Under my big favela

In our previous blog I said about drinking terremotas as one of our remaining aims for Santiago. that, however did not happen as the times we attempted to go to the specialised bar it was closed. In the mean time, southern chile was hit by a real life terremota (earthquake) on the Sunday, fortunately no damage was done!

We left Santiago for valparaiso, or affectionately known as valpo, with all the promise of parties and beaches. We arrived and were found to be a little disappointed. the nearest beach was a good 20min walk, and not all that nice. We did, however, find a cool little indie bar showing music videos of Glastonbury highlights! Valpo itself was a real ramshackle place, no real order, and the whole thing seemingly thrown together, and painted in whatever colour was going cheap. From the beach the town looked like a huge favela climbing the hills overlooking the port!

We took a day trip to the nearby viña del mar, a much nicer, and a more true seaside resort! Mile upon mile of beach, with a nice artesian Market running in the prom!

From valpo we travelled north to la sereña, again with the promise of a beach, and it did deliver a hugely impressive stretch of sand covering the 10km of coast between la sereña and coquimbo! The only let down was again the 20+ minute walk to the beach, this was for safety as the land in between the coast and town was like no mans land in the event of a tsunami! Another strange thing about la sereña is the weather, every morning you wake up and it's cloudy then around 2 o'clock the temperature noticeably rises, and at the latest 4 o'clock and we have glorious sun! And our hostels balcony offered some amazing views of it setting!

One of the highlights of the stay in la sereña was a visit to the archaeological museum which homes one of the moai men from Easter island!

The Moai Man

Coquimbo has a large port and a large concrete cross, which towers above the town, but the main draw from the street signs appears to be a football stadium that hosted a world cup match In 1962! The port in comquimbo has a large fish Market selling some obscure seafood, including piure, some sort of coral, it didn't look all that appetising. As per punta del este we saw some sealions in the port, but this time instead of battling seagulls, they had pelicans to contend with!

Pelicans, and Sea Lions

The Big Cross

Currently we are in San Pedro de Atacama, having made the 16hour bus journey. The weather here is lovely and warm in the day and dropping into minus at night! We have a few trips lined up here but they can have some airtime of their own once we have done them!

Inactive Volcano in the Atacama Desert

Chile fact: chile is the worlds largest exporter of copper!