Pantalones

This is a story about my trousers.

After staying at the posh lodge in the jungle me and Emma spent the morning before the flight to La Paz canoeing down the River Beni. We found a rope swing on the way, I made like a monkey and soon got most of my clothes wet and, as I´ve mentioned before, they were busy drying in the hotel while were were flying back.

I have since spent much time on the phone to various people trying to get them back. The first lady in the hotel tells me that its impossible to send mail from Rurrenebaque (which seems possible but unlikely). I perservere, she gets bored and hands me over to the manager, who doesn´t speak any english either but is more friendly towards the gringo speak. He formulates a plan to give the trousers to America Land Tours in Rurrenebaque, who will give the trousers to a bus driver to be taken to La Paz (population 3 million or something, where it is possible to send mail on mondays, wednesdays and fridays, apparently). I phone up America Land Tours in Rurrenebaque and La Paz where the lady agrees to retrieve the trousers from the bus driver and post them to Santiago in Chile. The trousers arrive in La Paz without any difficulty that I notice and then the lady keeps wanting to send the trousers to where I´ve just been, before telling me it will be $45. Considering that we sent 5 kilos back to England for about $20 and the trousers arent worth more than $100 I suggest that she give them to a friend. She replies by saying that she doesn´t have a male friend at the moment. I figure it´s best to call it a day, but I could forward her email if anyone´s interested.

Colchagua Valley Wine Tour

well, i guess its fair to say that wine tasting is more my thing than Cedd´s but he did seem to enjoy it.

we went to Santa Cruz a small village in the heart of Colchagua Valley, one of chile finest wine growing areas. we were really lucky to find a small apartment for rent in the back garden of a house (like a ´granny´flat) including a telly and kitchen. It happened like this... I was waiting on a street corner with all our bags while cedd went to look at a hostal and an old man (Aquiles) came out of his house and started chatting to me and explaining that he had an apartment we could rent, when cedd came back we had a look at the apartment and it was an easy choice to take it. Aquiles then offered to take us to take us to the supermarket in his car so we could stock up the fridge! Very handy.

It was easy to organise wine tours and we needed to relax so we spent a few days visiting wineries and eating good food. www.rutadelvino.cl

we visited the following wineries and did tours at the first three. Each one has something about it that is special in terms of the tour and all have some good wines, but our favourite wines were at Bisquerrt and Viña la Playa (and Viu Manent).

Bisquertt - an old family run winery, with small museum
Viu Manent - also quite an old winery, plus a very good restaurant and the tour included travel in a horse drawn coach through the vinyards.
Las Niñas - this winery is run by women! and the tasting involves a lesson in aromas
Viña la Playa - we had lunch here, a glass of reserve wine is included in the price of each dish! plus a free tasting.


we took photos of the wines we tasted....so perhaps we can invite you for a chilean wine tasting sometime.

Star gazing - the clearest skies on earth

Chile has reputedly the clearest skies on the planet, so its the best place in the world for star gazing. Not surprisingly there are lots of observatories nearly all of these are funded by North America and by European countries, who can afford the hundreds of million pounds needed to build one. The Chilieans have a right to use them for a certain no. of days per year (about 10%). Demand is high and the cost of using one for a night runs into tens of thousands of pounds!

the skies are so clear that up to the eighth magnitude can be observed with the naked eye and the centre of a galaxy can be easily seen. (if that means anything to you)

We visited the Mamalluca Observatory near Vicuña (about 1 1/2hrs north of Santiago) near the Elqui Valley. They run a number of tours in both english and spanish, several per evening including ones for enthusiasts and those wanting to learn more. The tour started a bit late (no surprise) at 11pm and finished at 2am. Not bad for a night out!

Cedd enjoyed it so much that he wanted to go again the next day!

We saw saturn and the moon in a large telescope, and took photos with our cameras of the image through the telescope.


It was just after full moon so the sky was actually a bit too bright for seeing the stars really well . Our guide doesn´t like the moon for this very reason but we couldn't complain, the sky looked amazing compared to what we see at home in london.

Our guide recommended the following computer program - starry night - which you can download (for free I think) from http://www.starrynight.com/.

if you can understand some spanish:
http://www.mamalluca.org/inicio.htm

Speaking Spanish

People rarely lie outright to you here (although it does happen) but some people mislead and others are just amazingly unhelpful. We asked two girls where they got their ice creams from and I set off down the road where they had pointed. I arrive to the "shop" and start to talk to an small, old man with cloudy eyes.

Me: Do you sell ice cream?
Old man: What?
Do you have ice cream?
What?
Ice cream
What?
Ice Cream
Ice Cream?
Yes, Ice cream
No

At this point Luis comes in, who is a guy I vaguely know from trying to book boat tours. We have a very brief chat and I go back to wait for an aeroplane. We were told to arrive at 3 for a plane that left at 4. Actually the bus to the airport leaves at 4 and the plane at 5. It is now about 5.30 and you have to try very hard to get any response other than "Please sit down and wait a moment" from the officials. We are in the jungle and I am very hot. I soak my hair frequently to cool down but am wearing my heavy trousers as my others are drying in the hotel. I only realise this later when we take off, but more about that later. Anyway, Luis walks past and is clearly eating ice cream. I go back to see the old man.

Do you have ice cream?
No
The thing that Luis buy?
What?
Luis, be buy ice cream here?
Who?
The man here. He buy ice cream.
What?
The man. Here before 5 minutes. He buy ice cream.
No.
Yes. I see he eat ice cream.
No.

I am getting frustrated, but luckily his son walks in with an ice cream. I explain that I want one. The old man smiles slowly as understanding dawns. "Aaaaah, you want a picolè". To be fair its more ice lolly than ice cream but I still have to count to ten. This sort of thing happens all the time.

We are in Chile at the moment and the accent here is difficult. We are often helped out by holidaying big city Chileans (who speak relatively normally) who translate from Spanish to Spanish for us.