Da Vinci Valparaiso

... They invited me to the Valparaiso races but weren´t sure the day (a friend had a runner). As my luck would have it, the racing was that very day, not one of the next, so that was ruled out! Took a ride up some of the Ascensores (100+ year old ´cable cars´ as the place has 43 hills). Walked up a big hill to a place recommended in the guide book, knackered when i arrived, delighted to find it was shut. Ate in a place that was ...

... his business ideas, but it was interesting nonetheless. Sometimes they think I'm bored because I say very little, but I enjoy sitting back and learning new words and phrases. Everyone is very excited about me going on a ski trip this coming Saturday to Portillo! I'm very excited as well but also a little nervous as I've never skiied before. Hopefully the trees stay out of my way!<br><br>Hasta luego mis amigos!<br>Erin<br>

... come back to plague us for most of our time in Valparaiso. On a platter was a mountain of chips, topped with every kind of meat - sausages, ham, pieces of beef, chicken - then onions and finally melted cheese. But we were hungry and we dug in. We stayed in that restaurant all night drinking our wine and defeated by the mountain of food we headed back to the hostel feeling a little unwell and got straight into bed.<br><br>The next day was a write off, at ...

... guest house, and spent two days wanderting the streets, going up funiculars into the old town, and eneded up chatting to a chef at this modern Chilean cuisine restaurant. He gave us the lowdown on the best spots to go and we ended up coming to his upmarket restaurant for dinner (a nice splashout). We were also befriended by this cute stray dog for the day. It wanted nothing more than ...

... mouldings and amazingly well preserved ancient fabrics. One method used for forming gold items was called the lost wax method. They would carve the shape out of wax, mould clay around the wax shape and then bake the clay in an oven. The wax would melt during the baking process and drain out through holes deliberately made in the clay. The by-product would be a mould into which moulten gold or silver could be ...

... naval heroes, ancient financial buildings that now house shoestores and internet cafés (like the one I´m typing this in), and smartly dressed business people keeping the commerce running. But then, there´s the cerros (hills). Once away from downtown, a maze of staircases and hills awaits you, with houses piled higgledy piggledy on top of one another, shanty town style. To call these staircases steep does them injustice, I´d ...

... bread dough and we cooked it around sticks. Some of the neighbours came around to join us. They brought their mp3 players, too. (ils avaient le Saian Supa Crew!!). We had a great laugh because of Micheal Jackson´s Billy Jean lyrics. One sentence sounds like Spanish (si quieres una manzana...if you want an apple, instead of the kid is not my son) We had loads of Chilean wine and some Piscola to drink. Great night. <br><br><br> The following day (12/12...bon ...

... not messing up. The bus food was terrible. I had to sit alone on the top level because I booked way later than my friends who got the 1st class seats. We got to play bingo, which was fun... but there's really no way to make this trip fun. Crossing the border to Chile was super slow (more about that later) and we just sat there for something like 2 hours before being allowed to cross. We had planned to arrive in Santiago in the early afternoon ...

October 1st was a long day for us, we left Auckland Airport at 6pm, then due to us crossing the international date line, we arrived at Santiago Airport at 12.30pm. It was a long day, , especially as we did not sleep for more than 3 hours during the 10 hour flight that crossed the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica. When we arrived in Chile, we joined the long queues (as usual) for immigration and customs (Chile also does not allow people to bring fruits and ...

... and Viña del Mar. I stayed in a lovely little hostel. There was only 6 of us staying there and we shut ouselves up in the lounge room with the heater on in the evening. One girl there from the US had been there for a few weeks as she was writing for a guide book, another German guy was working at the hostel and they were on the quest for the perfect empanada so went out on an empanada run at around 9 and brough us back a selection to try.