuem of contemporary art (although contmeporary can sometimes be used too loosely!), managed to do this with my american friends Abran and Carrie who I had arranged to see again after the fun and games we had before - always good to see familiar faces. Shopping opportunities are bountiful, as are restaurants and bars, but its just missing something - there doesn´t seem to be any soul to the place and generally the people I encountered were not particularly helpful or friendly. Maybe it was down to the fact it was just after xmas and new year was approaching so all the nice people were off on holidays! The one good thing I will say is that you get value for money when you buy a drink . my god....how big are the measures - too big! Did the trick though! The smaller bars around Bella Vista are good too particularly if you can find one with live music. My other favourite thing about Santiago was the Cerro San Cristobal - St Christophers Hill. The most immediate striking image is that of the 15m high statue of Mary (the mother of God), it can be seen from almost everywhere - especially during the night, when the statue is perfectly lit up. The area is designated a Metropolitan Park and is hugh. There are a few ways to get to the top - by foot....mad eedjits, take a taxi up.....much more sensible, or the best way.... you can take the funicular and then a cable car to give spectacular 360 degree views over the city and further afield to the snow capped peaks of the Andes - bootiful! The other excellent thing about this place is that it has 2 hugh swimming pools surrounded by gardens where you can easily while away whole days topping up your tan (did I mention the heat - again regular 35+ days), lying back taking in the views, swimming and of course generally eyeing up the local talent. Why oh why does the mullet hold such a firm grip in ther imaginations of the south american male???? I just don´t get it - WHY? Around the city there is quite a lot of green space so not as suffucating as it could otherwise have been.

Santiago was the place I spent New Years Eve in and it wasn´t a bad night/day (carried on til 8am......). The hostel held an excellent free barbecue for all residents and even threw in a few drinks to add to the mountains previously purchased. Needless to say much fun and frivolity was had by all and many a 2 day hangover was shared afterwards. They also have an interesting way to toast the NY - basically you have a glass of champagne and put 12 grapes in it, which are a way of symbolising the 12 months to come and a wish that they be good ones - thought that was rather nice myself. Not really much to add to that - the main celebrations were being held in Valpariso which is a couple of hours away and home this year to the biggest fireworks celebration in South America - think is was something like 17kms worth of continuous shows along the coast but don´t quote me on the distance. Anyway a couple of days later when all was back to normal I booked my ticket north to Iquique and the beach. Nearing time to leave the big smoke I decided to join in on the hostel wine tasting night and learn a thing or too about the local viticulture - as an extra the owner had invited in a couple from next door who were in the process of setting up an arts centre to sing some traditional folk songs and what a good night it turned out to be. The singer lady - Angelica, was an absolute gem and had a pretty good set of lungs on her too. Gassed the evening away with her and arranged a night out the following evening, so contrary to my previous statements there are a few good people in Santiago! Now Irish people - well we were let down down by an extremely pissed 50+ old man who tried to pick fights with everyone and even tried to push the aforementioned Angelica off her seat for having the cheek to say hello to him - what an arse! And on that note....time to leave Santiago!

Again the names thing......Alan from Limerick, Hayley the aussie living in London, Jack the hostel owner and Angelica from next door.