I think I’m alone now.

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So Joff just left Santiago. His flight has departed and I am in the apartment alone. The internet access is patchy at best. I’m glad its working this evening, or I’m not too sure how I’d entertain myself. Joff and I spent most of the last few nights watching the entire of the catalog of Never Mind the Buzzcocks which Hollan put on my hard drive.

I’m just going to put some highlights down of the last few days in Santiago via ripping off Joff’s photos… (I always figure its only worth one of us taking a camera on these day trips)

This is the beer that came with lunch yesterday it was $2000 pesos, that for those playing at home is around $6NZD.

This is the cathedral in Plaza de Armas. We ducked in on our way to see some other stuff… it’s pretty impressively large inside.


This is the info person on the segway. Joff and I lol’d

My arm, Metro Train. I love this Santiago Metro, such an efficient and clean form of transport.

Me at Santa Lucia. It’s one of my favourite places in Santiago.


Santa Lucia


Joff at the top of Santa Lucia


Me at the top of Santa Lucia


Joff with Pedro De Valdivia. (the founder of Chile, we’re staying on his street, and there are statues of him everywhere)


Joff at San Cristóbal Hill… which ended up being a several hour walk down the other side.


This is my impressed face

Joff was really keen to find the playground as we had photos there as children.

I’m going to miss Joff, in spite of our occasional short tempers with each other over the last couple of days, he was a good travel companion. I know he’s happy to go home and back to the easier life of work/money and party times in Melbourne.

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So far

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So its now day 2 ½ in Santiago… half day, because we spent half a day traveling to Santiago. Cristina was called for work to Peru for the week so we’ve been hanging out in her apartment without her. The internet isn’t working, we’ve tried everything we can from our end and have now come to the conclusion that its all at the ISP end, of course though, we cannot ring them. I don’t think calling and saying; “hey, do any of you guys speak really good English to solve our problem with an internet connection that’s not even ours?” is going to work well.

Thankfully though, Cable TV is working fine. This means we pass a lot of time watching movies in English with subtitles in Spanish. Surprisingly this is actually quite helpful for learning the language.

Yesterday, after much convincing I dragged Joseph into Santiago city.
The funny thing is we both like a different style of traveling. Joseph likes things to be organised, there to be a plan of sorts. Like knowing what you’re going to do and where you’re going, and how you’ll get there. I figure out I’ll learn how to do something while I do it. So today Joff was just frustrated with doing things my way.
So we went down to the main avenue that intersects Pedro de Valdivia and jumped on what I guessed was the right bus to get into town. When we tried to pay the driver he informed us we could only travel on the bus with a “tarjeta”. On observation we noticed everyone was using a card with the word Bip! On the front. The driver let us take the free ride into the city, where I directed Joff to get off at the stop after Univesidad Catolica, which I assumed to be Santa Lucia. So we wandered around the bottom of Santa Lucia hill, and looked for somewhere to purchase one of these Bip! Cards. Joseph also decides at this point that he wants to purchase the Lonely Planet guide to Chile as it will stop him being stressed out by my travel style. Its funny because I’m a crazy planning kind of person in my normal everyday life. Read more →

Plans for tonight:

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For those playing at home this 1 LTR bottle was $739 Pesos. That’s $1.99

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Tonight I will sit in the apartment on my own and eat souvlaki, which I will make myself, including cooking the chickpeas for Hummus because I saw a picture of a souvlaki online and have craved one.

Also I will listen to American Football.

Not So Interesting Fact 1:
The last song that played on my ipod before I left Auckland airport was American Football’s Stay Home. Read more →

Update big time- photos and videos… aren’t you lucky!

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Today’s post comes to you from a clay hut, 70km north of the Tropic of Capricorn. I’m in the Atacama Desert. Having survived the 18 hour bus ride here, I am now quite tired.


(Me- looking quite tired in our hut- by Joff)

Tomorrow we have a full day of activities sorted for us going to see geysers and great salt lakes. In the evening we’ll be going to the observatory to learn about the stars and the Andean astronomy. I suspect there will be a great deal of tiredness from that, starting the day at 4am, and finishing up after midnight. We’ve had to pack everything in because we leave on Saturday. Mostly because Joseph only has one week left in Chile, and we want to go to Machali to stay at our relatives house, then go back to Santiago to do the grand shopping that Santiago encourages.


(Me- looking quite tired in the plaza in San Pedro de Atacama -By Joff)

Personally I’m having to re-think some of my packing. My fathers wonderful old leather carry bag is proving to be more of a hassle because it’s quite heavy even without anything in it. The massive pack I have is good, except one of the zips is breaking slowly. All this and I’m two weeks into my trip. I guess because I’m using my dad’s old bags its likely that they wouldn’t survive the whole journey. Its not like I think I actually have packed that much. T’Nealle and Sarah might think otherwise, but I honestly left most of the stuff I took to Auckland, in Auckland.

I keep thinking about how nice it would be for friends to see some of these places. I have vague memories of a lot of it, from earlier visits. This is my 4th journey to Chile since 1985. La Serena is very familiar. Having only spent a few hours in Santiago so far I have no idea what the city will be like when I go there. I remember the metro lines, and the buses. The question will be more if I am able to hold my own getting tickets, and not getting lost.


(Me- looking quite tired outside the Church in San Pedro-By Joff)

I think I might spend a day at San Cristobel and Santa Lucia, go to some museums and galleries and such. Try the cultural thing rather than just shopping. Mostly because there is currently nowhere to put new purchases.

I’ve written a swag of postcards to people, and endeavor to write some more soon. I haven’t written one to the log cabin yet. I’ll wait till after Atacama, and Machali. So I can write about something different.

Ok as promised some pictures from Pisco Elqui: (taken by Joff from meatload.net)

The plaza.


Lunch at the Old School- Pastel de Choclo and Ensalada Chileno


waiting for lunch at the old school


On a Pisco Tour.

And in Coquimbo, they have built a large monument to celebrate something religious. Nobody builds religious monuments better than the South Americans

Here is a video I shot after a few too many mojitos in Coquimbo.

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Barrytown

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Before embarking on this massive trip I spent the night in Barrytown with some wonderful people. It was one of those crazy nights you don’t know how it was going to pan out.

These pictures only show us hanging out in the bar… not the nice time on the beach later

Looking at the photos I miss some people like crazy. I realise it looking over these things. Some people who weren’t even there I miss heaps. I wish they could have come on this journey with me, but I don’t think I’d achieve my goals if they did. It sucks.

pictures by joff Read more →