Adventures of Blue Mouse

La Serena and Coquimbo

In the seven hours the bus took from Santiago northbound to the coast at La Serena, we passed a changing countryside, from bright greenery, to  a more faded green and here dotted with cacti smaller shrubs and dry dusty earth.  La Serena does what it says on the tin.  It is peaceful and quiet, and we took full advantage!

Our hostel is run by Maria, who cooks constantly, with us benefitting by eating cake for breakfast both days!  We have wandered and walked, including 3 hours down the coast to Coquimbo and back, along sandy beaches mostly empty even on a Sunday.  We have done mundane things here, like getting our washing done (!) and putting photos onto  a cd, the kinds of things you need to find time for but don´t always. It´s nice to find a quiet spot, untouristy and without touts calling out from every street corner, to just let the time pass quietly, and to get to know people who live here, not just other visitors.  I cannot tell you how much more you discover when you can speak the language! (alright, when your other half teaches Spanish and can speak the language - I´m still at the nodding along stage!)

We are also trying to plan for our next destination which promises to be spectacular: San Pedro de Atacama, 16 hours in a bus away and with delights inlcuding (possibly) star gazing in ´perfect´conditions and even walking on salt flats...

Santiago

We didn´t spend long here, 2 days of wandering and people-watching.  It was very pleasant, especially when we climbed the Cerro San Cristobal, a hill towering over the city, to gaze at the view of this huge sprawling place squashed between snow-covered mountains and the hills before the sea.  Santiago is modern.  Compared to Buenos Aires it feels 10 years further ahead, in terms of transport, open spaces and facilities.   We spent a short time, here, missed the museums and the galleries, and instead took advantage of the parks to sit in the sun and read and write journals.  We can´t even say we sampled the nightlife, because we ate in both nights!

 

Rano Raraku

Easter Island really is in a world by itself. 3700km from Chile and 1500km from the nearest other inhabited grain of soil, yet in so many ways it shares so much with places like New Zealand and Samoa, even down to the huge rugby training session we saw on Tuesday.

What it most definitely doesn´t share are the moai which make the island so famous and so special. The huge looming figures, subject of so many ET-esque stories to explain how they came in to being, really are a fantastic sight.

So to be able to go to the volcano where they were carved really knocks seeing just one or two into space (bad pun, apologies). Seeing moai up to 21metres in length, some still connected to the base rock, is truly mindblowing. And being able to do so in complete isolation, without seeing other humans for well over an hour, was a ... you know what, neither of us know the right words to actually describe something  so unique. What we just couldn´t grasp was how Captain Cook must´ve felt centuries ago to stumble across something so mindblowing.

Easter Island – Isla Pascua – Rapa Nui

A mix of languages and cultures heralds also a complete change from the sunny spring days of Santiago, Chile, to the humid triangle of green in the mid Pacific Ocean.  Here we are, the long-awaited trip to Easter Island! Two hours behind Chilean time, and with bright green palm trees, grass and plants everywhere you look, sandwiched between red-brown earth below and deep blue sky above.

The trip over was something else too….. upgraded on the flight oh yes! So Carlos and Blue Mouse had the absolute time of their lives with hot towels, delicious breakfast and lunch served on china, in flight entertainment and even a duvet to make it feel like a compete sleepover! Fingers crossed for the way back but that might be pushing it a bit!

 

It already feels another world here, not just the the garlands of flowers that greeted us at the airport, also the moai figures along the coast that we have seen so far, but also the laidback atmosphere and the mix of Polynesian, Spanish, Chilean and tourist voices and faces we´ve seen so far.

 

Our attempt to find the museum was a full circle (literally!)and our map reading skills have not done very well here so far, but we´ve enjoyed sitting by the sea and watching the surfers catch smooth clean waves across the tiny 6-boat harbour.  Tomorrow we´re off to find the cater of the largest of the three extinct volcanoes on the island, see the ceremonial village Orongo and hopefully apréciate even more the amazing enigma that are the standing stone people moai.  Similar to Stonehenge, no-one can work out how they got to their resting places, why they are all toppled (standing ones have been labourously reinstated) and what their purpose was in the first place.  Photos to follow tomorrow!

 

 

Valparaiso

Valparaiso is a funky, vibrant, colourful town that sprawls its way across the hillsides of western Chile, a mere hour and a half from the metal and concrete capital of Chilean commercialization, Santiago, but oh so far in terms of attitude to life.

 

The reason for Valpo’s appeal lies in the way it emerged, totally unplanned for well over 150years, people grabbing land wherever they could and, simply, building. Now the only space that´s grabbed is wallspace, artists everywhere adding to the colour and impact of the town. Up and down the hills you can climb, never far from a new burst of colour or from a view to wow, hence that attraction for the great Chilean poet and politician, Pablo Neruda.

 

 

 Whilst we were there we did what it’s only sensible to do in a place like that- stroll. Alas Chile’s not renowned for its coffee ability, so there weren’t even too many stops for that. Some by ourselves and some with Bobby of Valparaiso walking tours, a great fun   American resident of Valpo whose company it was a pleasure to share for a goodly few hours, winding through spots we undoubtedly wouldn’t have found by ourselves- including the terrace at the top of Neruda’s house, not normally open to the public, being above a theatre as it is!

 

 

 

And in the wonders of low season we also came up trumps with accommodation- our hostel, Patiperro, only having 6 guests on the last night, leading to a pleasant Saturday evening and a great egg, goat’s cheese and coffee Sunday breakfast, just down Ali’s street…

The Road to Chile

A short description of the journey from Argentina to Chile. 

The dusty dry roads followed the river through the mountains on the western side, with a peak at Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Mendoza area.

  Then it was off the bus to check out of Argentina, officially, and to another desk to check into Chile. 

The welcome sign says it all! The most striking thing straight way was the change in colour - all green and lush and verdant this side of the border! We snaked our way down the mountain and through the flat valley lined with vines again, and also fruit.  Hopefully the pictures will explain it too! We drove straight, more or less, to the coast, Valparaiso.

 

Maipu´s wine trail

Nine vineyards, one long, dusty, busy road and bikes, accompanied by 30 degrees worth of heat. To me that sounds both like a really good idea and at the same time a bit of a ridiculous concept. 12km from the point of hire to the furthest vineyard, and then of course the return journey, on bikes for whom padding was designed but alas not used. It´s safe to say that we would have needed to visit far more than the 3 vineyards we did make it to for the ride to ever have been viewed as comfortable.

   

So, Mendoza is the capital of Malbec for the world. Throw in a dash of Cabernet Sauvignon and the occasional bottle of Torrontes and you´re in happy street. You´d also probably be quite hammered. The town of Maipu is only 16km out of the city, or 45minutes on a local bus costing a whopping 35p, English equivalent. Chances are next time you check a bottle of Argentinian wine it comes from Mendoza, and chances are that came from Maipu.

Now wine in Argentina has to, of course, be accompanied by a hefty amount of steak. The surprise was that our fantastic lunch, sat out of the sun yet enjoying the tranquility, also came with salad. Yes it might have been a token effort, but even so... For a carnivore like me to have appreciated it really demonstrates just how sparse those green leaves have been for the last month.

So when you arrive at a vineyard you are taken on the semi-obligatory tour, nodding politely until the important phase- the tasting. But hey, who would´ve known that the big winemakers bottle about 50million bottles a year? Or that you should only age a bottle for six times the length of time that the wine has been oaked for?

So the tastings were merry, relaxed affairs, lunchtime and afternon drinking invariably provoking mellow thoughts amongst one and all. But some very fine wine indeed was consumed...

San Rafael

Leaving mountains behind, here we are in the desert.  Although you wouldn´t know it.  Flat, tree-lined streets, bright sunshine and leafy plazas.  The clue is in the irrigation channels, little streams of water running alongside each road in the usual grid layout.  we arrived early on a Sunday, to a quiet sleeping town.  It turns out Monday was a Bank Holiday, so it stayed pretty sleepy and quiet until we left on Tuesday, when it all came alive again!

We are in wine country (Chris will tell you more about that later) so we had hoped to visit some wineries, but the feria (holiday) meant we were as restful as everyone else!  So a bit of wandering around, a coffee or two,  obligatory ice cream (it´s the Italian influence!) and we headed off to the cinema on Sunday night.  Los Secretos de Sus Ojos - the secret of their eyes.  Very good, even with a slight language difficulty, we understood the gist of the ´whodunnit´and worked out the twist at the end!

Also a lot of sitting under palm trees in the park and reading.  Very restful!

General Travelling

A short snapshot into the life of the travelling Blue Mouse, cooking inhostels as well as eating out, blogging and emailing in Locutorios, telephone and internet places found on every street corner, and with WiFi in every restaurant cafe and hostel we could have brought our own laptop and made its use worth the effort of lugging it around!

Travelling in amazing buses and meeting lots of friendly people, even having a bit of the language makes such a difference!

 

San Martin de los Andes

We are well and truly in the Lake District! Our journey has now taken us past eight or nine large bodies of water, deep blue and dazzling in the sun underneath snow-topped mountains.  We paused briefly in Villa La Angostura, before sensing a tourist haven without much to do in the time we had, so we got back on the bus to arrive here, a metaphorical stone´s throw from Chile, over the peaks. We took the scenic gravel road open now the snows have gone, and through woods and past streams leading to the lakes.  La Ruta de los Siete Lagos. The local bus even stopped for a moment so we could see one of the many waterfalls.  You start to wonder if you are not just going round in a circle!  

Nestled at the end of the lake and quiet out of season, San Martin has still provided us with postcards,  the fabled chocolate of the Lake District (photos to follow on a faster computer!) and the sight of a Routemaster bus doing the city tour.  After lunch (good old bread  cheese and ham - you can´t beat it) we´ll be off again on a bus to San Rafael, wine country!