Christmas, New Year and Summer

It's been a while (again) since I last posted. So here's another quick summary of what I've been up to for the last few weeks.

Well, I swapped Summer for Winter in mid-December, when I headed home to England (I also call Chile 'home'). And what a Winter it was...one of the coldest on record, a whole heap of snow and the country shutting down due to the total lack of preparation from the utterly, utterly useless government.

But anyway, I started off in London, staying with my brother and family. My other, Paris-based, brother was there as well. Plus, a plague hit my family in early 2010...a plague of babies. Both my brothers and two cousins had little'uns between January and March (and also one of my best friends a couple of months ago). Not being a huge baby fan, I was expecting the worst, but they were all surprisingly well-behaved. Not that you could get a word of sense out of the parents between 6am and 9pm, when all conversation revolved around babies, vomit and poonamis but everyone seemed very content (and tired) and that's the most important thing. I'm happy my family is happy. And I'm looking forward to them all getting older and being able to interact a bit more (the babies as well, ha).

So London was nice. And cold. I met up with some great friends, had a curry down on Brick Lane and large amounts of lovely London Pride.

London snow...

And then after two days, it was time to head up to Knowle, near Birmingham for Christmas number 1, with my Dad and his wife, Pat. We headed out on Saturday morning with severe weather warnings ringing in our ears. I had slept less than 3 hours, due to sleeping on the sofa and had woken up with a pinched nerve in my shoulder, leading to rather savage pain all down my right side. And a hangover. So when we got stuck in traffic caused by the freezing conditions and snow about 10 miles outside of London, I knew we were in for a long day...

We made it a total of 30 miles...in 6 hours before deciding to postpone the trip and pull into a hotel in a little village off the M40. Many people got stuck in their cars overnight, so we were lucky.

English travel chaos...

Anyway, we made it up the next day and had a nice time, despite it being cut short by a day.

A huge Chilean Araucaria in Knowle...

The bros. And a huge barbequed turkey (barbequed in minus 10C...)

Christmas number 2 (the real one) was spent down in with my cousins in the New Forest and was as fun as ever, watching the cricket (that was a hell of a beating you took there, Australia), drinking nice wine and eating so much food. The traditional Boxing Day walk was definitely needed.

The cold weather didn't really bother me all that much. It was a lot nicer than the usual mild, damp, drizzly weather I usually experience when I go back to England. Freezing cold, snow and blue skies are so pretty. It warmed up after Christmas and it wasn't as much fun. Christmas should be cold, anyway. But a Summer new year is a lot more fun that a Winter one. But I still had a good time, hanging out with friends and playing with indoor fireworks (which I hadn't seen since I was about 6 years old).

There was even the one that looks like something a baby produces several times a day...

After new year, there was time for some fairly serious sales shopping in London and also for a trip to Fulham's Craven Cottage to watch my beloved West Brom get beaten 3 nil. And, as I was sitting with the Fulham fans, I had to 'celebrate' all of their goals. Oh well.

And now I'm back in Chile, walking the dogs and enjoying the Summer.

The flight was ok, despite the lack of legroom...

And look who were waiting for me at home, in Santa Cruz, Colchagua Valley...

Summer dog walking. Nice.

I'm also really busy. Work has picked up massively already this year (lots more people interested in real estate in Chile) and I have two, possibly three projects of my own to do. I'm feeling very optimistic about 2011. Here's hoping for a good year for everyone.

And I'll leave you with my favourite book section in WHSmith's ever:

Elqui Valley: Awesome

I haven't blogged much recently. I just can't really be bothered- I love my life here but it's not all that exciting. It's usually just a mix of walking the dogs, hanging out with friends and going to Santiago every now and again. I would be blogging about the flat renovations in Santiago but they're on hold for about a month, so we'll probably restart when I get back from England after Christmas.

But I went last week to Elqui with a lady friend and it's such an awesome place that I really thought I should share.

It's a bit of a drive to get there from Santiago, which is where we started out from on Tuesday morning. It's even more of a drive when you decide to take the scenic route through Ovalle and over the mountains direct to Vicuna, instead of the 5 Norte via La Serena. Still, it was worth the extra time and the 140km of single track dirt road with sheer drops to one side and goats running around trying to force you off the edge every now and again. The views were amazing the constant changes in the colour of the ground was interesting.

See- pretty.

We arrived late afternoon in Pisco Elqui, the last village in the valley with paved roads and a really gorgeous little place full of well-maintained adobe houses.

There's lots of accommodation around as well and we got lucky with the first place we tried. Los Datiles has pretty decent cabanas but the grounds and the garden are incredible, a real oasis of loveliness.

We didn't really do all that much apart hang out, relax and admire the stunning scenery. The green vines against the backdrop of the dry mountains, which look like cardboard cut-outs is just amazing.

But we did make it the 5 km down the road to Montegrande, birthplace of one of Chile's two Nobel Prize winners, Gabriela Mistral (the other being Pablo Neruda, obvio). The museum/house devoted to her is pretty poor but the Plaza and church are nice for a few minutes.

And a few more minutes down the road is the valley's only winery, Cavas del Valle (well, Falernia's also in Elqui but much closer to La Serena. The rest of the vines are all to make Pisco, for which the valley is famous). They make an interesting Syrah which I enjoyed enough to buy a bottle of and a couple of less than interesting whites, both of which I found to be almost undrinkable (although some people really like them). It's well worth a drop in as there are very few truly boutique wineries in Chile and they need to be supported.

We also spent a few hours in La Serena- a very pretty historic centre and a windy as hell beach.

That's Coquimbo giving La Serena the finger.

And that's about all for now.

Renaca Beach: Tsunami Debris

A couple of weekends ago I took the dogs for a walk along the beach in Renaca. The beach there is usually pretty clean with little drift wood or rubbish- it must be something to do with the geography of the bay...

This time, however, the beach was covered in debris...and it was sadly clear why. The tsunami that destroyed towns and villages along the coast in the 6th and 7th Regions was depositing what it had taken from them on beaches up and down the length of the country- pieces of people's homes, children's toys and whatever else floats...

Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine.

Well, I have been a really bad blogger of late. A mix of work and feeling like I just couldn't be bothered have meant I haven't posted for a long time. The latter feeling hasn't really gone away, to be honest, but as I've got nothing else to do at the present moment...

A couple of weeks ago I went down to Punta Arenas with a friend so we could go visit Torres del Paine National Park. This was my first trip down to Patagonia, having been no further than Chiloe before, and it was very last minute.

We arrived on a Tuesday afternoon in pouring rain. It was cold. I remarked, quite cheerfully, that 'it's just like England'. When it got dark, soon after, the remark changed to, 'My god, it's just like England. Gah!' My first impressions were not great.

Next day, however, there was a bit of sunshine and we went for a walk around town and to the awesome cemetery. Punta Arenas was settled by British, French, German and Italians. But it was the Croatians who really left their mark. Croatian business names abound and the cemetery is full of Croatian tombs.

From the cemetery there are fantastic views out across the Magellan Straights over to Tierra del Fuego.


Santo Popular, Indiecito




After the cemetery, we wandered to the town centre with the inevitable Plaza de Armas. This was when I realised that Punta Arenas is actually a pretty beautiful town. The architecture all around the plaza is gorgeous, all reflecting the European influence in the town's history. Some of the wrought iron work reminded me of Buenos Aires and the complete lack of graffiti made a refreshing change from the rest of Chile. Punta Arenas is also a very safe place to wander around at pretty much anytime of the day or night. If it weren't for the driving rain, wind and snow, it might be a pretty cool place to live...

I thought this place had been shut down by the US government.

On the Plaza



One of the architects who designed the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires also designed the theatre in Punta Arenas. Not quite so special, really.




If you touch the indio's foot, you'll be returning to Punta Arenas. Dan was very excited.




Punta Arena's most spectacular attraction: A pole.


Our lovely host, Crissa.


Rainbow Part I


Rainbow Part II

That afternoon we set off for Puerto Natales, the gateway town to Torres del Paine. The yellow pampas for the entire 3 hour bus ride get old quite quickly but the sky, which you feel as though you can actually touch it's so close, is a constant wonder. Also, back in 1978, Chile and Argentina came this close to war. The Chilean military laid mine fields and massed most of its forces, waiting for an Argentine attack that was only averted by the Pope getting involved. Argentina decided to attack the Falklands instead in 1982 to drum up nationalistic pride, but that didn't end very well for them.

Anyway, Argentina didn't invade Patagonia by force. It found a more insidious way of conquering Chile: through technology. I received the following text message whilst still deep inside Chilean territory.

Puerto Natales has a reputation of being nothing more than a jumping-off point to Torres del Paine but I quite liked the place. The views across the water are spectacular, there are some decent restaurants (in particular the incredibly good pizza place on the corner of the Plaza) and there's a very laid back feel to everything. Still, we left early the next morning.

On the way to the park, the yellow pampas slowly gave way to greenery and towering mountains. Guanacos and sheep intermingled and we passed a lake full of flamingoes. Out of nowhere, the Torres del Paine revealed themselves. The bus driver slammed his brakes on and suggested everyone get out and take a photo as we probably wouldn't see them again; bad weather was on its way. Oh.

The hostel workers said the same thing. So we set off immediately on the trek up to the viewing point. It's about a 4 hour hike up and 2 or so back down. We started off in sunshine. It didn't last. The wind picked up, it started to rain and I was forced to put my 400 peso hi-vis plastic mac on. It turned out to be the best 400 I ever spent as it kept me dry-ish until we hit the...snow on the last 45 minutes. That soaked through all my clothes and left me shivering until we arrived back at the hostel in the dark.

Lovely sunshine:

But, at the top, the view that greeted us was this:

Apparently, on a nice day it looks like this (from www.visitchile.com):

The painfully inevitable graffiti (that's all there is but still...)

Still, it was worth the hike. The views when the sun was out at the start were pretty cool and I needed the exercise. I'd fueled up by eating several lambs (best in South America but still not as good as NZ or Welsh lamb), pizza, crisps, chocolate milk and biscuits. I'd assumed we'd be doing at least 3 days hiking. We did just the one.

Next day, we decided to head back to Puerto Natales as the weather forecast was poor for the next few days. The early morning views of two of the three Torres was spectacular from the hostel, but it soon disappeared.

The following day, we set off on a boat tour to see a couple of glaciers. Dan was obsessed with the things for some reason and was very excited. Personally, I just see them as extremely slow moving rivers. However, the boat trip was very cool, the scenery was amazing and at the end of the day, I got to eat another couple of lambs.

Serrano Glacier

Balmaceda Glacier (just 20 years ago it reached all the way to the water)

Back in Punta Arenas later that night we headed out for Australs with Crissa. And then the next day we wandered around town a bit more, saw the sights and did what any self-respecting person does on a cold, wintry Sunday; cake and coffee.

And then we flew home. Patagonia, when the sun comes out, is stunningly beautiful. When it's cold, wet and windy it's like England on a December afternoon. Not so great. But not so bad when you're drinking in a warm pub.

Next stop: La Carretera Austral.