Isla Seca Zapallar

On Saturday, July 18, my brother and I returned home in the pouring rain just in time for breakfast with Margarita and Oscar (papa). We were both extremely tired from the night before and soon went to our rooms to sleep a little bit. I woke up a few hours later, got ready for the day, ate lunch with the family, and then left with Jenny, Pablo, and Margarita for the beach since it had stopped raining! The sun was shining so brightly through the ...

Just got back to civilization so I thought I had better get into contact with everone as it has been 6 days or so .... without a set schedule the days blend into one. We just spend 5 nights on the beach just outside of Quintero at an absolutely amazing magical beautiful special place called Ritogue Beach. We only planned to stay for 4 nights but got stuck for 1 extra. It was very very hard to leave. Angie one of the staff there got stuck on ...

I have definitely had some great weekends lately! Last weekend my school celebrated Kermess and the three day weekend before that I spent with my friend Peggy at her parents' beach house in Zapallar! So, you're probably wondering...what is Zapallar and what is Kermess? Zapallar is a really beautiful, scenic, quaint beach town about 2 hours northwest of us. Peggy, myself and four other friends from Nido spent a ...

Thursday continued..... Uneventful flight to Santiago...very cramped conditions on Lan Chile although I don't think it's any worse than any other airline. Very spasmodic sleep consequently we arrived in Santiago feeling very ordinary. Managed to get through customs very quickly..the longest time was taken hiring the car. We headed straight up to Valporaiso. This is a very quaint bohemian sort of town....goes straight up the mountain, with very ...

Saturday morning we packed up camp and headed out. as we drove out of town i looked at something i had underlined about la serena. one of the hostel´s had a cobbler who made "chile´s cutest shoes". ismael, being the wonderful husband he is, insisted we go an look. he didn´t want me to regret not going. back into town and to the hostel. the cobbler wasn´t there, but he had a little shop in town and they showed me a flier ...

Ritoque: me encanta!!! I love Ritoque. Love it. This is where I spent the past two weeks, without internet or television, without big city traffic or crowds of impatient people, away from all the noise and pollution. Ritoque is a remote little beach, the perfect place to get away from it all and forget about everything. I don´t even know where to begin writing about my time spent there. Initially I planned on ...

Yesterday we drove from Pucon in the south of Chile to Zapallar on the Pacific coast, west of Santiago. If our first impression of Pucon was of the English Lake District then Zapallar is Carmel in California. We arrived as the fog rolled in from the ocean, just as it does in Carmel most days. The drive itself was easy, if prolonged. The odometer showed we had driven 948 km in just over 9 hours. This is a tribute to the great highways in Chile - they are ...

We have now spent a couple of relaxing days in Santiago de Chile, and have caught up with the minor jet lag we carried from Paris - although Veronika keeps reminding me it might have been the leaving beers (ah yes...those splendid three last weeks...). Pablo and Meli (Veronika´s Uncle and Aunt) showed us round Santiago on Sunday, visiting La Moneda, Plaza de Armas, the Museo Historico Nacional, el Cerro and the splendid ...

Fiona Having caught the very comfortable night bus back from Puerto Varas to Santiago (if travelling in South America, ALWAYS choose a Cama seat. Anything less is like travelling cattle class on a Britannia charter flight), we were taken once again to the Hotel Neruda in Providencia. The reason for our return was to meet Alejandro, who had worked with Richard's Aunty Katie in London for a few months. He had very kindly offered to take us out for lunch on the Friday afternoon and then up ...