We stayed in Mendoza for almost a week, which is probably more than it needed, but we had met some nice people in our hostel and the laundry was a bargain, and more problematically, the border to Chile was closed due to some freak weather. This meant we said goodbye for several people each morning, only to greet them again at lunchtime as they threw their backpacks back down in the hallway, cursing under their breaths and grappling with a fold out map of south america before they decided, every time, to screw Chile and go to Buenos Aires. We really wanted to go to Chile so we decided to wait it out. By the time we left, our hostel felt like we had lived there forever. Chris had even started referring to it plaintively as -home-.
Fortunately Chile is definitely worth the wait. We had some more fun at the border while they searched for contraband. This time we had been handed a long, long list of things you had to declare before you entered the country. This turned out to include the cheese and butter in my sandwich-but not the bread- and some interestingly shaped seedpods from Bolivia which I had been carrying in my wash bag. Failure to declare, it was stated, was punishable by thumbscrews and racking. So I dropped the seedpods onto the bus floor, with a pang of regret, and fessed up to the ownership of the sandwich, but the only real scare is when Chris=s backpack went through the X-ray and they thought his sandwich was an apple. Apparently these draconian anti-fruit controls are to stop the pernicious spread of fruitfly. Although one might assume from the name that fruitfly have evolved measures to evade border patrol. Still, it was nice to wait in a snowy mountain pass in sub zero temperatures in case a rogue Coxs Orange Pippin had attempted an infiltration.
First stop in Chile was Valparaiso, a higgledy piggledy town set across about 40 hillsides. UNESCO has declared this one part of the Patrimony of Humanity too. In fact, why they havent saved an awful lot of trouble by declaring the entire continent a world heritage site, I don-t know. We have been to literally a hundred. But I digress. Valpo is universally described as charming, bohemian and hip. It is in short the Brighton of South America. The top half of town, on the hills, is full of vegetarian cafes, interesting street art, and a preponderance of shops selling olive dishes. The words artesan and boutique appeared an awful lot. Naturally I love all this but cant afford or carry any more decorative spoons or wolf dreamcatchers at present so we came back down in an ascensor. These Valpo institutions are ancient crumbly funiculars and there are maybe twenty around town. You sit in a sort of shack on wheels and they inch you up to hill level. Brilliant. We found very cheap accommodation in a haunted mansion in the suburbs which was an added bonus. We also did a harbour tour and saw a sealion, which thrilled us, and stumbled across a VW beetle show called Valpowagen which thrilled us too. Further along the beach at Vina Del Mar we strolled along the Pacific coastline in the winter sunshine on a boardwalk and ate the best barbecue ribs ever. For added fun we checked on the weather reports back home. How we laughed.
We are now in Santiago for a week, seeing the sights. Santiago looks and feels a lot like London to me. This makes me wonder if I havent actually just started gravitating towards the places that remind me of home, or some sort of romantic ideal of home. I've developed a pressing need to watch the Muppet Christmas Carol while drinking mead in front of a log fire. Even the thought of going back to work doesnt seem as dreadful as it once did. Eight months of travelling certainly warps reality.
P.S. If anyone is wondering, I am typing this blog on a computer whose punctuation keys have gone to hell in a handcart. Sure, I can do upside down question marks ¿¿¿¿ but what use is that without the apostrophe?
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