The Indigenous Stand : Arequipa : Sat 29th March

If possible, Saturday is even hotter than Friday. The hostel is surprisingly quiet given its size, people seem to be hidden away somewhere. Never mind, whilst we sit and email this morning a chap appears, asks if we're from Derry, then falls asleep on the balcony in a hungover haze. Uncommonly uncivilised for Arequipa.

Saturday is football day, and we are off to see FBC Melgar play Lima's Universidad San Martin. With my fondness for teams that play in red and black (Crusaders, Flamengo, anything vaguely anarchistic) Melgar fit the bill. We wander around the town beforehand and I buy a charming scarf made of the wool from a baby alpaca. Y'all know my love of scarves. We drop it home and we start on our walk to the stadium. The sun is beating down on us and Arequipa town centre is chock-a-block with traffic for some unknown reason. Why is traffic always slow for some reason the naked eye cannot perceive? When you make it down the creeping motorway to whatever event has caused the cars to slow to first gear, there's never anything there. Its bizarre. I think sometimes car drivers just enjoy driving slowly and taking out their frustrations on other drivers. Anyway, Arequipa rings with car horns. We walk down Alto De La Luna, past the mercado and through the very untouristic unofficial town centre, where small shops sell rope and Inca Cola and dried beans and corn, little old women sit on the side of the road and sew, and every so often a working girl makes kissy noises from someone just a little out of the corner of your eye. Its busy with life but, unlike Chile, it feels earthy rather than sleazy, not dangerous so long as we keep our wits about us. Besides, we just walk to the end of this street in the daylight and thats Calle Venezuela. The stadium is right there.

Sure enough, a 45 minute walk from the hostel has us outside the stadium. I've bought a fake football shirt for $18 soles, a silly 4 quid. Outside the gates we get stopped by not one, but TWO, tv crews and I am interviewed twice. FBC Melgar is 99 years old this year, and everyone is feeling pretty cheerful about it. The stadium itself is quite big from the outside, but inside it reveals itself. El Misti, the volcano shadowing the whole city, looms over the stands, and as the game goes on the clouds roll in and shroud the peak. The stadium is the typical athletics track / football pitch combo, and the field looks healthy for a stretch of grass being baked close to the sun. We've good seats, within 10 minutes of kick off the sun has dropped back behind the roof and we aren't under the same UV pressure. Melgar are a surprisingly good side, and the game is entertaining, though Sarah spends a lot of it people-watching, until I hear her squeak 'COME ON!' at some point in the second half. It finishes 2-0 to Melgar, just as I told the TV crews. We have our first queso helado, which tastes a lot like a tiramisu creme caramel, as the red and black flags wave overhead, and the crowd throws our matching balloons for the start of the match. One end of the stadium is deserted, the opposite end is half full but houses the Ultras, who have a complete drumkit by the sound of it, and make a racket for 90 minutes. Our stand is pretty busy, but the opposite is populated almost entirely by indigeous Peruvians, which makes for a curious site. They aren't adverse to screaming and shouting at the players and referee either.

Afterwards we wander back towards the centre, stopping into a courtyard for lunch. In the age-old tradition, anything that Sarah  could eat is sold out, so she has to settle for a plate of chips whilst I tuck into a platter of fried calamari and ceviche. For those with their heads in their sand, Peruvian cuisine is on top of the world right now, and ceviche is king dish. At its most simplistic, its raw fish pickled in lime juice, but as you'd imagine from that description, the dish is entirely dependent on its freshness, and easily manipulated into different tastes with the simple addition of herbs. My first taste will absolutely not be my last. I had anticipated ceviche as being strong-smelling and heavy, God knows why, as it is light and refreshing, and very very moreish.

We make our way to the Plaza De Armas, and check out more alpaca shops as we search for a reasonable bar to spend an hour or so. No such luck, but we make do with a little cafe selling organic chocolate and craft beer. My stout from Huaraz in Peru is pretty good, but Sarah's IPA from Lima at 8% is a head-wrecker. The chocolate is superb too, and we sign up for chocolate-making classes for Sunday evening.

Back at the hostel, its a very quiet evening of billiards, a beer or two, and catching up on emails, with The Pelican Brief stuck on the end as well. Its been about 20 years since I read that, and nearly as long since I've seen it! The hostel is completely deserted, so either everyone is out getting drunk and dancing (as seems to be the habit in Peru) or they've all gotten out of town.

PS - for all those wondering about the sudden lack of photos, I'm doing my best to sort that out, but with an actual computer to upload things to, its mighty difficult getting anything rom camera to blog. But I'm working on it.

"Red Meat Is Evil! Don't Eat Red Meat!". We Eat Red Meat : Tacna & Arequipa : Thurs 27th March

It's the first time I've willingly gotten out of bed before 7am and felt ok about it. The sun is streaming in like its 10am. There's barely any noise from traffic yet, though I don't doubt the city is alive and on its way to work. This is Arequipa, Peru.

You can't really understate how happy we are to be here. We arrived in Chile on 13th Feb and left on 27th Mar. 42 days. 7 weeks. So much longer than we had wanted, so much more money spent than we had to spend (for reasons fair and foul).

Our last night in Chile was spent in Arica. I felt like I gave it a bit of a bad rap, for as we left the city we had a glimpse of the coastline, and sure enough it sported a fine long beach. But by that stage we had paid our bill, eaten an excellent breakfast courtesy of the hostel's owners, packed and escaped.

Border towns are almost always the same. A whole bunch of people trying to make money out of you crossing to another country. They know that they have to be the first one to get to you with a reasonable plan and, fingers crossed, it sounds simple enough and at a price you'll pay that you go with it. Wonderful in theory in two circumstances; when you don't care how you get there, and when you already have a very specific plan on how to get there.

The reality is a maelstrom of competition for your hard earned money, guys appearing from the shadows and shouting names of towns and cities at you. Not great when you've already a bit paranoid about your stuff. Sarah deduces that we should head down the road from the Rodoviaria and, sure enough, we find the international bus terminal.

It's a little like being in Peru already, ragged but working due to the efficiency of a few chaps whose job it is to get folk from A to B. Warily we hand over passports to the driver, load our bags, buy departure tax slips (about 30p each to get out of town), hand over $2000, and away we go, us and 50 Chileans heading to the duty-free zone in Tacna, the first town across the border.

Getting into Peru wasn't any more difficult than anywhere else. The Chilean PDI signed and stamped us out, the Peruvian Nacional Policia stamped us in. The bus was thoroughly searched, an experience we would relive several times that day. Welcome to CocaineVille boys and girls, smuggling is real.

We have the pleasure of a man trying to sell cure-all pills on the bus as it races through the desert to Tacna. This is not how I envisaged Peru. I had, for some reason, though the edge of the Atacama Desert would make a natural boundary between the two countries. Clearly not. First impressions are misleading however.

We had already decided to stay away from Tacna, as it doesn't hold much for the backpacker. Good decision, it turns out, as the place looked for all purposes like a dump. What we expected, of course, but its always a little surprising to see the shacks on the edge of town tied together with string, made from pallets and dark coloured cloth stretched over the exterior to provide shelter from the desert winds. They go on forever. The rubbish is scattered throughout the wilderness. Humanity is pretty depressing sometimes. The international bus station is an extension of this, a huge room with 30 money changers at one end all beckoning you on (we had crossed the border without cash, so a bank machine was required), a really dodgy bank machine, and an endless stream of humans trying to get money from you, with taxis to everywhere in the world on offer. We get a map of the town; the banks are a taxi ride away. We figure there's a chance the bus company we want to book with will take a debit card, so we exit sharpish and head down the road half a block to the Terminal Terrestre.

What a difference a lack of tourists makes! The terminal is civilised by comparison, just a regular bus station with little kiosks selling empanadas and Inca Cola (more on that later), the odd guy shouting out a destination, and plenty of bus company booths selling tickets all over the country. We make a beeline to the Flores assistant, and two minutes later have two tickets to Arequipa, just less than a fiver each for a five hour (plus stops) journey. Thats more like it. Half an hour to departure, we sit down and restock our supplies. Firstly I extract Peruvian Nueve Soles from a more reputable bank machine. The Sol is about 4.6 to the  pound right now, and we shall be dividing by 4 and knowing everything is cheaper than that. Delicious empanadas (or 'Rob Kearney's as they are now known, on account of them being meat, or 'carne') and a bottle of Peru's notorious Inca Cola (not going to lie, its bright yellow and its Iron Bru, but I'm not complaining about that either, though the 50g of sugar per 500ml makes it twice as sugary as Coke) are tasty and reviving, and I buy a bag of what seems to be enormous Sugar Puffs off a little old woman for a quid. There's enough here to kill a donkey. Bargain.

Security is a little stiffer in Peru. You can't get onto the platform without a departure tax coupon (25p) and once out there it's almost up to you to figure out what is going on. We find our bus, only to watch four or five wee women load an entire houseworth of possessions onto it. I'm talking TVs (and not even crap TVs! Big plasma TVs!), stereos and speakers, toy cars, washing lines, endless anonymous boxes, and clothes. So many clothes packed into enormous check plastic bags. Our two, albeit quite heavy, bags are dwarfed. They end up at the side and, when all is said and done, we get on the bus and it takes off, late but it goes.

The deficiency of cheap buses is quickly apparent. No air conditioning. Ok, we do have a small TV at the front of the bus, which distracts us by showing (not joking) Elysium, a movie that is definitely not improving with repeated watching, and some awful dance movie called Battle Of The Year. By that stage we have already been stopped two or three times by police to have the hold examined. My bag is pulled off, but no one shows any interest in it. Meanwhile the customs chaps ask an old lady to get off the bus, and the women behind me tries to punch the officer for his trouble.Charming. They get frogmarched off by police. Sarah is outside keeping an eye on my bag, and watches the man try and square up to the police, who then throw him in a cage. This is all quite exciting. One of the little old men on the bus says I shouldn't worry about my bags, they'll be ok. I explain my nervousness to the whole bus by telling them our story. They are quite sympathetic. Not much love lost between Peruvians and Chileans.

Eventually it all works out. Another man checks passports and is quite polite to us. We are polite in return. No problems here, officer!

We eventually roll into Arequipa at 6.30pm. Peru is 2 hours behind Chile, making it 5 hours behind GMT. Telephone call timings are going to be a little trickier for a month or so. The sun set about half an hour before we arrived, so all we got to see were an oasis of streetlights in the distance. But what a sight! Arequipa is Peru's second biggest city after Lima, and second main destination for tourists after Cuzco. It stretches from one end of the horizon to the other. Probably should have mentioned we are now 3800m above sea level, on the edge of the altiplano. Sarah has been petrified by the bus trip here but cannot take her eyes from the drop at the side of the road. I sit back and read fictionalised Irish history and eat sugar puffs. MMMMM.

Off the bus, meet a friendly taxi driver who takes us to where we think our hostel is. It isn't, but it looks ok anyway, so in we go. 25 Soles a night which is very acceptable, especially when we get a dorm to ourselves for the night, and a pool table downstairs! Sweet!

Ok, so far nothing is remarkably cheap, although its better than Chile, but that wouldnt be difficult. We head straight out for dinner, our hostel is a quick five minute walk to the Plaza De Armas, where we stand in awe of the cathedral at the top of the square. Lit up for the evening, surrounded by Spanish arcades and a palm tree park, its glorious. Finally I am seeing the Peru I expected. Town is busy enough, and after a little window shopping we settle into a parilla where I destroy a big pork chop and 'accompanyments' (delicious!) whilst Sarah inhales a steak and chips. Peruvian Beer Number One is Pilsen which, lets be clear, is just a big bottle of Biere D'Or. Still costs an outrageous $6 Soles! Mind you, there whole lot was $47, or about a tenner, which is perfectly acceptable. I'm led to believe Peruvians set more stall by lunch than dinner, and I look forward to dicovering that for myself.

Back to the hostel, remembering we've lost two hours, and by 11pm, after a celebratory Pisco and a game of pool (full size table, very small pockets, need more practice) we hit the hay. No going anywhere for a few days I think.

PS - Arequipa is famous for two things - alpaca wool and chocolate.

Summarising Proust : Santiago again : 17th to 24th March

For those without Facebook, you may not know that we were robbed last Saturday. For those who do not regularly read this blog, you may not know that we were robbed last Saturday. It has been a stupid week of running back and forth across Santiago, from Barrio Brazil to the edge of Los Condes, from Happy House Hostel to the British Embassy, filling in forms and trying to make something that, last Saturday, we did not want to work any more, somehow stay together in the face of our abject rejection of it. Ah, so wordy of me, sorry about that.

With a bag of clothes each and some receipts we had been hording away, to reminisce on another day, we returned to Santiago, 1500km from Calama, by way of Avatar, The Millers, The Notebook, ACOD and Home Run. No Taken 2 and no The Island. We play Movie Roulette on the buses these days. Tur-Bus, Chile's most noted bus company, does not offer an Xtra-vision-like range of flicks for us to enjoy as we whistle down the spine of Chile, up and over and down mountains at 100km/hr. There is a big difference between mph and kmph at 100, especially in a bus. 22 hours back to Santiago was ok, but we arrived in emotional and physical tatters from a sparse diet whilst travelling, and we had  thousand phonecalls to make, to reassure family we were ok, to begin insurance proceedings, to try and work out what exactly our options were.

We had two choices. Stay or go. Go was going to cost more than stay, so the decision was made for us. But how? With emergency passports we needed visas for Argentina and the US. Audaciously we decide to apply for new passports and have them delivered to the British Embassy in La Paz, where we shall be in 6 weeks time. Whether this plan works shall be for a future blog. Hopefully a happy and exotic one entitled "Collecting a Passport In La Paz". That is not this post.

What else could we have done? The US visa was a straight one-off $160, the Argentina one an as-yet-unknown fee. Probably all going to come in at more than the 150quid the passport would cost us, plus we would get that money back. Visas? Nada.

It was galling that we might have cut the two cheap countries from our trip too. Chile had bled us dry. Take off the buses and it was an easy 30 quid a day. Hostels are more expensive in Chile than anywhere else, even Uruguay, where the supermarket prices are double Chile's. But it all adds us, a metro ticket here and there, a beer or two or wine, a big meal in the day so you only eat once, a not-horrible hostel and you're broke. Peru and Bolivia were offering us a respite from that pressure. We hadn't come here to deal with European prices. We won't be skinning the locals alive, in fact we'll be buying local produce where possible, but even so we ought to be able to walk away with change that Chile just can't offer.

It wasn't all bad. We suffered our exertions in 35C heat and clear blue skies. Santiago is definitely a first world city, what with all the Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts everywhere. We partook of a few, too. The local coffeeshops were also good, but sometimes you can't beat an American chain for sheer quantity. Santiago nearly redeemed itself with some new characters, not least the excellent staff in Happy House Hostel, who got us breakfast on day one when we were emotional wrecks, and the gentlemen of Bar Nacional, legends one and all, who spoke no English but got the very best of Spanish out of me somehow, standing there yelling at a tv as I watched Sevilla beat Real Betis on penalties in the Europa League. The night may have ended a gibbering paranoid mess, terrified that every Chilean was out to rip us off and leave us destitute, but those boys didn't deserve to be on the wrong end of our misadventures. We called back into Bar Nacional but they weren't about.

We made it into the US Embassy which was a glorious palace of a building, and found ourselves in a huge warehouse with countless other souls trying to sort out new papers to allow us to leave Chile. It wasn't as complicated as it sounds, and other people looked like they were dealing with their situations a lot worse than we were.

We sunbathed over the weekend playing with new toys, new camera and new tablet computer with bonus bluetooth keyboard. They only took an age and a day to find. Sarah's dream of brown legs has come true. I am not so pasty any more. The Latin sun has done its work. With our passport applications heading to the UK with DHL we finally relaxed. Tuesday morning came and we got out of there yet again. Here Comes The Boom, The Internship, Battleship, some Chilean comedians, Hansel and Gretel Vampire Hunters all got us through Tuesday, whilst Wednesday was a non-stop sci-fi feast of Oblivion, Pacific Rim, Elysium, Papi Se Volvio Loco!, we rode on through the Atacama Desert and it never got any more fun. The pale blue and washed-out golden dust stopped being charming. When the road didn't have a 3000m drop alongside it, it just wasn't interesting. Our 28hr journey took 30hr, 2070km. We were in Arica, and barely an hr from being in Peru at long last.

Not that Arica is overwhelmingly charming either. As we pulled in through the city outskirts, past the pasted-together shacks that you see on the edge of every town in Chile, we look at two objects dominating the skyline from the hill to the south; a gigantic Chilean flag, and what looks a lot like a Wicker Man. Should we smell smoke, we shall be running across the border tonight. It is bad enough to be reading an informed-but-fictional account of Ireland in Leon Uris's Trinity on the road here.

Summarising Proust in Ten Seconds...

Im relived to be leaving Chile. Where we never showed any interest in going to Brazil, it wheedled its way under our skin with a character so very un-European, un-British, that it fulfilled many of our desires for exoticism whilst being sufficiently familiar that we could get ourselves from A to B. Chile, by contrast, offered a mundaneity that no other country matched. The central south area around Chiloe was that most attractive, with Chiloe being an island easily appreciated by other islanders, where we experienced a type of hospitality unknown on the mainland. It was lush and Irish and familiar. After that, however, was a multitude of towns and cities that, were Chile not the outstretched goliath it is, you would have no need to stop in. Valdivia, Chillan, La Serena, all stops with just enough to distract you for a day, before you get back on the bus and cross another 6 hour stretch of panamericana to your next, anonymous, stop.

Not that Chile is unique in offering up bland destinations one after the other. That, in some respects, is exactly why we are here; to draw that distinction between the colossi of touristic destinations, and all the flotsam and jetsam around them. But in Chile, First World country that it is, the country offers up so many tedious locations and backdrops that, when we spoke to two little Australian girls who were travelling virtually directly from Mendoza in Argentina to Cuzco in Peru, via Santiago and Arica, that we nearly wondered if that really had missed anything out in between.

The Atacama Desert is bigger than you think. It can be dramatic, but usually where you have seen human interference etch through it with a pipeline or a manmade canyon. Mostly it is dull, hot or cold, with little ghost towns where works used to subsist. It is hard to imagine what this lift is like.

The wine regions are not so romantic. Acres of vines longside main roads. People who visited Concha Y Toro said for 30quid you see an enormous wine factory and get told nothing about the experience or technique of wine making. You get a good view and the taste of a single decent vintage. Mendoza, by contrast, gets sparkling reviews.

Not that Chile stood much of a chance. I was robbed twice, Sarah once, and we met more than our fair share of freaks, weirdos, creeps and idiots. But even Bahia Blanca offered us an excellent parrilla restaurant to compensate for the prison we stayed in. Pucon was really the only spot that had some sort of balance. Then again, it was virtually custom-built for tourists.

Santiago was a curio. Where Lonely Planet berated the mall culture, we found the multitude of arcades charming, reminiscent of another time, with dozens of small and unusual shops co-existing side by side, particularly in the some of the more unlikely parts of the city around Los Leones metro.Where LP said Santiago was an easy city to like, we found it fairly anonymous, an oversized town, lacking grandeur except around the classic banking buildings. The people could be very hit or miss. At least in Buenos Aires you could rely on the denizens to live up to the stereotype of half-German half-Italians. Instead, Chileans displayed their characterist reticence, which leaves you feeling frustrated with them, and like you are in a country run by women for men, whom they have infinite patience for, even with their childish stupidity and temper tantrums. It gets a bit tiring. The criteria for First World status seem to be somewhat confused; Waitrose products in the supermarkets, produce from around the world, tea. What else? The skyscrapers, stable currency, two or three people doing the work of one, variety in the markets, modern dress only a season late from Europe, iPhones, Apple products in general... you can see all these things everywhere, thoroughout Latin America.

Perhaps what makes the difference between first and second worlds is the bank machines. ATMs in Brazil, Argentina, and others, are hidden away in the banks, behind sealed doors. Nothing in public. But in Chile it is just like at home. ATMs in train stations, supermarkets, corner stores, the lot. It is easy to get money out here. It is also easy to spend it.

The Things We Lost In Six Hours : Calama : Sat 15th Mar

The police could scarcely believe that they were seeing us twice in one day.

Bastard Number One stole Sarah´s bag from off the seat in the bus, right beside me, whilst she used the toilet and some guy distracted me through the window. A bumpy night through the desert had me exhausted and dopey. I didn´t even know the bag was on the seat, I thought it was still stashed underneath with mine.

Cue horror.

As awful panic set in, other folk from the bus appeared. Three men had gotten on and grabbed everything they could as people lay in their post-journey haze. A gang of thieves.

We walked to the nearest Carabinere station, three blocks away. They were as helpful as any police can be when its petty theft from tourists. One long report later and we were done, whisked away by two guys who were decent enough to drive us all over town to get new insulin and diabetic supplies for Sarah. A fair whack of cash was handed out. Being diabetic isn´t cheap, apparently.

They dropped us back at the bus station. Sarah´s new glucometer has a finger-pricking device with it which doesnt work. We have three hours til our bus. Might as well head back to the pharmacy where we bought it and get it changed for a new one, it cost enough.

Bastard Number Two switched my bag for his whilst we stood at the counter in the pharmacy. The bag was at my feet, only not on my back because we had our rucksacks with us.

Cue further horror.

A period of freaking out occured. The police eventually appear and take us to the station. I don´t think anyone really believes we are back here, least of all us.

Another report. Another outrageous list that beggars belief it could all be kept in one bag.

Bye bye photos of the last twelve weeks. Bye bye songs that I was working on in Garageband. Bye bye laptops and cameras and MP3 players and headphones and e-readers and more cameras and USB cables and international plug adaptors and battery chargers and mobile phones and passports and sun cream and moisturiser and water bottles and chillis and peppers and so many litle Micro SD cards. Bye bye bank cards and identification and medical documents and notebooks and diaries and gifts and pruck.

Hello Insurance Chaos.

Hello unconditional support from everyone.

Hello night in horrid borstal hotel and 22 hour bus journey back to Santiago.

Hello that feeling in the pit of my stomach. Ah loss. I remember thee from Portugal, when that Russian whore stole my camera out of my pocket and I lost a weeks worth of photos.

Hello rage, every time someone stands too close to us on the metro or bumps us on the street. Hello intense paranoia. Hello Centros De Llamadas. You will take all our money soon.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1) That Avatar and The Notebook are much better movies in Spanish than in English.
2) That scams really are sophisticated and these bastards know what they are doing.
3) You cannot be too paranoid. I have wished many times over the last few days that I had bought that tazer in Asuncion. I know I didn´t see anyone take anything, and it would have been useless, but still. I would have liked the chance.
4) I have also learned that I don´t actually have many clothes any more, and I need to head to some 2nd hand shops to get some supplies :)
5) Your bag in the hold of the bus is probably safer than the small bag you take onto the bus cabin. Any bastard can get onto the bus without a ticket. But NO ONE is getting a bag from the hold without their little confirmation ticket.

More updates in the future. For now, we are back in Santiago de Chile and the British Embassy has been excellent. We might even be back on track with our itinerary (almost). But thats another story.

#thanks everyone#

Are Japanese Gardens Like Irish Pubs? : La Serena : Sun 9th March

There are more grey skies overhead this morning, but at least there isn't a gale blowing. Sarah gets a sneaky lie-in whilst I get through a few more pages of Henry Miller's Sexus. I'm not in any place to comment as to whether this is good travel literature, but I think its a little easier on the brain than Miller's Tropic Of Capricorn, which I read once and only once.

Boiled eggs for breakfast, an old favourite, and we catch a bit of the England v Wales rugby. Sarah is not quite as animated today. Perhaps a shortage of black lagers can be blamed? Either way, out we head to find some churches and see, on our last day in La Serena, the famed Japanese Gardens.

"Jeeeeeesus? Where are yoooooooou?"

"Are you over there?"

Aha hah ha. A rather empty church compared to what we've been used to, even compared to the Lutheran one in Valpo. We back out and make our way down to the gardens. I wonder if these are the Japanese equivalent of the Irish pub. "What the hell?" asks the Japanese visitor "Our gardens don't look anything like this! Where are the maples and cherry trees? The beautiful women in kimonos? The paper walls? And what is all that noise coming from the road alongside this place?" Maybe I'm wrong, but for comic purposes let's assume I'm right.

Of course, the whole place is very attractive, well-kept, and surprisingly spacious. The white foamy muck lying on top of the water doesn't exactly add to the ambience, and Sarah reckons the stagnant water doesn't help. Still, plenty of creatures living in here don't seem to mind it too much. I did notice a hawk circling overhead, but not sure what exactly it was hoping to catch as the fish were a little bigger than it was.

Sarah threw a broken up biscuit into the pond and a feeding frenzy ensued.

Ever been glared at by a fish?

Yes yes, I know this is a meeting point, but its good for a cheap laugh.

Thought I'd post this in case anyone wanted to see some happy mallards this week, after the other ones got thumped by Cliftonville.

All that for $1000? Bargain.

Back towards the hostel we go, the usual packing / preparing for the bus trip routine looming large in our future. Still, might as well call into a small cafe and have something tasty for dinner. This monster is a chorrillana, a Chilean speciality consisting of all the chips in the world, topped with onions, frankfurters, fried eggs, cheese, whatever they have lying around. It's not for those fearing their cholesterol levels. However, when you're ravenous then they're excellent (especially when they're about a fiver, split between two). Sarah is quite certain these will be a massive hit back home, all we need is a basic pantry cafe to sell them in. I will also be looking to source these wonderful basic plastic Coca-Cola branded chairs too, for the authentic experience.

The rest of the day? Writing this up and packing of course! And mint tea to settle my wee tummy :) Got a 10.25am bus tomorrow and no breakfast worth speaking about.

Breakfast. 11am Beers. BOD. Beach. : La Serena : Sat 8th Mar

The day starts under the grey acres of sky of La Serena. Its well known to clear around lunchtime, but that hardly matters for us. The day revolves around watching Ireland thrash Italy in the Six Nations. It doesn't really care if we watch that in a penthouse or a favela. We have discovered the hostel has ESPN on its tv, and the match is (unusually) on the free channel, rather than the add-on-expensive-channel ESPN 3.

Breakfast in the hostel means one cup of tea or coffee and a packet of biscuits, which is fine for the $6500 we are paying per night. God help you if you want to make food after 11am though. There are clearly more people using this house than just the guests.

Yesterday I said I picked up some charqui de equino on the bus. This is what it looks like.

It looks like marijuana. But its not. Its jerked horse meat. MMMMMMMM. Actually a lot tastier than it looks (or sounds), it becomes moist and chewy in the mouth. That's another animal ticked off my 'must eat' list.

So we watch the rugby, Sarah screams at the tv and I take the opportunity to fire a load more blog online. It's O'Driscoll's final game at Aviva. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth. There are not enough big men crying.We have a wee beer, the closest thing we can find to Guinness, Escudo Negra, a decent black lager. We then watch the Scotland v France game, and drink more tea. I must stop drinking tea here, I think its having an adverse effect on my tummy. Ugh. After all that I decide to go for a long walk, which turned out longer than I expected.

The area just above the pedestrian city centre is not exactly as picturesque as the brochures would have you believe...

These houses on Avenida Juan Bohón were a marked improvement.

This is exciting Ruta 5 (southbound)

And this is the fabulous Avenida Aguirre, the main road down to the beach. It is a bit of a time warp. At one end is a tedious little town with 28 churches, at the other is a beautiful beach and lots of hotels and condominiums.

This is La Serena's faro, or lighthouse. Wooo.

The beach, of all things, is not a disappointment in any way. Shimmering soft sand underfoot, rolling waves accommodate local surfers, and you have almost the whole thing to yourself.

View back towards Coquimbo.

Spotted a little crowd hanging round this, and discovered a dead sea lion, which I didn't really expect. But I guess things like this do happen from time to time.

A few rogue oyster-catchers that, moments later, got a right shock as a big stray dog tried to eat them.

I had walked all along the sand barefoot, occasionally straying into the Pacific (for the first time in my life, that's another thing ticked off the list too) but it was time to head back. Surely one of these little side streets takes us back to Ruta 5? No. So back up the beachfront I head, a mile or so out of my way.

View inland. Uninspiring stuff.

Back onto Avenida Aguirre and all the way along, there's a few parks and an open-air museum, which are ok.

Bored of walking around, I'm tired and dehydrated. Have a bottle of water and head to the hostel to collect Sarah. We go out for dinner and, after a quick scout around, we attempt another Chinese, seven days since we last had one and figured it had nearly killed us. Back on the wagon, I say. It was delicious. Chicken curry and beef with mushrooms, fried rice, a wee beer. Only thing left to do was come home and post a humorous blog entry. Hope you enjoyed the fat boy with the exploding bum, Sarah laughed so hard a little bit of wee came out.