Holiday Inn Express Concepcion Chile

... all planned to leave on the same day and i think that we were all truely gutted to be leaving each other... it reminded me of what did my nut in when i travelled for 7 months before, how close you can get to people, and then leaving people with the knowledge chances are you may never see them again! it is hard to maintain that stop starting for too long! However i reckoned that climbing a volcano could sort me out!

We verlaten het merengebied en gaan verder met onze tocht naar het noorden, via de rio Bio Bio naar Concepcion, de tweede grootste stad van Chile waar we een afspraak hebben met Dania, een weerzien voor Constanza 18 jaar later. Een kort bezoek aan de stad, enorm druk. Daarna samen met Dania haar familie een gezellige avond met lekker (en veel) eten - BBQ met heel lekker vlees.

... football, it was a good game, but amazingly Chile beat Argentina 1 - 0 . It was the first time that they had ever beaten them in a competitve match, so understandbly the crowd went wild, people were honking there car horns as they drove around the streets outisde. Result for Chile against the Argentina, who have a team full of stars, such as Lionel Messi etc. We had some beers and a salad, and then we went to another pub, where we had a jug of Kunstmann ...

With just a little trepidation I looked out over the waiting crowd for Ricardo. Would he be very different after 20 years? No. Just the same. My short hair caused a moment of hesitation from the other side of the glass but no more than that. Where do you start after being out of contact with one of the most important people of your university years for so long. Well, 'You look just the same' is probably not original but it was what I said.

... pronounce my name which was amusing and some people took to calling me Maria. There a lots of little tiny lizard everywhere, which i find very exciting (I´ve never seen a lizard in the wild before). So, yep, I´m having a great time, I back in Conception now and I´m going to the university today. I will try and upload some pictures later as the lake really was very beautiful. Hope your all good.

... jetzt beim Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo. Ich erstelle heir jetzt thematische Karten der Region. Und wenn der Computer richtig laeuft, dann klappt das sogar alles schon ganz gut. Jetzt sind es aber auch nur noch 5 Wochen und dann geht die grosse Reise los. Ein bisschen wurde hier auch schon gereist. Wir waren letzten Monat fuer 5 Tage in Bariloche, Argentinien wandern und letzten Wochenende in Pucon Vulkan bestiegen. Zwar auch ein aktiver Vulkan ...

... next two and a half weeks, and then head to Santiago for the last week and a half. I'm thinking about spending one week in a language school, and taking a few days to explore Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. As always, I love hearing from everyone. It makes me feel like I'm not on the other side of the world J And I promise I'll try to get in another 2 or 3 entries before this is all said and done...maybe. :)

Arriving in Chile we immediatly headed for the smallest coastal town we could find to spend a few days on our own before going to the farm. On our first night in Buchupureo a Chilean couple joined us and after talking for a bit they asked if we would like to travel with them for a few days since we were going in the same direction. We were a bit unsure about this ...

... still feeling a little silly buggers from that (we met some local who pulled out the following line which i thought was a goodie "this is the closest i'll ever be to Australia in my life so let me enjoy it", so who were we to stop drinking). Whilst trying to nap the american guy who we met (who we grew to despise yet his ability to speak fluent spanish definately came in handy) insisted on staying up the whole time. Eventually the people ...

... welcomed into the house and fed and we just talked so much about old times and caught up. We talked about all the things that have happened since I have been here and of course we talked and laughed a lot about times we had together. Yesterday I spent most of the day pretty much chilling out. They have internet here in the house which is a new development since I was here. I just sat in their little store and chatted with them ...