It's so strange to be back in Australia. I could have easily stayed in South America for another few months - there's so much to see and do, and I would have loved to work on my Spanish a bit more. I had a bit of a rude introduction to Australia - for some reason I always get hassled by the border guards (i.e. immigration, not customs/quarantine) whenever I try and enter the country. The guard decided to play what seemed like 50 questions with me over such things as me not supplying an address (I'm temporarily homeless) despite vagrancy having not been a crime for over forty years.
It's the type of thing that really annoys me - I questioned the border guard as to the relevancy of his line of questioning and got a very curt response about myself being a "high risk traveller" and Santiago (in Chile) being a "high risk port" and so on. On his first point, I'd like to know exactly how the Department of Immigration defines high risk, but his questioning was (in my opinion) irrelevant as at the end of the day, I can't, as an Australian citizen, be denied entry to Australia. The officials don't really like it when you point this out - perhaps they're used to most people in this country being sheepishly compliant when dealing with authority figures.
Anyway the guard eventually relented, so I caught the Skybus into town then took the tram for the short hop out to Richmond where I'm staying with Mike for a little while until I get myself sorted out. After a quick shower and some coffees on Bridge Rd (not to mention vegemite on toast, I couldn't help myself!, and to any British people watching yes it is different to (and better than) Marmite), we met up with some of the usual suspects to catch the tram down to St Kilda for the St Kilda Festival. On such a sunny day it was a great re-introduction to Melbourne, although we didn't really get to see any of the live music there because we kept bumping into people and stopping to chat. Nevertheless a great day and it was great to see so many friends again after the year away.
So it begs the question, what now? I've been back a week - I've stopped having to stop myself from speaking Spanish to waiters/waitresses in cafes; and have taken care of much of the administrivia of being back. I've finalised my enrolment at uni - classes start in about two weeks, so I'll have something to do until I find a job and so on. Finding a share house is proving slightly more difficult, as the market is really tight at the moment, but I'm hoping to having something more permanent than Mike's couch sorted soon.
As for this blog, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. I might post musings and observations from time-to-time but I guess for the most part my life will start to settle down into a routine before too long - so there might not be much of interest to write about unfortunately. I'll probably use the blog again to write about my travels in the future. I'd love to go to India for a few months at the end of the year and maybe tack on a trip to Jordan at the end of that, but whether or not I go depends on so many variables (money, job, uni timetable etc) so nothing is locked in.
I will though be posting photos with some sort of regularity to my Flickr photostream so feel free to check that from time to time. Since I've been back in Melbourne it's mainly photos of friends and so forth, but I'm hoping to get some proper camera hardware again soonish so I guess I'll post some more creative type stuff at that point. Until then, ¡Hasta Luego!
N.B. The photo of the Kangaroos is by пан Бостон-Київський used under the GNU Free Documentation Licence.
- Location:Melbourne
I went down to Pichilemu on the recommendation of a friend and I definitely haven't been disappointed. It's a (not so) little fishing and surfing town about three hours south-west of Santiago and has been the perfect way to cap off my time in South America and my trip in general. It's a small enough town to walk around but they also (for tourists, I guess) have what New Yorkers would call "handsome cabs" being your standard two horses and a carriage type arrangement. I think the drivers must pride themselves on giving the horses a proper full-fibre diet, because apart from the general sea smell and fishing smells there is also a pervasive horsey earthiness to the town (and especially its streets).
Yesterday I left my guesthouse at night to go and get some food and have a walk around and I realised about two hours later that I'd left my lanyard with my keys on it inside my room, so I figured I should return and sort it out while everyone would still be awake. I explained to the (old and somewhat frumpy) landlady what had happened and she made a shrugging gesture and for a while continued her sweeping up. After about five minutes she sprang to life, went rummaging through the kitchen and returned with a large jar completely full with keys. Given that I had lost the keys I had to find the match - I got it down to about twenty "possibles" and then went upstairs to try and get into my room, but of course absolutely none of the keys worked. This didn't seem to bother the landlady (Elsa) too much. Then someone, I think her grandson, but possibly another guest showed up with a ladder so without too much difficulty the grandson scaled the ladder and got into my room (I offered to do it, but he thought he'd be better at it - I must really look uncoordinated too) and retrieved the keys.
Having sorted the problem out I was free to go out again (this time with the keys!) but I made a point of explaining (in Spanish) that I always keep the lanyard, forgot it this one time, thanks and sorry and all that. Elsa stopped her sweeping for a second, looked at me, smiled and said "todo es salvado" (all is saved) - which was good because I don't think her locksmithing skills were up to scratch.
I returned to Santiago to begin the last week of my year long tour (as such). The weather was at least a bit warmer than Mendoza. I think the combination of going rafting, to be fair a bit too much vino tinto, and air conditioning in my hostel that was turned up way too cold; all came together to make me a bit sick so I didn't really do much. I caught up with my folks who were passing through Chile on their way home after spending most of January checking out Brazil and Perú. It occurred to me after they left that I didn't take any photos - which is a bit redundant I guess because my mum went a bit nuts! The only other thing I did was organise a bus ticket down to Pichelmu - much easier than it says in all the guidebooks (there are direct services) where I'll spend my last few days by the beach before returning to Santiago to go back to Melbourne.
I missed out on going to Mendoza when I was in Argentina back in November and December, so it was an easy decision to jump on a bus there out of Santiago de Chile - it's only a six or seven hour bus ride (and a very scenic one at that). Mendoza is the primary wine growing region in Argentina and has lots of other (mainly outdoorsy) stuff to do as well. I was in town for five days in total and still don't feel like I gave the city justice - on a few of the days I went on excursions out of town and the remainder of the time I was mainly up at night getting stuck into some of the local wines and eating like a king (on a minor duke's budget). 
One of the highlights was going white water rafting (well more of a muddy brown really) down the Mendoza river. It was great fun, if not tiring and cold. I think we got a really bad day for it, it was cold and overcast - and I was expecting Mendoza to be "scorching hot" based on reports from people I've met along the way. It could have been a lot more hairy - there was a massive storm in Mendoza that afternoon that caused every single drain in the city to overflow - just crossing the street involved wading through water half way up your shins. 
I also went on a winery tour organised by the hostel - the tour was OK but not great but the wineries themselves were pretty good. Wine in Argentina, for the quality, is ridiculously cheap. I picked up a bottle of '95 cab-sav for what you'd pay for a "nice" one that was maybe two years old at home. It only occurred to me after a few days that it might be a bit difficult to get the bottle home given that you can't take bottles/fluids onto planes any more for (cough, cough) security reasons.
It was only a short two hour bus ride from Santiago to Valparaíso but the two cities have a very different vibe to them. Valparaíso (or simply Valpo as the locals call it) is a port town, home of the Chilean congress and has a buzz (but not a sense of importance) about it that I found lacking on my first visit to Santiago (keeping in mind I was there on a weekend etc). There's been a dubious sort of music festival on for most of the time I've been here in the Plaza Sotomayor . It's pretty cheesy sort of stuff and for the most part ridiculously loud - but the locals love it and will seemingly dance to pretty much anything.
My bad run of luck with cameras continues - my little Olympus pocket camera (the one I called "trusty" a few posts back) gave up the ghost after two years, five continents and somewhere in the order of 7-8,000 photographs - so I spent about a day and a half researching a suitable replacement which I'm still learning how to use. It wasn't the best timing for the old one to fail this late in the trip - I had wanted to cash in my insurance, tax rebates etc when I got home and get myself a "proper" dSLR camera, so the last thing I need to be spending money on is another pocket camera, but these things happen I guess.
Both yesterday and today, I hopped on Gran Valparaíso's brand-spanking-new metro system (the trains are exactly the same as the new ones in Melbourne - at least the ones on the old "Hillside" lines) to go out to the nearby town ofViña del Mar (Vineyards by the Sea) which made for a nice change. It's the part of this area that is more or less exclusively people relaxing rather than also a working port likeValparaíso proper. It reminded me a bit of Port Macquarie or even Torquay except without the bogans. Some of the early German immigrants built little castle type forts - Castillo Wulff isn't really the type of name you expect to see in South America!
I think I can now safely conclude there isn't much to do in Santiago on Sundays - it's awfully quiet. Slightly foolishly, I decided to stay an extra day here to see what goes on during the week - although a lot of the interesting stuff is closed on Mondays, so I've had a rather unproductive day. Luckily, I'm going to be passing through Santiago a few times so hopefully I will get to see some of its other sides before I return for the final time to catch my flight home.
I'm staying in the Bella Vista district - it's a nice little area where there are numerous really low key bars where you can sit on the street, in the sun drinking beers and watching the passing parade. The other thing to see in this barrio (district) is the Parque Metropolitano which is home to the zoo, two pools, places to eat etc. I decided to walk up to the top of the Cerro San Cristóbal to see the view and the statues. At the last minute though I decided to catch the funicular railway back down to ground - but at least I can say I got some exercise today if nothing else!
It was so nice to get back to sea level and to see the beach again after about six weeks at some sort of altitude. I didn't see much of Iquique except for the beach - the coffee wasn't great in town so there wasn't really any other place to hang out. It was also good to be in a city (well, a country even, after Bolivia) that has proper supermarkets and be able to cook a bit of proper food - washed down with a bit of Chilean wine of course! Iquique made the perfect spot to relax before braving the 27 hour bus trip down the coast to Santiago.
...I turn 28 tomorrow. I'm beginning to think my life is not as rock-and-roll as I'd like to think!
It's come to the point of my trip where I have to start heading south again in order to fly out of Santiago in a few weeks time. I don't have enough time unfortunately to see too much more of Perú, so for the time being I'll have to leave it at Cusco & Machu Picchu and the rest can wait until my next visit to South America.
So I'm on my own again and back in La Paz, Bolivia for a few days. My original plan was to come here and then try and organise to do a jungle tour/safari type thing out of Rurrenabaque, or to go to Cochabamba (also in Bolivia) before going off to Chile. I haven't been feeling too well though since going to Machu Picchu - a few days in a row of not much sleep, being quite active and getting rather wet and cold led me to finally succumb to the cold that has been doing the ranks of the group of people I've been hanging out with for the last month or so (though feeling much better today - cold pills and sleeping pills do wonders!).
With this in mind, I've decided to skip seeing any more of Bolivia too - it isn't the best time of year to see the Amazon either. Tomorrow I'm off to Iquique in Chile and from there I'll make my way south towards Santiago and Valparaiso. It'll be the first time I've seen the Pacific ocean since I left Hong Kong, back in June. I imagine it'll look pretty much the same as it does from Australia! (i.e. blue and ocean-like).
I have managed to tick off one thing I missed out on the last time I was in La Paz, which is to go and see the freaky cholita wrestling (aka Lucha Libre). This will be familiar to any of you that have seen the Jack Black film Nacho Libre - ridiculous costumes, ridiculous stunts and dubious sporting value, but entertaining nonetheless. Many of the contestants are actually women, most of whom are dressed in traditional Bolivian cholita get-up complete with long platted hair and bowler hats. It was a really entertaining afternoon - the locals get really into it, they throw plastic bottles and rubbish at the wrestlers or even throw flour and water on them.
I can't work out whether or not it is for real or staged - you could hardly call the umpire fair and impartial - he'd step on the hands of contestants or throw them to the ground in most of the bouts. Normally he would side with the crowd favourite but often it was against whomever gave him the most lip. The most comical part of the night though was when one of the midget contestants got tied up to the ring by her platts. I wonder, is it wrong to laugh at midgets in pain?
So I'm on my own again and back in La Paz, Bolivia for a few days. My original plan was to come here and then try and organise to do a jungle tour/safari type thing out of Rurrenabaque, or to go to Cochabamba (also in Bolivia) before going off to Chile. I haven't been feeling too well though since going to Machu Picchu - a few days in a row of not much sleep, being quite active and getting rather wet and cold led me to finally succumb to the cold that has been doing the ranks of the group of people I've been hanging out with for the last month or so (though feeling much better today - cold pills and sleeping pills do wonders!).
With this in mind, I've decided to skip seeing any more of Bolivia too - it isn't the best time of year to see the Amazon either. Tomorrow I'm off to Iquique in Chile and from there I'll make my way south towards Santiago and Valparaiso. It'll be the first time I've seen the Pacific ocean since I left Hong Kong, back in June. I imagine it'll look pretty much the same as it does from Australia! (i.e. blue and ocean-like).
I have managed to tick off one thing I missed out on the last time I was in La Paz, which is to go and see the freaky cholita wrestling (aka Lucha Libre). This will be familiar to any of you that have seen the Jack Black film Nacho Libre - ridiculous costumes, ridiculous stunts and dubious sporting value, but entertaining nonetheless. Many of the contestants are actually women, most of whom are dressed in traditional Bolivian cholita get-up complete with long platted hair and bowler hats. It was a really entertaining afternoon - the locals get really into it, they throw plastic bottles and rubbish at the wrestlers or even throw flour and water on them.
I can't work out whether or not it is for real or staged - you could hardly call the umpire fair and impartial - he'd step on the hands of contestants or throw them to the ground in most of the bouts. Normally he would side with the crowd favourite but often it was against whomever gave him the most lip. The most comical part of the night though was when one of the midget contestants got tied up to the ring by her platts. I wonder, is it wrong to laugh at midgets in pain?
- Location:La Paz, Bolivia
Once in Aguas Callientes it was fairly straightforward to organise tickets/entry etc for Machu Picchu itself but a bit of a nightmare to organise train tickets back to Cusco for the same night - so when we finally got tickets, at the absolute last minute on the night before our visit to the park, it was a huge relief - there's absolutely no reason to stay in Aguas Callientes for any more time than necessary - the whole town is organised entirely around tourism to the park and is quite expensive (at least by Peruvian standards). It actually made Cusco feel more like a real city!
The next morning we got up at just before five in order to catch the first bus up to the gates. The plan of seeing the sun rise through the sun gate didn't happen though. About 10 minutes after arriving and seeing the ruins for the first time some clouds blew in and then the rain started in earnest so for the most part it was a very wet experience. As the rain started to ease we checked out the old Inca drawbridge - it's amazing where some of the original paths were placed so messengers could bring news to the Incas from all corners of their empire.
With the weather beginning to clear we made a decision to climb Waynu Picchu - a hike taking a bit over an hour and most of it straight up. For me (and I think quite a few of the others) this totally made the day. By the time we got to the top the rain had well and truly stopped, most of the clouds had cleared granting a clear look at the site - it's really, really impressive! I think you have to wonder though why the Incas built the site where they did - surely they would have had equally good vantage points over enemies etc from less inhospitable and moreaccessible surroundings. I found Machu Pichu impressive mainly for the scale of it and its surroundings rather than the buildings themselves.
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1)
peregrinari7- peregrinari7
- My photos at Flickr
Syndicate
