After an unexpected 15 hour stopover in Mexico City, (thanks
for that Escape Travel!) we were finally on our way south to Chile. The first
thing we noticed leaving the airport was the motorway, the quality of the roads
in Central America leave much to be desired – so it had been a while since
we’ve seen a real road! Second thing we noticed, no one seems to care about the
speed limits. Whilst driving past an 80km speed sign I looked as the taxi’s
speedometer click over 120km/h!
It was so nice having a little bit of ‘home’ for a couple of
weeks in Chile. Staying with Pauly and Sergio we had the luxury of our own room
and the ability to use a fully-functioning kitchen and stock up on our
vegetables intake with some home cooked meals. We also got to meet little
Eloisa and spend Christmas and New Years with Pauly and Sergio. In South
America, Christmas Eve is when you celebrate Christmas and Christmas day is
pretty quiet. Dave decided to ride through the deserted city up the top of San
Cristobal Hill for a sweet view of the City, and then we spend the rest of the
day people watching in the local park.
We decided to spend a couple of days at Valparaiso, the
‘cultural heart’ of Chile, about 2 hours away from Santiago on the beach. On
our usual ‘free city walking tour’ we discovered the amazing street art that
lines the city, as well as possibly the ugliest/weirdest building we’ve ever
seen.
The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but its basically
this beautiful old style building with roman pillars, with a ultra-modern sky
scraper sticking out the top. The people of the city hated it so much, they got
the town heritage listed so no one else could destroy the landscape like that
again!
Next to Valparaiso is Vina del Mar, the closest beach to the
Santiago. This place is much more modern – similar to the Gold Coast, and super
busy, which wasn’t really our thing, but it did show us the busiest beach we’d
ever seen... Oh how we miss Australian Beaches!
Returning to Santiago, we spend another couple of days
lazing about and then headed south about 5 hours to Concepcion and Victoria, to
meet some more of Pauly and Sergio’s family, and eat a ridiculous amount of
food. We love Chilean hospitality!
Our first taste of ‘asado’ (South American BBQ), which was
the first time we’d had lamb, possibly the whole trip, and it was
incredible! Australia’s are pretty proud
of their BBQ skills, but I must admit, South American’s do it better!
Our final day down in Victoria we headed out to Conguillio
National Park. It was our first glimpse of snow-capped mountains/volcanos and
we were pretty excited!
One last dinner with Pauly’s amazingly hospitable family and
we were off on a 3am bus south heading towards the wild weathers of Patagonia
and our next big trek….
Lastly, a HUGE thank you to Pauly, Sergio, Eloisa and all of
your families and friends that we met along the way for looking after us, being
patient with our terrible Spanish, feeding us, housing us and showing us your
town. It was really special for us and a perfect ‘mini’ break from travelling
for a while.
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