Half a world away

Well, we’ve come to the end of our whistle-stop tour of central Chile on the Patchmamma (Earth-Mother) bus and have learned that sea lions smell very bad and do a mean impersonation of the Bud commercial - Whatssuuup!, Flamingos are not so pink; dolphins make you want to commune with nature; and Chile still has quite active volcanoes and has miles and miles and miles of very deserted desert.

We set off on Sat 21st with 11 other backpackers with whom we have talked an amazing amount of b******* over some seriously cheap and tasty wine. The hostels have varied in quality, but special mention goes to La Serena for fluffy toilet-seat covers and pelmets/curtain ties in the shower.

In Coldana we explored a deserted train yard with steam trains that were used to transport nitrates. Cue 11 grubby big kids returning to the bus after clambering over, in, through steam trains, engines and funnels.

The nitrate industry fluctuated and, when there was no longer any call for it, they moved entire towns out of the desert and towards the coast. However, they could not move the cemeteries and we visited one that remains. Unfortunately, there is a legend that there is gold buried in one of the graves (to hide it from people who looted the church) and so several of the graves have been smashed open. You can still see the bodies inside that have been preserved pretty well by the hot, arid conditions.

The Chileans are very proud of their mummies and are keen to point out that they were doing it much earlier than the Egyptians. You can also see pointy skulls in the museum at San Predro. The different tribes shaped the skulls with bindings at a young age to differentiate them from different tribes.

We saw the most amazing sunset at the Lunar Valley, but I’m sure you’ll get to hear so much more about sunsets over the next year so we’ll move on.

We’ve been resting up in Arica for a few days now after finding a hostel that is a self-proclaimed “Party House” with no ******* scheduled breakfast or curfew. Roberto (hostel owner and all-round party animal) hosted an impromptu BBQ and nightclub expedition on our arrival. Chileans certainly do love the Village People…

What’s the best thing about Chile?, I hear you ask. Is it the majestic volcanoes that fringe the vast salt flats? Is it the 10,000 year-old mummies that pre-date the Egyptians by 5,000 years? Is it the never-ending golden beaches made up of white, dust-fine sand and iron pyrite? No, no and, again, no. It is that finest of epicurean delights, the empañada.

No matter where the exhausted British traveller lays down his moist-rimmed Panama, whither he lifts a crooked little finger as he supports a cup of Earl Grey, wherever he lays his clean-shaven cheek; he shall never be further than half a furlong from the nearest empañada stall.

Empañada – basically a deep-fried pasty. Always containing cheese of the lowest calibre, but often packed with the finest floor-sweepings of porky goodness. Ginsters have missed a trick by not thinking to drop their products into the cheapest vegetable oil to give them that final, artery-damming flourish of toothsomeness. Mmm-mmm, them’s tasty, my friends.

Aside from the occasional (by which I mean “almost daily”) trip to the empanada stall, we are trying to keep a little healthy. We haven’t cooked for ourselves as much as we should, but we do get in a bit of walking, sometimes at altitude, every day. And, since we arrived in Arica, we’ve tried to play Frisbee in the surf for a while.

Our Castillian is improving by tiny amounts. Yesterday, we noted with some amusement that the Spanish word for ‘wait’, esperar, is also their word for ‘hope’. Anyone who’s ordered food in a Latin-American restaurant, will recognise the irony.

Tonight is Hallow’een. It is also our host Roberto’s birthday. An ominous amount of rum has arrived at the hostel. We have been advised to rest to save our strength for tonight’s celebrations, which bodes. We’ll let you know how our livers fare in the next installment.

More photos soon, promise.