Valparaiso

A couple of kilometres further along the coast is the much more bohemian Valparaiso where the houses are built high up into the hills. To access the hills there are many funiculars which climb steeply up offering terrifyingly scary views of the port down below. Restaurants are few and far behind up here but we manage to find a hotel with a rather lovely looking restaurant serving lunch. I order the kids a steak to share with a simple request to hold the raspberry sauce that accompanies it and feel downright pathetic when it arrives, smothered in the stuff so that neither child will eat it. Ruby quite correctly says that it tastes like raspberry jam. I’ve really got to learn some more Spanish and pronto (oh no, that’s Italian…) or we’re all going to starve. Actually, it looks like I’m going to starve anyway as I don’t eat meat and I’ve got an aversion to fish with bones in it, which seems to be the only type of fish served here. The next lunch is more successful for everyone else except me. I ask for some kind of vegetarian meal and the waitress suggests some kind of bean stew that is usually served as an accompaniment to their chicken dish. I have one mouthful and I’m certain there’s chicken it. Oh yes, sorry says the waitress, it’s actually cooked together with the chicken but we didn’t give you any of the chicken. Right, so what’s this lump of white flesh lurking in here then? Urgh.
A drive around the very steep streets up here gives us a fantastic view of the whole area but we drive just a bit too far and find ourselves on a road that leads to and ends at a huge prison. There’s woman and kids swarming everywhere and we’re trying to doing a 3 point turn in a tiny space while surrounded by hundreds of people coming and going to and from the prison. There’s arm’s sticking out the windows and clothes tied to bars getting an airing. It’s a sobering sight.

Vina del mar and Ruby’s birthday

Fortunately, our next stop is only a couple of hours away. Well, it should be but we don’t have a map and the road signs are almost non-existent, so it takes us until sundown before we finally arrive, without anywhere to stay. This would be fine but the roads are all one way and we can’t reach either of the places we’re earmarked to try for a bed so end up in a rather faceless Best Western, the highlight of which is 20 or so rather large marines who are on leave from the aircraft carrier docked in the nearby port.

Vina del Mar is the seaside holiday destination of choice for the more wealthy Chileans, many of whom own a second home here. It has a very European feel to it and there’s neither a poncho nor an alpaca in sight. In fact, there’s not very much in sight at all as a thick fog has enveloped the whole town. Doesn’t bode well for the day at the beach we had planned for Ruby’s 8th birthday. This doesn’t seem to bother her too much and she’s very happy to wake up and find her room full of balloons and even a few presents (a Maori necklace and some High School Musical stickers and badges plus book from us and a chocolate love heart and a bath bomb from Harley. If only birthdays in the UK were as cheap as this!) We let her choose what she wants to do for the day and spend the morning in the shopping mall where she’s eager to spend some money she was given by family before we left. Clutching her new purchase (another bloody Barbie – this one a swimming instructor with two children and swimming pool. How the bloody hell are we meant to carry a Barbie swimming pool around the world?) she decides on sushi for lunch, at which point a horse and carriage sweeps past and Princess Ruby decides she can’t live without a ride. Chocolate Pig cake, which strangely tasted like it contained rum, and dinner at a local fish restaurant wraps up her day.

Santiago, Chile

Chile is a ribbon of land, over 4,300km long but only 180km wide and separated from two of its neighbours, Bolivia and Argentina, by the Andes mountains which run almost the entire length of the country. Sitting between these and the Pacific ocean, the smog caused by terrible traffic is unable to disperse, leaving a thick layer sitting above the city, thus ruining the view from our 11th floor room. A population of 6 million in Santiago makes for a very bustling city, which is a bit of a shock to the system after being in New Zealand for 3 weeks.

Also a shock to the system is that we’re now in a Spanish speaking country with only a few phrases between us. Thanks to the Get By In Spanish CD we played in the car on our long road trips in New Zealand, we can order some food, drinks, a return train ticket and get a room with a double bed, none of which works too well since we need a room with 3 beds, we want to hire a car not get a train and, on our first attempt to order pasta with cheese sauce, no meat, my meals turns up complete with ham which they deny is meat. Hmmm, we may be in trouble here. At least we know how to order vino and discover that the local Carmenère grape variety is a very nice drop.

Sunday and, being a very Catholic country, almost everything is closed and families are parading the streets in their Sunday best. Luckily, we stumble across the Chilean equivalent of Leicester Square (some may say this is distinctly unlucky) and manage to find a restaurant open for lunch (or is it dinner, we’re so confused). We’re entertained by a father and his two sons playing a one man band kind of drum, cymbal, dancing-monkey show and watch as the remains of our food are divided up. The half-eaten bread and scrambled eggs are put onto one plate which is quickly scooped up by a passing local and any untouched food is scraped onto another plate and passed to the local pensioner and her husband who sit at the side of the square selling tat to tourists. I’m all for giving away food to those less needy, but I’ve never seen it done this way before.

Before we move out of the hotel into cheaper accommodation, Will books us both a massage hoping to ease the knots in our backs and, as we play tag at the bedroom door, I’m heading downstairs with high hopes which are dashed when I’m greeted by a 60 year old with bad facial hair. It’s a bit like being massaged by your mum (except mine doesn’t have a facial hair problem) and neither relaxing nor therapeutic.

We move to the Ciudad Vittoria Hotel (www.ciudaddevitoria.cl) and, despite our language difficulties, manage to snag a suite for US$90 (although it’s sadly nothing at all to do with our Spanish and everything to do with the fact that the guy on reception speaks excellent English) complete with breakfast of bread, cake, a slice each of plastic cheese and plastic ham, half a glass of yoghurt, a glass of tinned fruit cocktail, a half-glass of juice from the tinned fruit. Don’t think I’ll be rushing to breakfast, thanks.

The Chileans have a novel approach to the issue of smoking around children. Rather than banning smoking in restaurants, they banish kids outside to sit in the cold, whilst the smokers enjoy the warmth and give each other cancer inside. Which is all very well, but it’s freezing and we’re walking the streets trying to find somewhere to feed our little cherubs. Fortunately, the waiter of the excellent Patagonia restaurant takes pity on us freezing outside and invites us to sit inside his almost-empty restaurant. A quick check reveals no smokers and we gladly peel off our layers of clothing as we take a seat. Will orders enough parma ham, salami and cheese to feed a family of ten and I order a squid ink risotto. Little did I know this would be the last decent meal I would have for some time.

We spend the next couple of days as tourists – riding the hop-on/off bus, taking the funicular and cable car up to the huge statue of the Virgin Mary which peers out over the city in much the same way as Christ the Redeemer does in Rio, and avoiding the wild dogs that are so prevalent in this part of town. We even manage to fit in a visit to the pre-Columbine art exhibition complete with mummified new-born babies.

We’re considering our travel options and, since the country is so long, momentarily consider a camper van. Take a moment to check out http://www.chile-travel.com/holiday.htm which kept me highly amused for a while. The top of the range camper vans are basically an open back truck with a box strapped on top, complete with…radio-cassette player. In the words of Jim Bowen, come and ’ave a look at what you could ’ave won. We settle for a car instead and our pidgin Spanish comes in handy almost immediately as we’ve only got enough fuel to get us 7km. Should have gone to Hertz instead of the dodgy local company who do us a deal so long as we pay in US Dollars, cash.