The Brighton Valparaiso

... Shell for putting up with me all this way. She is incredible, and I´ve been sick with a cold for most of it, and has managed to cheer me up and keeping me going. What a wonderful companion, and bright spark of joy to be around 24 hours a day for such a mammoth amount of time. Thanks hon!<br><br>Thanks for reading, I hope you´ve all enjoyed the ride, and I hope wherever you are, everything is going well in your world.<br><br>That´s all folks<br>Ian<br><br>

... a day of lugging heavy backpacks around central Chile and having been informed that the train was a complicated and unpleasant procedure. The trains are all brand new, clean and efficient and the line which maps the curve of the coast line offers amazing veiws, especially during our well timed sunset journey, until finally we arrived in, what would become, our final Chilean destination - The UNESCO world heritage site, VALPARAISO.

... du pacifique avant d'aller prendre un cafe au mall. Le soir (0h00) nous tentons de faire des crepes mais c'est un echec a cause de la vieille poele... S'en suit une grosse discussion avec Nelson sur l'avortement, l'education et l'histoire du Chili (Pinochet, Allende, Victor Jara, Revolucion penguin...). Nelson pourrait parler de l'histoire de son pays des heures durant, tres bonne soiree. Coucher vers 4h.

... as far as we could see down the coast, like nothing I had ever seen before! After the show the real party began! Lucky for us, right next to the platform where we watched the fireworks was a live band that was set up on the edge of a very upmarket hotel. The music was fantastic and dancing broke out all around us, most of the time the band members were playing to the crowds on the deck and not the guests at the hotel. The party and dancing went on for as ...

... we got to the dunes. The word dunes doesn't really describe them. These were the biggest sand hills I have ever seen and seemed to go on for miles and miles. I would guess the height of some of them at about 70-100 metres and very, very steep. Surely we were going to ride around these? No, it was straight up and over! These horses did not bat an eyelid at slopes of 45 degrees or more(it would have been impossible for a human being to walk up some of these dunes. I know, because I ...

... and boating close to the huge navel vessels docked there too. Weirdly enough it´s not allowed to take pictures of the Navel vessels but we took some sneaky ones all the same. We have booked into the italian restaurant for later tonight so looking forward to that. Aparently it´s the best restaurant in Valpo so it better live up to the standard set Thursday 14th Dinner was class last night- best italian meal i´ve had out of Italy. But the curse of Dermot and ...

... What a tosser. <br><br>In the end I walked away, getting my Peso's worth of swearing out of my system on the way! <br><br>Fortunately finding our bus, dumping our packs and finding our seats was much easier that the taxi ride. <br><br>It was a semi-cama service (where seats semi-recline to about 45 degrees), but there was plenty of legroom. <br><br>The journey to the Chilean border was really nice ...