May 22, 2008 - valpariso

as a stoke of good luck i emailed shannon to see what he had been doing and where he was in south america and he happened to be only 2 hour away by bus to where i was so i travelled up to valpariso on the coast of chile and shannon and i hit the town for 2 nights. valpariso is a nice city and we had a great time there for the weekend.

May 19, 2008 - Wine at 11 in the morning...

Off on a day trip to Valparaiso today, which again ended up being mostly on a bus, with about 20 minutes of walking before heading back to Santiago to beat the traffic! I think the next time we have a trip like this I might just grab public transport and go myself - I'm not used to this being ferried around and looking at things from a bus! It was handy to be on the bus in the morning mind you, as on our way to Valparaiso we did stop off at Veramonte Estate and Vineyard for a tasting session. Incredibly good, especially as Liz and I managed...

May 9, 2008 - Valparaiso

Valparaiso is a sprawling naval port on the side of a steep hill side and scattered with asensors (funiculars) to take the strain of the legs. It has plenty of naval history against the Spanish during its battle for independence and against Peru and Bolivia while extending its coastline. There is a reasonable Naval and Maritime Museum to detail Chiles seafaring exploits which includes in a rogues gallery alongside Captain's Henry Morgan, Kidd and Blackbeard a mugshot of that insidious pirate Sir Francis Drake! Of course Drake was a pirate,...

Mar 31, 2008 - Rapa Nui

Santiago de Chile to Rapa Nui. Almost five hours flying time and still supposedly in the same country. Rapa Nui is very different from Chile though the Carabineros still patrol the streets. The natives say that it takes a couple of months to break in a new officer - by the end of their two year tours they don´t want to leave. I can´t blame them.

Feb 3, 2008 - Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar

We decided to go out on a day tour away from Santiago...we headed northwest and made our way thru a couple of seriously long tunnels carved into the Andes Mountains and then into one of Chile's wine country areas in the Andes Valley north of Santiago...about 120 km's later we reached Valparaiso, a port city whose origin dates back to 1536, and which has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. The city has a population of some 270,000 people and a unique colorful characteristic...a number of old buildings have been clad with tin and...

Jan 29, 2008 - Santiago to Easter Island

Not much sleep last night as I think I ate too much dinner! 6:30 am start to be ready for the airport transfer at 7am. No problems at the airport and the flight was only 20 minutes late leaving but made up more than this on the way so we arrived early in Rapa Nui (Easter Island). We have noticed a disadvantage of digital cameras. People take pictures of anything and one guy took 10 pictures of the video screen in the plane showing the maps and route we were flying and numerous pictures and video of his family sitting in the plane. Get a...

Jan 27, 2008 - To the belly button of the world

My body had no idea what time it was but my watch told me it was 7am Santiago time. I passed some time eating donuts and drinking coffee and boarded yet another plane, this time heading to Easter Island. I was expecting another old and tired plane and was overjoyed to be seated on a fabulous shiny new plane, complete with in seat movies, tv and music (when you are on your 7th or 8th plane journey its the little things that matter). I managed to while away the 5 hour flight playing tetris and got quite good at it, when 30 minutes before the...

Jan 24, 2008 - Valparaiso, Viña del Mar

Vandaag de bus genomen naar Valparaíso en Viña del Mar. Valparaíso is een van de grote kuststeden op zo'n anderhalf uur van Santiago en Viña ligt ernaast iets noordelijker. Terwijl Valparaíso de hoofdstad is van de regio en het Congresso van Chili herbergt en tevens een belangrijke haven heeft is Viña volledig afgestemd op het strand toerisme. Het beschikt dan ook over een lange strook zandstrand en een mooi aangelegde dijk met bijhorend casino. Er wordt dan ook nog volop bijgebouwd en wel hoogbouw. Er is echter ook plaats voor een mooi...

Jan 21, 2008 - Valparaiso, Chile

1/21 Valparaiso, Chile, our next stop, is a huge city of over 400,000. We created our own tour by first walking through the local central market area. Next we walked to the area where they sell local curios to the tourists. From there we walked through the "Wall Street section" followed by a quick trip to the top. There are 16 operating ascensors (small, 15 people rail cars that run on tracks that are nearly perpendicular to the ground - like elevators that run on tracks rather than cables) that scale the steep hills and provide...

Jan 10, 2008 - Valparaiso and Pichilemu - Central Chile

Left Santiago after a few days and headed for Valparaiso, an old port city approx 120kms from the capital. We arrived early in the afternoon and headed straight for our accommodation at hostel El Rincon Marino which was surprisingly good (US$20 per night each).Valpo, as it is known locally, is about 400 years old and is a World Heritage Listed site. It is built on the side of hills coming straight up out of the ocean and because of this has a series of 15 cable cars which transport the locals up to their homes dotted all over the hillside....

Nov 18, 2007 - Sun, sand and sea in Vina Del Mar

WE LOVE VINA DEL MAR! Sun, sea, sand and nothing to do but lie on the beach and enjoy the mini bar. LOVE IT! To be fair by the time we reached Vina, we were shattered. The travelling, climbing, trekking, varying altitudes, sightseeing, injurys and hospital visits and everything else of the previous 53 days in South America had begun to take their tol and we were good for nothing....which was kinda handy as nothing was the only thing on the menu. Great. Hotel San Martin was amazing (so Tibagi remains the only bum choice trip to date!)....

Nov 13, 2007 - Valparaiso

Zum Glück dauert ein Zollübertritt in der Schweiz nicht ganz so lang - es gäbe sonst keine Pendler mehr... Von Mendoza ging es zügig mit dem Bus Richtung chilenischer Grenze, vorbei am schneebedeckten Aconcagua (dem höchsten Berg ausserhalb des Himalaja). Vor der Grenze mussten wir zuerst 2 Stunden im Bus warten, bevor wir beim argentinischen Zoll einen Ausreise- und beim chilenischen einen Einreisestempel erhielten. Anschliessend mussten noch alle das Gepäck und das Handgepäck ausladen, röntgen und beim Drogenfahndungshund vorbei. Dauerte...