Every stop I make, I make a new friend

This is our last blog from South America (boo). We are currently slumming it in Santiago airport with five hours to kill before a 13 hour flight to Auckland, contemplating one last cheese and bread meal, with the ham surgically removed for C. The sun is now over the yard arm, so the perfect complement for that toastie might just be a farewell pisco sour.

Ryders on Tour were last sighted in Valparaiso, a cartographer’s nightmare of a city made up of 42 hills, vertiginous streets and winched cable cars ferrying people too lazy to walk (i.e. Ryders on Tour) up the hills. The city is also an arts hotspot so, encouraged by the local authorities, murals and street art abound making the city the most colourful in Chile. A visit to the home of Pablo Neruda, Chile’s most famous poet and political activist, provided a welcome dose of culture. A man of eclectic tastes and influences (not unlike our esteemed blogger you might say), he built an incredible house high above the city, beautifully preserved and offering dizzying views over the jumble of houses.

In our last blog, C reported the torture of missing the ending of a particularly schmaltzy film starring Richard Gere film and a Japanese husky. This is obviously the only film the biggest bus company in Chile keep in their vaults, as the short hop between Valparaiso and Santiago, with said bus company, allowed us to finally achieve closure. FYI, both the dog and the man die – don’t watch if you are of a delicate disposition, it’s a heartbreaker.

Our expectations of Santiago were not sky high, given what we had been told by previous explorers of these parts. However, we were pleasantly surprised – good food, lively bars, excellent museums, and a mountain in the middle of the city giving stunning views of the smog where the Andes should be. The museum of pre-colombino art was summed up thus by the Ryder two-some (you decide who said what), ‘brilliant, a riveting journey of the history of Latin America through the medium of art’ and ‘it was good, but just a load of old pots really.’

Our final stop in Chile, and South America, was San Pedro, a tiny town in the Atacama desert in the high plateau of the Andes. Everything about the place confounds expectations and common sense; a desert 3,000 metres above sea level, some of the few settlements having had no recorded rainfall for years or even decades, and an abundance of natural wonders (including some incredible rock formations and spouting geysers) within a stone’s throw of the picture-perfect adobe village. San Pedro is situated on a huge salt flat, the third largest in the world, and home to three species of flamingo (Andean, James and Chilean). Shaggy alpacas and llamas, along with their more delicate cousin, the vicuna, are also abundant throughout the area.

San Pedro was also noticeable for the continuing saga of our tangled relationship with our new Chicagoan buddies. It is a question for the lawyers to decide who is stalking who, but we have now met with two splendid American ladies in three separate towns in the last fortnight. Obama and Cameron take note – excellent Anglo-American relations are not difficult to build, and can be lubricated with a well-timed pisco or three. A great last night with them in San Pedro rounded off our journey through Latin America in style.

Highlight: The natural light that floods San Pedro means the sunrises and sunsets here are particularly beautiful and a photographer’s dream; even we, armed with our box brownie, managed some half decent shots of the moon rising over the Andes.

Lowlight: Right here, right now, sitting in Santiago airport feeling our life forces ebb away with every passing minute.

Pisco sour count: The final count is 32, notwithstanding any last minute additions before Auckland. Even this paltry figure was achieved at huge personal cost to C, who took it upon herself to go for broke and down five in one night. The consequences of her selfless actions meant the following day in Valparaiso was rather subdued and it took all her strength not to lie down on Pablo Neruda’s historic, and very tempting, bed for a little cry.

Our reflections and observations from South America: Brazilians need to wear bigger pants. Salvador needs a jolly good bath. We are too old to master the art of horsemanship or tango. It is possible to make one pair of pants last a week. Whales do not stick to human timetables. Buenos Aires is a proper Latin American capital. Even 3-foot caiman are scary close up. We will never take the perfect photo of a humming bird in flight. Great people, amazing landscapes, and wildlife that takes your breath away. In short, top bombing.

Monkey pack him rizla pon the sweet dep line



Volcan Villarrica climb

We’ve covered a lot of ground since our last blog and are now in Valparaiso, on the Pacific coast 120kms west of Santiago. It is only ten days until we leave South America for New Zealand.

Valparaiso is like nowhere else we have been. We have a great view from our window of the hills and port for which the city is famous. Tiny little houses of all colours cling to 42 hills and are just visible poking out from the fog shrouding the city.

At the lovely lakeside resort of Pucon we did what thousands have done before us; we climbed the active Villarrica volcano that looms over the area. For reasons unknown to us, we were made to wear an all-in-one romper suit that Tinky Winky would have been proud of (minus the handbag) and, slightly more reasonably given the snow coverage, crampons, an ice axe and a helmet. The volcano was smoking when we arrived at the summit and the wind was blowing in an unfortunate direction; the sulphur smell may never leave our nostrils. It was a long hard slog to the top, but a mere five minute bum-slide through the snow (complete with adult nappy designed solely for this purpose) back to the ‘bottom’.

We spent the rest of our time in Pucon relaxing in the hot springs and hiking through some gorgeous scenery of lakes and forests.

From Pucon it was another eventful bus journey to Talca. The bus driver was kind enough to play a range of films to help pass the nine hour journey. Unfortunately for us the films were dubbed and sub-titled in Spanish (surely one or the other would be enough), but we were grateful for the sub-titles when he turned the sound off completely and played the radio instead. One of the cinematic highlights was a film starring Richard Gere and a Japanese husky. We spent a lot of energy interpreting the Spanish sub-titles and made a big emotional investment in following the evolving and complex relationship between man and dog. Just as the film was about to reach a climax, it inexplicably stopped. If anyone has a copy, we will be asking to borrow it when we return to the UK so please don’t give away the ending….

We spent four nights at Casa Chueca (a place familiar to some of our readers), a great guesthouse in the countryside just outside Talca. It was good to have company again, and J was particularly happy in finding a German to drink beer with. Company also helped on the wine tour we took, as our colleagues seemed as au fait with the finer details of winemaking as we were and distracted the experts from our inane comments. Most of the stuff made here goes to China, but we managed to divert a few bottles into our rucksacks for later consumption.

While in Talca, we also took an amazing hike to a set of huge and virtually unknown waterfalls, completely unspoilt by tourism (as yet). The only other people we encountered were some proper cowboys (not those found wanting by Anne Robinson on Watchdog, but real ones, with horses and big hats, bringing their cattle down from the mountains).

Talca is the southern centre of Chile’s wine industry, but unfortunately was near the epicentre of the 2010 earthquake. The town sustained a lot of damage, and there is a rush to rebuild it, but walking through the town centre it is very sad to see the holes and piles of rubble where buildings once stood, including some beautiful old colonial buildings.

The only other thing of note in Talca is their culinary speciality, the ‘completo’, a truly bland yet slightly nauseating hotdog concoction drowned in avocado, mustard and ketchup. A short lie down is J’s recommendation after consuming one, but the locals swear by them. And what do you expect for £1?

In other news, the Spanish is coming along leaps and bounds. There was a moment when C got confused and upon arriving at Casa Chueca managed to welcome the owner to his own home. The only other distinguishing gringo feature we have is, according to the owner of our current hostel, our extraordinary height and red hair, which makes us stand out in a crowd. You might assume at this point a linguistic mix-up, but the owner is Australian and we seem to be speaking roughly the same language. 

Highlight: J finally getting a haircut. The sweaty, bouffant, helmet hair he was sporting was threatening to undermine the suave Bond-like seasoned traveller look that he is trying to nurture (think hand-stitched Italian loafers and a panama hat, then you will be about as far from the truth as it is possible to get).

Lowlight: J's humiliating descent down the volcano in a nappy. It was made to look easy by the guides, but he truly fluffed his lines on this occasion, with a 100 metre medley of forward rolls, arse-slides and chest surfing, finally arriving at the awaiting crowd at the bottom with sunglasses askew, snow in every crevice and his ice axe, and dignity, left half way up the mountain. 

Pisco sour count: 18. A poor effort compared to the Caipirinha count in Brazil. In our defence, we have been very distracted by the other alcoholic delights on offer in Chile.