Lovely La Serena.

We arrived in La Serena in the very early hours of the morning, easily finding our hostel as it was just near the bus terminal. The owners of this hostel were a very welcoming and friendly family, setting us up to nap on the couch until their day started and our room would be ready.

We spent the first day orientating ourselves to the town. Which did not take long...the town center was just a few streets away, we had exhausted the sight seeing of the town center in a few hours. In the afternoon we thought we would head down to check out the beach. Again with the Humboldt current heading up the coast it was a bit of an overcast day. With no sun to warm us up we sat on the beach while Doodles contemplated going for a surf. After the sky had cleared a little in the afternoon, the rolling waves got the better of him and he headed out in a rented holey wetsuit and a long board. He got some waves, but soon the freezing cold water and strong currents got the better of him and was pooped within half an hour.



It felt so strange as we sat on the beach and watched the sun set over the water, it felt as though it was actually early morning after a dawn patrol surf, the sun rising and contemplating a tasty bacon and cheese meat pie with some tasty tomato sauce (Boos Boos was craving a fix) and an ice break. No such luck :)


One notable day, with Boos Boos in bed sick with a mega head cold that Doodles had so kindly given her and the pressure to blog mounting daily. We spent hours reminiscing about Japan and getting it all down on paper, well....in 1's and 0's. By the end we were a little stir crazy ready to punch each other in the face. Unfortunately in Chile, as in a lot of other places in the world this is "socially unacceptable" so we decided to go for a stroll. About a hundred meters down the road a stray dog decided to befriend us and follow us for the rest of our journey. This would be the start of a week long friendship, forever with The Simpsons on the brain (and drawing inspiration from Doodles recently acquired Los Simpsons T-shirt) we named the dog Homer. It wasn't until a few hours later when "he" had stopped in front of us to scratch one of those hard to reach places that we were forced to rename her Homeretta. From then on while out and about somehow Homeretta would find us and hang out with us, we weren't sure whether we smelt like food or whether it sensed we were white gringos that needed protecting. It even went as far as her waiting outside a restaurant while we had diner, then outside the movies for 2 1/2 hours. She was never aggressive towards us, but on that particular walk home she bailed a dodgy looking guy up against a fence when we were still 20meters behind. She was a legend!




Close to La Serena there is a small fishing town called Coquimbo which was built at the end of the beach and out onto a rocky headland. We had hired bikes for a few days and decided to ride along the beach front to check it out. Funnily enough we ran into Homeretta on the way and she took it upon herself to run along side us for the whole 25km round trip. The town of Coquimbo itself was pretty industrial but the rocky headland was amazing. Made up of a plethora of sandy coloured limestone crags (maybe - geology not our strong point...), and mostly covered in guano (bird poo for the uneducated ;)) it was a rock climbers/boulderers/rockhoppers dream. To our delightful surprise basking not fifty meters away from us was a giant, fat male sea lion (Boos Boos thought it was Doodles in a wetsuit for a moment :)) Having seen these things in zoos it was amazing to see them in their natural environment. Funnily enough Doodles was having a David Attenborough narrated vision of great white sharks chasing seals through the very waters he was surfing in yesterday.







We spent a few hours watching the sea lions and exploring the headland, there were even a few bolted climbing routes on some of the bigger faces. Would be an awesome trip for you climbers out there.


We had organised a local tour to take us north to the Resevar Penguin de Humboldt (Humboldt Penguin Reserve). After driving 2 hours north us and 11 others jumped into a significantly smaller boat than expected and headed off to 2 of the 3 islands in the reserve. One of the islands is impossible to land on by boat was teaming with wildlife, Humboldt penguins, albatross, a red beaked bird that could smash shells and eat the inside as its main source of food. There was also a bevy of sea lions and seals playing in and out of the water. The highlight of the trip though was when we spotted a giant pod of dolphins. No joking...GIANT!!! The size of the pod stretched over 500m long and 50m deep of large bottle-nose dolphins. It was hard to estimate but there was at least over 250 dolphins. Once we approached them in the boat they decided to check us out and proceeded to jump and play around us, it was incredible! We will put up some video of it soonish :) but here some pics.



The second island we were able to access and was extremely beautiful but due to human influence there was very little wildlife to be seen. Unfortunately Boos Boos + open sea + small boat = seasick. So she spent her time on the island laying on the beach trying to stop the bobbing in her head while Doodles went to explore the island. There was an awesome point break which has been added to the bucket of notes to surf.


Soon it was back to the main land for a menu del dia, then a bumpy trip back across the desert to La Serena.


In total we spent 7 days in La Serena but we had to get moving so jumped on a bus bound for Copiapo, 5 hours north. Arriving in Copiapo we sat down and realised that we would have to spend at least another 3 days in the area to see anything worth while. Since we had spent a fair bit of time in Chile already we jumped on a night bus and travelled another 13hours north east into the Atacama desert to San Pedro de Atacama just inside the Chile on the border of Bolivia.

Ciao

Peace and Love
Doodles and Boos Boos

Hectic Valpo!

Many people had told us (as well as the Lonely Planet) that the port town of Valparaiso was a must see, and is listed as a World Heritage site, so it was the most attractive next stop from Santiago as we made our way up the north coast of Chile.

Valparaiso or Valpo, is about 2hrs bus ride from Santiago, almost directly west on the coast. On the mention of buses, this is definatly something to be noted for anyone thinking of coming here.

To put it simply, the bus services in Chile blew us away. They are wicked. We definatly didnt expect this quality, more thinking of visions of us clinging desperately to the roof racks of a massively overloaded bus with chickens and goats jammed in impossibly small nooks and crannies... apparently thats what Bolivia is like :) But alas, the buses are deluxe, offering a multitude of different seat options - Classico being your pleb seat, 'Semi-Cama' (meaning Half-Bed), then Cama, then Executive - which is a full on bed which they serve beers and vino - shweeet!

Anyway enough on the bus rant - they are good ok! Arriving in Valpo the weather was pretty bad compared to Santiago, where its always sunny, and we soon found out that this is common on the coast, with the cold Humbolt Current and the hot land forming a hazy mist/cloud over the coast for about 20-30km inland. It does usually burns off in the afternoons though.

Immediate impression of Valpo was Hectic B-Man! After Santiago, which although is the biggest city, is quite well spaced and relaxed, this was crazy, heaps of people, dogs, micros (mini buses), taxis all vying for space - beeping and battling! Also it was apparent that we had to be pretty careful with our stuff, it didnt feel as safe here so we were pretty wary from the start.


Valpo is built on a big horseshoe shaped bay, with steep hills running up from the water. Our stay in Valpo didn't start well! We had booked a hostel which according to lonely plant was at the top of one of the hills, after trekking up we found no answer at the address we had. After sitting around for half an hour repeatedly bashing on the door, we decided just to find the closest hostel in the area, as by the stage we were getting pretty pissed off. We only stayed here one night as it was quite expensive so we decide to find somewhere else the next day - more on that later.


After our now mandatory siesta (:)) we spent the arvo cruisng around town, checking out the area and finding a spot for us to stay the next night, which ended up being the same place we had booked except the Lonely Planet was WRONG and gave us a dodgy address! negative!

The next day, we moved onto our next hostel, which was super cheap, run by students, and pretty grotty - students running a backpacker hostel speaks for itself really. The place itself was cool though, and there were a couple of circus trapese performars living there, so they had put up a full-on circus trapese setup in the middle of the main room - very cool.

Later we jumped on the metro to Vina Del Mar, which is 30min north of Valpo and was supposed to have some good beach action, which Doodles was hankering for after such a long time away from the ocean! Basically, these beaches were disgusting, rubbish everywhere, dog shit, dogs themselves and just generally not that great. We managed to find a semi ok spot, and Doodles proceeded to complete the Polar bear Challenge - swimming in boardies in what was the equivalent (for anyone back home who knows this means) to Kondallila Falls in winter... freezing! This fact was comfirmed when we saw a seal swimming past not minutes after Doodles got out of the water.... hmmm.

Doodles picked himself up a cheap classical guitar to further pester Boos Boos along the trip, and we headed back to Valpo for a menu del dia (fixed menu usually consisting of 3 courses and the cheapest and best way to eat here). Here's one for the HOP peoples back home - that night I (doodles) was sitting in the lounge room, drinking beer and reading when one of the trapese guys came home. Sorry Rory - but this guy puts even you to shame! He proceeded to do 50 straight pullups as a warm up, then flip all around the place on this trapese bar... insanely strong guy.

The next day was nice and clear, meaning we had a beautiful view of the bay and port, and felt more motivated to get out and check out the town more. The best thing about Valpo is definately the street art. This stuff is amazing - ranging from cool tags to full blown abstract murals - very impressive. here are some of the many that we got pics of:







Overall, we were pretty keen to get moving, and hadnt been that impressed with Valpo, so booked a night bus for that night heading north 7 hours to La Serena, which we had heard was more chilled, and have some good surf for Doodles.

On the bus at 10.40pm, recline that sweet sweet Semi-Cama - La Serena here we come.

Peace and Love
Doodles and Boos Boos

Hola Santiago!

After a brief foray back in Australia, to ditch our suitcases, snowboards and cold weather gear in exchange for our backpacks with a few clothes, thongs and mossie repellent we caught a plane to out of Brissie bound for Santiago, Chile.

After a quick stop in Auckland and 16 hours in the air, we landed in Santiago and quickly saw the damage to the airport as a result of the earthquake. Our fatigue got the better of us and we decided to take up one of the many drivers offers' for a taxi ride to the city, despite the fact the bus was cheaper. Boos Boos was thoroughly examining the drivers ID and the taxi to ensure he wasn't a fraud who would take us to the bush and murder us. Luckily he had minimal homicidal tendencies and arrived safely in Santa Lucia. The first hour was quite an experience trying to navigate to our hostel unable to speak any useful Spanish and Boos Boos vomiting into a plane spew bag, because of some dodgy plane food. Hilarious! (thought Doodles :)) Welcome to South America!

We found our hostel in the end, a little three story family owned place close to the metro called the Green House. Needless to say we crashed out.

We had heard back in Australia that Red Cross were taking volunteers to help with aid relief for the earthquake. So after some classy charades and dodgy broken spanish we made our way to the headquarters where we were quickly ushered into a car and told we would be helping unload a supply plane at the local airforce base. We were taken first to a sports hall which was set up as a supply base to load up trucks which were heading south.

The temporary supply base.

One of many "guard" dogs around the place - Boos Boos was in love...

It was quickly becoming apparent that our lack of spanish might be becoming an issue. As the Chileans speak incredibly fast and with what is called lazy spanish, chopping of the last half of words meaning even if you are fluent its hard to understand. After a few hours of us sitting on our asses for a couple hours eating lunch they provided we headed out to the Air Force Base to find the supplies. This in its self was an adventure. It was pretty amazing standing right next to the runway, with helicopters, jets and cargo transport planes parked near by. After a few more hours of standing around they realised that the supplies were actually sent to another area. So we were loaded into the cab of a mack truck along with four other Chileans in what was a unique, bumpy, slow ride over to the new cargo area. Getting out of the truck we were told we were coming back tomorrow, so then taken back in a car to the headquarters with promises that there would be work tomorrow. This was our first experience of Chilean time...

The second saw us back out at the cargo bay and it certainly made up for the previous day of slacking. After loading two full semi-trailers worth of supplies with 20 other Chileans in what surely had to be the worlds most inefficient loading process. We were pretty stuffed.

We had organised the previous night to go out with a couple of Ecuadorian medical students in an area called Barrio Bellavista. Needless to say it was a huge night, combined fatigue and jet lag we slept for pretty much the next day and a half.

On the friday night we went out with Gustavo, a local guy that we met at the Red Cross who had lived in Australia for 20 years and spoke good English. Doodles had mentioned that he was a metal fan so he decided he would take us out to metal bar. Which turned out to be like an metal bar back home, Boos Boos loved it...NOT! Still feeling ordinary we kept it relatively tame. The next day our distinct lack of spanish came to a head. We were planning on going to a small beach town called Zapallar but upon ringing to book accommodation, we realised that we were completely out of our depth and the majority of our side of the conversation consisted of 'No intiendo' (I don't understand)

Gustavo had told us of an Australian friend of his who runs a hostel across the city called La Casa Roja (the red house). Upon doing some research we realised that they provide one or two week intensive Spanish courses. This is exactly what we wanted and booked ourselves into a one week course with our new Spanish teacher - Jesus! Too put is simply Jesus is cool, he is a rock climber, push bike enthusiast and a great teacher who started the first lesson with 'From this point forward we speak in Spanish' and off he went. The classes consisted of 5 days of 4 hours each, from 10-2pm, meaning we had the afternoons free to chill by the pool, play ping pong, drink cerveza and do our homework.

One thing that you notice about Chile are the dogs. They are every where and so it their shit. Rule 1 of walking in Chile: Watch your step! Or you will be living in a dog poo extravaganza.

Santiago is a pretty nice city, always sunny intersected by a rushing river - caused by ice melt off the near by Andes which provide a dynamic back drop around the city. We spent several afternoons lazying in the many parks (being sure to check for poo before we sat down!)




A key landmark in Santiago is San Cristobal, as simplified by Doodles - Mary Hill. This is small mountain topped with a giant marble statue of the Virgin Mary. The majority of Chileans are Catholic and many ascend the hill daily to light a candle at her feet.



The hill is a bushwalker and mountain bikers dream, riddle with tracks and for the more slovenly (such as ourselves) there is a cable car the runs up one side. One afternoon Doodles decided to go visit Mary on foot, four hours later ended up circumnavigating the hill not even making it to the top.




We had planned to head out of Santiago immediately after our lessons had finished, but heeding the advice of Jesus, we stayed in the city while everyone else pilgrimaged to the coast.

After a weekend of chilling, losing pathetically to the poms in ping pong (Vasiles our Englo-Grecian fellow disciple of Jesus), we jumped on a bus to the coastal town of Valparaiso early Monday morning. Eager for some beach action! One thing to note - on the last night, we felt our first (and hopefully last) earthquake, only lasting for 10 seconds or so, and not very large, but still enough to make streams of dust fall from the ceiling and remind you that Chile sits on the edge of a continental crust.

Also, we got some pics of some damaged building in the city - check it out:


Peace and Love
Doodles and Boos Boos

Tokyo

There were mixed feelings arriving in Tokyo: sadness that it was our last stop, happiness that we didn't have to drag our big heavy bags around anymore and excitement and anticipation that we would be seeing our families in no time, then jetting off to South America soon after. We kept telling ourselves to live in the now and plunged head first into exploring Tokyo.

Boos Boos had not been to Tokyo before so she was quite overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. First order of call was Shibuya, that famous intersection riddled with a bevy of giant billboards each screaming at you to buy this product or that.



We spent a few hours cruising some bars and doing what we aptly named a 'food crawl'. It ended a little earlier than expected at a Japanese Bourban Bar where after a couple of long island iceteas, macadamia and watermelon lacquer shots we realised we had run out of money. It was 10pm, all post offices were closed and no ATM's were available that would take our cards. We weren't ready to finish the night yet so made a mad dash back to Shinagawa where our hotel room held the sweet cashola bounty. Not half an hour later we were back at Shibuya hankering for some Burger King, and where we discovered you could get a beer or whiskey highball with your meal deal...Excellent! Over a boozalicious burger we decided the logical next step was alas - Karaoke.




Understandably there were no shortage of opportunities, so we chose 'Big Voice Karaoke'. We were quickly ushered into our private room and realised the beauty of Karaoke in Japan, and why they love it so much. You don't have to subject a crowd to your terrible drunken wailing, crutch grabbing and head banging. But instead have a little room to yourself, thousands of songs to choose from and the ability to order food and drinks over the phone while sitting on a couch. There were a few revelations that night, the main ones being Boos Boos is severely tone deaf and Doodles hilarious attempts at gangsta rap sounds suspiciously like Snopp Dogg on ICE! They booted us out around 2am when we realised the subway had stopped at 1am we had an interesting time trying to describe to the overly expensive cabbie where we were staying.

The next day we hit Shinjuku for some shopping and edibles before heading back to Shibuya that night for a further 6 hours straight karaoke. Yes, we know, that is a lot but were addicted!

On our last day we went to some markets that followed a train line, where there were more shoes than you can poke a stick at and Boos Boos finalised her present shopping. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Akihabara Electric Town, where we drooled over some sexy digital SLR's.



Alas our time in Japan had come to an end, we packed our bags for the last time and made our way out to the Narita airport for our over night flight back home. It had been an amazing month filled with experiences we will never forget!

Sayonara Japan!

Peace and Love
Doodles and Boos Boos