Good Moods, TV & New Project

*I posted this over on Colchaguino first but realise I've neglected this blog even more so I'm re-posting here as well. But to make it more relevant to Valpo, I've added an old photo. :) *

See- old photo. Don't you wish Valpo still looked like this?

As anyone who has been following this blog for a while can tell, I haven't really been in the mood to post much over the last year or so. I just really haven't had the desire or energy. I think I'd been in a low-level bad mood for so long, it became my reality and I didn't realise why I felt so low on energy and general bounciness. Not that I've ever been particularly demonstrative...I did go to boarding school in England, after all. Trying to get me to show any emotion at all is something that has driven some past girlfriends to the edge of insanity. :)

After my short trip to Colombia, I feel completely different. My good mood is almost tangible. It's really strange...it's like a physical change. I'm feeling positive about work for the first time since the earthquake hit my business really quite hard (that's www.chileinvestments.com in case you haven't worked it out), I'm feeling positive about living in Chile and I'm loving calling Colchagua 'home'. There's a really great little community here and I'm starting to feel like a real part of it now. That's a nice feeling. And I've rented a small flat in Parque Forestal, Santiago to spend time there when I need a change of scenery (get in touch if you want to meet up for a drink or something- I've never lived in Santiago so don't actually know many people there!).

Something I thought might throw me out of my good mood was what I was doing all weekend. I filmed an episode of a wildly popular real estate show in the US and around the world that I'm contractually obliged to be positive about... :) I thought that a weekend of filming would drive me insane, but it was actually a lot of fun.

The crew were a real laugh and my clients were great as well (I won't mention who right now as she doesn't seem to have mentioned it on her blog so perhaps doesn't want anyone to know...). Anyway, both her and her husband are really fun and I had a fun time with them (despite helping her buy her place a while ago, I did so remotely and we only met for the first time very recently.)

So the show will air in January in the US, most likely, and then in Chile later in the year I guess. I'll let you know.

And finally, I haven't knocked any walls down recently (maybe that's why I haven't been particularly happy?)...but my drought is soon to come to an end. I've just bought a flat overlooking Parque Forestal (around the corner from the place I'm renting). It's a big renovation job and there are two walls that just have to go. I can't wait to get started...hopefully within 2-3 weeks. The plan for this property is to renovate to a really high standard, furnish it luxuriously and then rent it out to tourists, aiming for the high-end hotel market but providing a far better product at a much lower price. Mid-November we should be good to go. Here are some photos...

The 1960s building.

The view of the park is fantastic.

The little, unusable balcony will be incorporated into the living room by getting rid of the first set of sliding doors (see later photos) and replacing the nasty aluminium outer doors with fancy double glazed ones.

And I also like the street view going the other way.

Master bedroom (looks smaller in the photos than it actually is, although it's still not huge- the 2 bedroom apartment is 85m2 total).

Second bedroom.

The wall on the right will go, which will open up the maid's room (next photos), creating a 30m2 open kitchen, dining and living room.

And this wall in the middle...it'll move to the right in line with the door frame, linking up next to that window you see. That'll open up the toilet, which will be converted into the kitchen (also all along the wall on the left). The kitchen will then become a large bathroom.

Lovely carpets, eh? Happily, underneath is the original parquet floor.

Yey, renovations! I've really missed you.

For photos about my previous renovations, take a look at my old Valparaiso house and my house here in Santa Cruz...

Colombia II: Bogota

As I mentioned before, I had originally planned to spend my entire time in Colombia lounging on a beach doing nothing. I used to love lounging on a beach doing nothing. Turns out, I've kind of grown out of that habit.

After my first 24 hours in Taganga, I knew I wouldn't last more than a few days without going insane. Perhaps if I lived in a city, like I used to, I would have enjoyed the peace and quiet a little more. But I think that the rather tranquil Colchagua Valley has made me see a relaxing holiday as one which involves noise, people and stress.

Now that's not to say I didn't enjoy my beach time. I really, really did. But I just get bored quicker than I used to when doing nothing.

So after chatting to a few people, I decided to change my ticket and head to Bogota for a few days. Well, I didn't change my ticket. I bought a new one with a different airline. Lan's absurd exchange policy meant that this was about us$200 cheaper (the flight cost about us$90).

I arrived in Bogota knowing almost nothing whatsoever about the city. I hadn't planned on going, I had no guide book and I had very little clothing suitable for the permanent Spring weather (due to Bogota being about 2600m above sea-level). I'd booked a cheap room in a cheap hotel and arrived around lunchtime. I didn't really know what to do with myself so I grabbed a taxi, asked to be taken to the Centro Historico and asked what there was to do in Bogota. The driver's enthusiastic response to his hometown made me happy I'd come.

After a short wander, I decided to phone a friendly Colombian girl I'd met in Taganga. She'd given me her number and offered to show me around Bogota if I ever went after we'd got chatting in a restaurant on my first day . I'm pretty sure she did so safe in the knowledge I had no plans at all to go to Bogota at the time. Ha. Little did she know that this is a common tactic of mine- meet a local, wheedle their number out of them and then turn up unannounced asking to be shown around town. "Surprise! It's the annoying Englishman from the beach/plane/bar/supermarket/restaurant/hike/medical convention (don't ask). Drop whatever you're doing and come be my tourist guide." I've made long-term friends in some odd places over the years.

As chance would have it, Daniela was less than 5 minutes walk away at the time and even remembered who I was so we met up in front of the cathedral on Plaza Bolivar, the city's main square in the heart of the Centro Historico. It looks like this:

This second photo was taken in a moment of rare sunshine.

Even luckier was that she was currently on holidays from her studies and had loads of free time to be my personal tour guide. Lucky for me, that is. Not so much for her- she was stuck with this ingles mañoso for the entire weekend (my back was playing up and I was whingeing a lot).

However, despite having lived in Bogota for over two years, Daniela's knowledge of the city was, well, really quite poor. She'd never done anything touristy. Which meant neither of us really knew what to do, apart from wander around looking at the pretty stuff.

And the Centro Historico is bursting with pretty stuff. Most of the Colonial buildings have been renovated, there are bars, restaurants and cafes all over the place and there are some brilliant museums. This is what Valpo would look like if it didn't have a thieving, corrupt Municipalidad running the show.

Look:

And look at this gorgeous Church- so cool:

And the museums...there are 3 all together within the same complex just up from the Plaza. La Moneda with its history of Colombian money (more interesting than it sounds), a really good art gallery and, finally, the best of the lot- the Botero collection. I love Botero. To me, art should provoke a reaction. So much of what is considered 'fine art' leaves me cold. I look at it, scrunch my eyes up, put on a serious face, put my jaw in my hand and feel absolutely nothing.

Botero has always made me laugh and smile. His art is fun. Here are a few examples:

(this is the Mona Lisa, in case you hadn't noticed)

The Botero museum houses the artist's private collection that he donated to the nation. Not just his own paintings, but some fantastic pieces by other artists, including Picasso, Henry Moore, Joan Miro and others. I can recommend a visit to Bogota just to see this, and the other two museums, alone.

Oh, and it's all FREE. How cool is that? The museums are run and maintained by the Banco de la Nacion. More info here.

On one of the days I was in town, the Plaza Bolivar was taken over by a gigantic farmers' market to promote local and indigenous agriculture- most of which seemed to revolve around plantains, tangerines and unripe strawberries, although there was other stuff as well. Actually, there's a supermarket chain that sells predominately fruit. I wish I'd had my camera when I went in as there was so much variety of tropical fruit, much of which I'd never seen or heard of before. Some of it was so big I was able to imagine an end to famine in overpopulated Asian nations.

In the end, I only stayed in the cheap hotel for one night. It wasn't well located and the mattress was actually harder than the floor. Believe me, I tested.

I decided that I should splurge and get somewhere decent in the area in which I'd be going out at night, so I moved to the Hotel Virrey Park (horrible website music alert) a little to the north, just around the corner from the Zona T, Zona Rosa and Parque de la 93, the main nightlife areas. It wasn't too expensive, around us$100 a night. For the location and quality, I actually think that it was a bit of a steal. It's more than I'd usually spend on a hotel, but it was a short time and I wanted to enjoy myself. And I'm old enough to justify not being a scuzzy backpacker anymore.

Nightlife in Bogota is really fun. This part of town is kind of like a mix of Vitacura in Santiago and Palermo Viejo in Buenos Aires. The former because it's all new, shiny, safe and packed with good-looking people of both sexes and the latter due to the style and design of the bars and restaurants. This is a really good mix. Even better is that every place I went to beat both cities for service and style.

The food was also good, better than most of what's on offer in BsAs (apart from the steak, obvio po). And it's about 10-25% cheaper than going out in the equivalent neighbourhoods in both Santiago and BsAs. I was a particular fan of the Bogota Beer Company, a micro-brewery gone large, with pubs all over the city. They have real beer in real pint glasses and the decor is a half-decent approximation of an English pub. I mean, you're not going to think you're down the White Hart, but for someone like me who really misses the whole concept of 'The Pub', it worked well enough.

Apart from the museums, wandering around and going out, I managed to drag Daniela out for another day of turisteando and we headed up The Big Hill, just outside of the Centro Historico. (I'm pretty sure it's not called 'The Big Hill' but I never found out its name and for some reason would rather maintain the mystery). The Big Hill is really similar to Cerro San Cristobal in Santiago- there's a cable car or funicular to take you up and down and a load of religious stuff at the top. The views on a clear day (ha, good luck) would be great. On a cloudy day, they were still pretty cool. You can see about half the city of 7 million inhabitants from up there.

If you go, don't get up too early. They only run the cable car after 2pm so we had to take the boring funicular up and down instead. Silly me for wanting to get out and do something with my Saturday.

That's about all. You can probably tell I rather enjoyed my time in Bogota. I think much of that had to do with hanging out with someone who lived there and being able to talk about the city, ask questions about the country and generally get a little more insight into things than if I'd just hung out and got drunk with a bunch of foreigners I'd met 10 minutes beforehand in a hostel. That second option can be fun, but it can also get old pretty quickly.

So, I've been wondering if I'd go back to Bogota. There aren't all that many cities that I've enjoyed enough to want to go back and repeat. Buenos Aires, Paris, NYC and San Francisco are the only ones out of the many I've visited that have really got under my skin. I think Bogota is pretty close to that but not quite there. I think I'd go back if I got the chance, but perhaps wouldn't make a special plan to do so. I don't know...I'm kind of on the fence with Bogota. Maybe I should give it another go and see which side I end up on. It would definitely be a fun experiment.

If you're planning a trip, though, I would absolutely suggest Bogota and Colombia in general as a fantastic holiday destination. Don't believe the hype about the dangers. Colombia is, generally, a safe place to visit and I certainly didn't feel any less secure than in, for example, Argentina, where I lived for 3 years without a single problem (I think Chile is safer than both, mainly due to the fact there are very few guns here). It is way, way safer than Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. I'm sure there are areas of the country that are sketchy but in the places I went, I felt absolutely safe at all times.

That's it. Back to reality, normality and Winter. I arrived back in Chile more tired physically than when I left. The weekend in Bogota really took it out of me. But I am definitely less tired mentally and emotionally. I really needed a break from my life in Chile to help me put some things into perspective, forget about work and make a fresh start with some stuff that's been bugging me. The trip did its job and I've returned refreshed and relaxed.

That really doesn't often happen with me. I can't usually switch off. So, thanks, Colombia. It was fun.

Caribbean Coast, Colombia: A La Orden

I’m posting this on Corrugated City and Colchaguino as I haven’t updated either for a long while, just to prove that I am still alive.

I’ve just got back from Colombia.

Over the past few years, I’ve travelled quite a lot- England, France, the US, Argentina several times…but I haven’t had what I call a real holiday- relaxing, doing nothing or doing something or doing both at the same time- since going to Brazil 5 years ago. After the stress of the earthquake in February, seeing all the destruction and nightmare living situations for a lot of people (and setting up a charity to help the worst affected in Colchagua has been even more stressful than the actual event itself), finding myself living on my own with 4 animals and trying to get through this colder than normal Winter, I really, really, really needed a break.

So 3 weeks ago, I just Googled ‘beaches, Colombia’ and ended up buying a ticket to Santa Marta, without really knowing what I was letting myself in for.

To get the negative part out of the way first, Santa Marta is only ok. It’s nothing really special. The beach is pretty crappy. There’s not much to the town apart from a small (but pretty and well-preserved) Centro Historico.

And that’s the negative done.

On the positive side, Colombia is absolutely awesome. I think speaking Spanish completely changed my experience. Last time I travelled around, almost 7 years ago, my Spanish was basic and everything was a bit of a struggle. I’d walk past a couple of girls in the street and hear this…

“Gjhmsou gringo blahrio smurpado gringo mupppsharekhou skewehah hahahahahahaha”

…and my brain would translate it all to:

“Oooh, look, a gringo, I’m going to call my brother around the corner and get him to mug the stupid gringo, beat him half to death and steal his kidneys hahahahahaha.”

This would make me feel uncomfortable.

But this time, I was able to understand what people were saying. And it turns out that what almost everyone was really saying was:

“Oooh, look at the gringo. He’s gorgeous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a finer looking human being. That’s one hell of a good-looking gringo. I want to take him home and make him tomate de arbol juice until he just explodes with happiness. Hahahahahahaha”

This made me a little uncomfortable too- I’m quite humble - but uncomfortable in a happy way. And I do love tomate de arbol juice.

Also, speaking Spanish enabled me to pick out words and phrases particular to Colombia. That was impossible a few years ago- it was all just new vocab to me, I couldn’t tell the difference between accents or local dialects. Having lived in Argentina, Ecuador and Chile, I now can.

Colombian Spanish is lovely, particularly in the north, along the coast where the accent is kind of laid back. Vowel sounds are elongated and 'Js' are semi-optional. Trabaaa'o, vieeee'o. Watch a Colombian or Venezuelan telenovela and you'll notice.

I also really enjoyed hearing ‘A la orden’ all the time, meaning “What would you like?”, “How can I help?” or “You’re welcome”, depending on context. It seemed formal, but friendly at the same time.

Other little words that spring to mind…the weather in Santa Marta was ‘sabroso” (tasty) and everything else in the world is either ‘chevere’ (cool) or ‘tenaz’ (bad, but also good depending on context. Kind of like saying ‘fierce’, if anyone uses that word anymore. Do they? I don’t really know, I've lived too long away from the English speaking world.)

And finally, contrary to what I’d been told repeatedly- that this word is only used in Spain- Colombians love to ‘coger’ public transport and various other things. Childish fun. Yey!

Anyway, after just a night in Santa Marta, I moved 15 minutes away to Taganga, a backpackers haven in a tiny fishing village. Again, the beach there isn’t really all that great but I enjoyed my stay in Taganga. I found a private room for about us$10, met some nice foreigners, drank a lot of beer, ate a lot of fried fish, drank a lot of mango and tomate de arbol juice and had fun chatting to the natives too.

Set lunch for about us$6:

Ahhh, the natives. Really friendly, really gorgeous and really approachable. If you’re single, I would suggest that Colombia is the place to be, for both boys and girls. Of course, I was only interested in talking- pure political insight is what I was after.

I also spent a day and a night in Parque Tayrona, a national park with pristine beaches about a 60 minute boat ride away. The trip was a bit rough and, as I woke up late and got on last, I had to sit right at the front of the boat. When we started hitting waves, I got slung about a fair bit and ended up with a monster bruise on my thigh (look away now if you don’t want to see my bruised thigh).

And the boat ride that caused it:

But it was worth it. I only went to the main beach as I was feeling lazy, but that was gorgeous. You can sleep in hammocks there or hire a tent (I did the tent). It was a fun day or so.

Hammock tower:

Beaches:

Cost-wise, for tourism, Colombia is probably about 10-20% cheaper than Chile. Both food and accommodation are this much less. But, as with anywhere, you can spend as much or as little as you like. Having had my trip back to England in March cancelled last minute because of the earthquake, I had some cash to spare and didn't really skimp on anything. I only had 10 days or so, so spending a bit more here and there wasn't going to make much difference.

And safety and security- both Santa Marta and Taganga are really safe. Police everywhere, friendly locals who never gave me the impression I was getting ripped off for anything. It was really nice to be able to relax.

The funny thing was, before I booked the trip, I was convinced that all I wanted to do was lie on a beach on my own, doing absolutely nothing. I spent several weeks doing just that in South-East Asia about 10 years ago and loved it. That was my plan for the whole 11 day trip. But it turns out that I get all the alone time I need in Colchagua, and after a couple of days, I was a-hankering for some stuff. Like people, noise, museums and bars. Particularly bars. So I changed my ticket and headed to Bogota for 4 days. A good decision as it turned out…

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...