Back in Santiago (for the third time), we checked into Casa Roja, the same hostel as Liam and Tess, who recommended it after their last stay in Santiago. Santiago is such a hub, everyone seems to pass through it several times. Chilean independence celebrations were already underway and there seemed to be quite a few hangovers around the hostel. Keen that we be prepared for similar circumstances we all went out to find a pharmacist and stock up ibuprofen, re-hydration salts, and Berocca. We struggled for a bit in Spanish (Tess's Spanish is better than mine, but she was still struggling to explain re-hydration salts and what Berocca are), before the pharmacist revealed that he could speak English. They were all in high spirits in the shop and the pharmacist offered us each a pisco sour; apparently they were all drinking on duty. What an excellent pharmacist, to dispense pisco sour free of charge to the customers!

Nice pharmacist serving us pisco sours

Us and the best pharmacist in Chile

Now fully prepared we bought food and booze from the supermarket, which we were told was going to close early and be closed for three days. Tess sent Liam out so she could sneakily buy him a birthday cake and we bought him a bottle of Havana Club rum as a present, and also, for us, a bottle of the Pisco Mistral we had the kids had let us taste on Easter Island. Of course we had wine and beer as well; we didn't want to run out. Back at the hostel Liam took charge of food and I was assigned the task of making a fine chop concasse, tomatoes with their seeds removed and chopped up into tiny bits. This was mixed through the rice along with some more Longaniza sausages and served with lemon chicken. Stomachs lined, we headed out for the start of our celebrations.

That night, most of the people at the hostel were going to see a band, called Banda Conmocion, playing at a venue very close to the hostel. The support bands were quite good, but the headliners were fantastic, combining several chaotic musical genres I like: ska, Balkan, gypsy-punk, and a hint of salsa. There were at least twenty band members, many of the dressed up in bizarre costumes (one was satan) and parading around the stage apparently oblivious to the rest of the band; however the cacophony all came together somehow and there was a lot of bouncing in the club. The previous bands had been far more salsa and some of the dancing then had been intimidatingly proficient, but this was far more my sort of thing: plenty of knees up, running on the spot, and straight-forward bouncing for the real climaxes, so I got stuck right into to the sweaty masses. At one point, during one of the earlier bouncy bits a girl tapped me heavily on the shoulder and, when I turned round, said Baila como la mierda, which I thought was a bit rude and it dented my confidence enough to make me retreat to the back and resume the indifferent shuffle. However from there I could see that she was the only person in the whole place still trying to salsa dance to crashing cymbals, booming bass drums, and parping trombones; everyone else was bouncing around, buffeting her, until eventually retreated looking disgusted with everybody. She was the one who had got it wrong, not me!

The next day the drinking just continued; this was the actual independence day of Fiestas Patrias, and we paid a visit to the bar where Tess and Liam had befriended the staff during their last stay at Casa Roja. The owner had incredibly cool long dreadlocks, of which I was very jealous, but he had been growing them for ten years. All of these friends of Tess and Liam were very patient with our Spanish, which was just as well because none of them really spoke any English. It's amazing how much easier it is to speak another language when you know English is not an option – and you've had a skinful!

The next day was Liam's 30th birthday, but also “Military Day”, the last day of Fiestas Patrias and we started it with a great hangover breakfast: leftover longanizas, fried together with leftover chicken in rolls, the finishing touch being the HP sauce and Coleman's English Mustard I had bought in New Zealand. A girl eating a vegetarian breakfast in the garden near where we set looked on at our massive meat sandwich breakfasts with a mixture of disgust and admiration, I thought. Maybe it was just disgust. Straight after breakfast (well it was already late afternoon) Liam started on the Havana Club, so we started on the Mistral. Rinse and repeat.

The next day I felt absolutely awful. I could barely speak to anyone, and a brief attempt I made to be sociable with all the people we had met in the hostel over the last few days, had to be abandoned in favour of a large take-away pizza for each of us. Liam was even worse that I was: he had drunk almost the whole bottle of rum himself in less than an hour, just to start the day off. He only managed to get out of bed long enough to eat half his pizza then disappeared again.

All I could think was, we can never drink like this again. We're too old to be celebrating 30th birthdays; I thought it would be OK because we had managed a 21st previously but, in retrospect, 21st birthdays are probably safer and tamer, because 21 year-olds have not yet had the time to develop fully-blown disgraceful behaviour, whereas 30 year-olds certainly have, and have not yet started the long decline where they can no longer maintain. Or maybe it's just chefs. Liam and Tess were planning taking a month of alcohol as well as quitting smoking the next day. At least we didn't have cigarettes to quit, but we couldn't stop drinking: our next destination was Mendoza and the only reason we were going there was wine.

We definitely needed some sort of rest though; apart from all the alcohol we had barely slept except through the drunkest of slumbers, because our dorm of eight beds was also the thoroughfare to the neighbouring dorm of another eight beds, and during the last few days people were keeping all hours, so it was never quiet. To help us recover, Joanne booked a double room in a hostel in Mendoza which was recommended for being quiet. That's what we needed after the last two party hostels we had stayed in.

It was another night of almost no sleep and the next morning I was still feeling terrible, so we had leftover pizza and a can of beer I found in my bag, hoping it would clear away the last vestiges of the binge before we properly began our better, cleaner lifestyle. Tess and Liam did not look like they were going to wake up, so we just left them, and headed of to the bus station to catch our bus to Argentina. It was a shame we didn't see more of Chile, but we did go to Easter Island, which was the main thing, and afterwards we joined in with the national celebrations, so we didn't do too badly on the right schedule we have to stick to for South America. I liked the people and the atmosphere in Santiago, but it would have been nice to make it further south to Pucon and the lake district, or even further to Patagonia. Oh well, there's always next time.

Breakfast

written by  The Happy Couple on September 21, 2009 from Santiago, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Joanne talked me through everything I had done since. Did I accidentally hand it over to the conductor when I paid for the tickets? Definitely not: I remembered counting through the money and would definitely have noticed my card there. Did I collect it from the ATM after drawing the money? I couldn't remember one way or another; normally it's so automatic I don't register doing it. Then I remembered that the stupid ATMs in Chile all ask you if you want another transaction (Y/N) after dispensing your cash. Then I realised: this is something I would have remembered because it always annoys me that they ask such a pointless and potentially hazardous question to the ownership of your card. I had hoped that my irritation would always remind me about this but, on this occasion, we had still been discussing which bus to get, and I think I must have just whipped the money out then continued the conversation. Could someone have been passing, just as it was beeping for a response and said Yes, I'd like to draw all the money available? I hoped it at least asked for this PIN again if you try to draw more money. This is why ATMs in the UK give you your card first, then give you your money; if you want another transaction after drawing money, you have to put your card and PIN in again. Stupid South American ATMs! Stupid rushing and harassing bus conductor! But above all, stupid me for walking away from the machine without my card!

I'm not certain that this is what happened, but it seems the most likely explanation. I suppose I may have dropped it on the way to the bus, or someone may have dipped into my pocket. Whatever had happened to it I had to stop the card immediately. So I sent a text to my trusty old friend, John, asking him to look up the card-stop numbers for me. Soon his (reliable as ever) text came back, but I discovered we couldn't make international calls on the Chilean SIM and I didn't want to call them, roaming from my UK SIM; someone might have been taking the daily maximum out of my account but that would surely be nothing compared to the bill racked up by waiting on hold from abroad. So I sent my dad a text and asked him to make the call for me. Even at 36, parents can come in really handy.

On the road there were hundreds of large lorries. It must be a major haulage route between the two countries. The scenery was stunning on the way up to the border, but most of the time quite well hidden by cloud. I can't remember what height the pass is, but it must be about 3000 metres, I think. We passed a few ski courses and continued upwards. All this climbing, of course, meant that it was absolutely freezing at the border, where we were obliged to hang around for more than half an hour, off the bus for some reason. We weren't dressed for it, in fact we didn't really have the clothes for it with us, but putting on our thermals before we got on the bus would have helped.

On the road to the Santiago-Mendoza border

Back on the bus, heading down the other side from the border, suddenly things seemed far more militarised: we passed several army units apparently out on exercise in the hills and there were quite military-looking police everywhere. Also, the railway line I thought I had caught glimpses of on the way up to the border was much more obvious on the other side, but now I could see it was disused. Clearly this railway line used to be the main freight route between the countries but now it's all hundreds of big lorries. What a waste! The line didn't even look like it had been out of use for all that long, no more than twenty years. All the tunnels were intact, as were the bridges, some of which didn't even look very rusty, in fact there were even metal signs along the tracks that were still legible. It was only the weeds and the uncleared earth, part burying the tracks in places, that gave away the redundancy of the line. We followed the railway route pretty much the whole way to Menddoza.

Maybe to prepare us for the country we had now entered, I pondered, on the bus stereo was now played a continuous string of the biggest cheese merchants that the music industry has ever been cruel enough to inflict on the world. Act after act of faux-sincere, over-emotional crooners wailing about un amor perdido or whatever. It was horrendous and just when we thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, they switched on the screen and there they were: strutting around the stage, mostly rather macho, complete with gleaming teeth, giant collars, white suit, bouffant hair, or tight purple jeans and a hairy medallioned chest, or whatever other awful combination their style-gurus must have told them would really sell. I understand that music in the UK used to be overrun with crooners before Elvis and pop music rendered them all obsolete, but this was no video nasty from the 50s or 60s, this was clearly quite recent and a few numbers even featured a nod to modern pop-py beats. What kind of country were we entering where this could be modern music? What was it - Cheesier than Cheddar vol.5? Now that's what I call Gorgonzola? We'll never know because, although disbelief really made me want to ask, I couldn't risk someone overhearing and thinking that I had liked it.

After a while the road levelled out and became very straight. The numbers of police on the road just rose and rose, until there seemed to be cars pulled over every few hundred yards. At first I thought they must be pulling people over looking for bribes, but then I noticed that around every intersection the speed limit was very low, and there were frequent little shrines dotted all along the road as well; so I suppose they probably have good reason to pull so many vehicles over. Whatever the reason is added more to the feeling that we were in a police state or military dictatorship, which I wasn't expecting given how long it has been since the last junta.

The walk to the hostel wasn't very nice and we were anxious to get there before it got too dark. On first impression, it was it far more run-down than Santiago or Valparaiso: there was graffiti everywhere, and not the nice murals of Valparaiso. The pavements were all cracked and loads of the paving stones were missing, as if they had been lifted and sold off. Everywhere there were real wrecks of cars on the road. I didn't really expect this much of an obvious change just coming across the border from Chile to Argentina, but it really seemed like we had arrived in a less prosperous country, full of vandals. The people even looked quite shady after Chile.

The hostel was very nice and it was quiet, which was what we needed after Santiago. The guy who was on the desk seemed very nice, but extremely serious, bordering on miserable. We got chatting to the only other people staying there: a girl from Irvine and her English fiancé. They took pity on us and our lost bank card, and invited us to join them in the dinner they had just made (a little too much of, they insisted).

written by  The Happy Couple on September 21, 2009 from Mendoza, Argentina
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Santiago

What an excellent gig it was!

Banda Conmocion gig

Valparaiso

Not drunk, honest

Quite late on at the el Yoyo

Still sober, oh yes.

Amusing dog with "underbite"

Awwww. Tess and Joanne.

We all went out to get meat, which was pretty confusing considering none of the cuts are the same as those we're used to: no sirloin, fillet, rump, t-bone, etc – at least not with those names. I've since discovered that you can get t-bone and fillet, but they're not that common. Most of the cuts are just gigantic lumps of meat, with no so consistent thickness. After much dithering we all chose our various lumps and I also bought some traditional sausages, recommended by Max: Longanizas. He had also recommended the cut of meat called lomo vetado, but the supermarket didn't have it. He had impressed on me that the supermarket was the place we should buy meat because he didn't really trust the butchers, which he said were a bit dirty. Nonetheless, we had to go there for his lomo vetado. When we told Max where we had got it, he did not look happy at all, but he cooked it and ate it anyway.

Full disclosure: all these photos were taken by Joanne, not me.

Tess and the meat

Rare shot of Max with no hat (Brad & Adam behind)

Underbite dog in the background

It may not be responsible, but it is coordinated

A French girl on the prowl, but I'm married

.... French girl turns her attention to Max

It's just a perk of the job for Max

After the club closed we all headed back to the hostel, being tailed by one of the locals. The girls were a bit uneasy by this and let Max know they weren't happy. He said that we shouldn't worry, the guy wouldn't get in. Valparaiso seems to have a slightly dangerous reputation and we were still very wary of South America after months in relatively safe Asia. Max told us that he had once been mugged just as he got to the hostel and robbed of his watch (grandfather's), his wallet, and even his shoes and trousers. Luckily this guy just disappeared when Max told him that the hostel rules, actually it seems to be its only rule, is that guests are not allowed after 1pm, and it was well after.

Me and Adam

Brad and Liam

We stayed up all night and drank everything we had: the pisco we had bought in Santiago came out and was drunk; the extra beers we bought were drunk; all the wine was drunk. We were all drunk. There was dancing in the kitchen. I think we went to bed about 7:30am. Most hostels have rules about noise, but this one just seems to be a party hostel. The guy working on the desk is up drinking with all the guests. I feel really sorry for anyone trying to sleep at night in that hostel.

I'm so drunk a flying mouth is eating my head

Tess and Joanne

The next day, afternoon of course, we got up and discovered that Joanne's fleece was gone, as was Tess's cardigan, and a German guy's jacket. Each one might have thought they had drunkenly misplaced it, but all three together was more than a coincidence. A review of the previous night's photos (after all there was no memory to refer to) revealed that all of the clothing had made it back from the club to the hostel kitchen. It also revealed that some friends of another employee at the hostel were around quite late on, so late that nobody remembered them having been there. Max seemed suspicious.

Chief suspects in the case of the missing clothing

What we needed to deal with our hangovers, Max suggested, was some ceviche, Chile's national dish, except it's really Peruvian, maybe. He offered to make it, so we went out to buy all the ingredients:

Ceviche

Method
Juice the lemon and chop everything else up and mix it all together
Leave it for an hour or so
Eat with bread

At the supermarket my Spanish came up rubbish again when trying to deal with the fish counter. They had the fish we wanted, but it wasn't already filleted. I wouldn't have expected that to cause too many problems, but it took us ages. We finally made a decision and settled for the fillets from two whole fish when she started suggesting that we might want frozen fish as well. Frozen fish, raw? No thanks.

The ceviche

It was well worth it. He didn't actually use all the tomatoes or lemons (for juice), but Max's ceviche was absolutely fantastic and I fancy that it did alleviate my hangover substantially. Max joined us to eat, although he had to be persuaded, and told us about his job. He was waiting to be told about a job in Spain but, even if he didn't get it, there was no way he was working another summer at the hostel: it's just too much partying, he explained. After the independence day celebrations he was planning to go skiing near Santiago and told us he could get us free ski passes. Apparently he had another job on the slopes.

El Yoyo's guide to Chilean slang

El Yoyo's guide to Chilean slang

We hadn't really decided what we were doing after Valparaiso, and we didn't know where to be for Fiestas Patrias, the independence celebrations, though we considered Max's party proposals. I quite fancied going to Pucon in the Chilean lake district, then maybe crossing over to Argentina at that point, but it was going to be hard to fit in with out tight schedule and Fiestas Patrias. There was skiing down that way too, and the snow would be better. Tess and Liam were looking forward to a double party because the day after Fiestas Patrias finished it was Liam's 30th Birthday. Finally we decided we didn't really have enough time to go to Pucon, after all we wanted to go to Mendoza, which is just over the border from Santiago. So we decided we would go with Tess and Liam to Santiago for Fiestas Patrias, then celebrate his 30th birthday with them. After all we had celebrated a 21st in Thailand, so why not now a 30th?

written by  The Happy Couple on September 16, 2009 from Valparaiso, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Valparaiso mural (photo by Joanne)

The bus journey to Valparaiso wasn't long, only about two hours, and we arrived at Hostel El Yoyo in the afternoon. Everyone at the hostel seemed to be recovering from a heavy night, so we took it easy as well. I blogged. And we bought oven empanadas from the supermarket. Joanne, especially, was really really sick of empanadas now.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso

Valparaiso

Restaurant we couldn't afford in Valparaiso

Pisco sours

Joanne's spinach fettucini

My grilled chicken, wild rice, and peanuts

Valparaiso

Joanne in Valparaiso

Lazy dogs at the top of the funicular

Valparaiso

Valparaiso decaying in style

Valparaiso prettily falling apart

Another restaurant we couldn't afford

Still a romantic place

Valparaiso

Funicular track

Valparaiso mural (photo by Joanne)

Mural in el Yoyo

Liam. He's Irish.

Tess and Max

Brad and erm...

I'm a bit tired I think

Definitely tired

written by  The Happy Couple on September 14, 2009 from Valparaiso, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Funny little airport on Easter Island

The next morning it was goodbye to Easter Island and back to the mainland.

Goodybye Easter Island

When we arrived at our hostel, Ecohostel, the girl on the desk warned us that we shouldn't go outside because it's the 11th of September. I was a bit confused at to why that should matter so much in Chile, until I remembered reading something a year or two before, that more people died as a result of this September 11th in 1973 than the better known and more recent one. It was Noam Chomsky I had read:

So, let’s imagine how [the September 11th attacks] could have been worse for example. Suppose that on September 11, Al-Qaeda had bombed the White House and killed the President, instituted a murderous, brutal regime which killed maybe 50,000 to 100,000 people and tortured about 700,000, set up a major international terrorist center in Washington, which was overthrowing governments all over the world, and installing brutal vicious neo-Nazi dictatorships, assassinating people. Suppose he called in a bunch of economists, let’s call them the 'Kandahar Boys' to run the American economy, who within a couple of years had driven the economy into one of the worst collapses of its history. Suppose this had happened. That would have been worse than 9/11, right? But it did happen. And it happened on 9/11. That happened on September 11, 1973 in Chile. The only thing you have to change is this per capita equivalence, which is the right way to look at it. Well, did that change the world? Yeah, it did but not from our point of view, in fact, who even knows about it? Incidentally, just to finish, because we [the U.S.] were responsible for that one.

Anyway, the girl in the hostel thought it would be safe enough to go to the pizza place round the corner, since we hadn't eaten anything yet, and the pizza place was quite close. I still don't know who it is that causes the problems but, apparently every year, they have riots. Whether it is Pinochet supporters or detractors I don't know, but on the TV at the pizza shop there was plenty of live footage of demonstrations or riots; lots of things on fire and lots of police. Thankfully none of it seemed to be in our neighbourhood and we made it back to the hostel with our pizza.

The following day was nice and sunny. We had to go shopping for a new (OK second hand) pair of trousers for Joanne to replace a pair that had worn through. Most of what we had taken with us was starting to wear out and I would be needing to buy some more myself. For one thing the compass which has been so useful finding our way around cities was full of air and not working very well, however, when I went into the outdoor shop to ask for a brujola they sent me to a fishing shop.

The fishing shop was closed but just next door was a nice little cafe, selling schopp, or draft beer, and colaciones, which are cheap set meals. Both were very nice, although the beer cost almost the same as the food. It's always surprising how much nicer places are in the sun, and it worked its magic again in Santiago. Where I had previously thought the city was OK, I now thought it was a great place. My not very good Spanish seemed to be holding up well and the sun was shining.

After our lunch we went to the bus station to buy a ticket to Valparaiso, where we were heading the next day. At the bus station, the Spanish I thought I had been speaking so well was suddenly useless. I don't know if it was the guys accent or if he just wasn't so used to dealing with foreigners, but I could hardly understand anything he said. We managed to get a ticket in the end and set off to the supermarket to stock up for Valparaiso: we bought some food, some wine, and some aged pisco, like the kids on Easter Island had been drinking, though not the same "expensive" brand at nearly £4 per bottle!

written by  The Happy Couple on September 11, 2009 from Santiago, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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We decided to hire a moped again again, see the remaining moais and then head to the beach for a while, so I went down to the hire shop to get one. The same girl as last time was on duty and thought I was just there to observe her tearing up the credit card security slip from before. I started trying to explain in Spanish that I wanted to hire one again today, but she cut me off, saying something to do with drinking and the police. She was telling me I couldn't hire a bike, perhaps because I smelled of alcohol. I needed to look up ayer, yesterday, to explain I was drinking yesterday, not today. She stared at me: pero esta bien? she asked. Si I responded, and she was happy enough after that.

Moai at Ahu Tahai

Approach to the North Moais

The coastline behind the moais

We headed straight for the moais north of town, where we found a pack of dogs running after one of the horses which roam free all over the island. Horrible beasts, dogs! I suppose the horse could easily have killed them with a kick if it came to it, but the poor thing looked very spooked. There was one ahu with six moais in various states of repair, then a final large moai on its own; the piece de resistance, a large moai, complete with the pukao, or topnot, which several others have intact, and the coral eyes that they all originally had. I have since seen online, to my slight disappointment, that the eyes on this one are just replicas, but I really liked it anyway, so much so that I felt obliged to give tribute again to Where the Hell is Matt. I think I got a better handle on his dancing this time.

The beach

After that it was a quick trip, before the sun set, to the volcano from where the pukaos were quarried then home again. There were some nice views from the quarry, but not much to see at the site itself. I got back just in time to pick Joanne up to watch another sunset, this one much nicer than the first.

Sun set

Joanne in the sun set

The inevitable sun set

written by  The Happy Couple on September 10, 2009 from Hanga Roa, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Surrounded by Water

Our second morning on Easter Island we had learned to be quick, so got up before the school children for breakfast. This time we were able to find food at places next to each other and get a fair amount of meat and cheese. We had been planning to go to the main significant moai we had not yet seen, which was just North of town and is the most complete example, including white coral eyes. It had been my intention to get there nice and early, before breakfast, while the light was still great for photography. When we woke up, though, it was torrential rain, so we didn't bother.

We spent the whole morning waiting indoors for the rain to let up just a bit so we could take the moped back. We had it for 24 hours, so any time before about midday was fine. A German guy who had arrived the same day as us, looked particularly depressed that morning; we were rather surprised when he told us he had booked in for ten days and this was the only stop on his trip. We were also very surprised when he told us he had booked a jeep for a week. We had managed to see almost the whole island in one afternoon on a moped, so what he was going to do with a jeep for a week, I had no idea. That morning he looked like he was having second thoughts about all his plans too.

I don't think I've ever seen so much rain, even the beginnings of the monsoon we caught in Asia, and eventually I just had to make a run for it on the moped. I looked out the rubbish poncho I had bought in Laos before our trek. The poncho arms only came halfway down my forearms, but it was the only waterproof I had. At the end of the road I remembered that I was supposed to take the bike back with a full tank, so I turned around and headed up the hill towards the island's only petrol station. All the way up the hill there was water pouring down the road and in no time I was soaked right through my clothes, despite the poncho. At the top of the hill, the road the garage was on, really looked like a river. It looked like it might have been deep enough to get water in the ignition system, but I was more worried about there being a large rock or some other obstacle in the road which I wouldn't be able to see due it being submerged. As I hesitated at the junction and considered taking the bike back without filling up (surely they'd understand) a middle-aged couple standing on the pavement signalled for me to drive along the pavement instead. Excellent idea! So I bumped up onto the pavement and drove along until I was opposite the garage. The water seemed really deep here and I could easily imagine falling right in it. On the forecourt, two guys working there waved me over, clearly amused. I still wasn't sure, but now they had challenged me I could hardly give up. I braved the torrent and managed it across the road no bother, but after filling up the engine wouldn't start. I felt like saying to the pump attendant “see!”, but then I realised I just hadn't put the key back in properly after opening the seat to put fuel in. Back at the hire shop, the girl asked me “Is it full? - no”, clearly not expecting me to have fought through the rapids she must have known would be there.

I walked back to the hostel and got even wetter. A dog followed me all the way from the shop where I had bought empanadas, which was all we could afford to eat on Easter Island; it is much more expensive than the mainland. Guillermo had left, promising that, if he was there at the same time, he would meet up with us in Cordoba, where he had lived for a while and was planning to stay with friends about the same time as we would get there. Another batch of people arrived and Guillermo was replaced by a Brazilian called Raphael, who went straight to bed. More school children had arrived too and their numbers had swollen so much that they seemed like a sea crashing around the courtyard between blocks in the hostel. It rained very heavily all day and we didn't go out again.

The rain continued all night. I couldn't believe how much it rained. It even turned heavier and thunder and lightening kept the dogs outside howling and whimpering all night. One major problem with Easter Island is that there are stray dogs everywhere; they hang around all the takeaways and restaurants begging and they follow you home from the supermarket and wait outside your hostel room. The manager had warned us to be careful of the dogs at night because one or two guests had been bitten.

It rained and it rained and it rained. Apart from running out to get empanadas when it got a bit lighter, we just sat around all day and talked with Raphael, who had finished his heroic fourteen hour sleep. He was jet-lagged after a flight from New Zealand he explained. He was a very interesting guy, who worked for the Brazilian equivalent of the FBI – the federal police – and he had been to 96 countries almost all with work, who allowed him to take his leave in the middle of a work trip abroad; he only had to postpone the flight home by two weeks, so never had to pay for his travel to take holidays. He told us that Brazil has really turned a corner because the government are making real efforts to reduce the wealth gap and they were seeing big changes in the crime figures as a result.

In the evening the rain finally got a bit lighter. We had intended going out to a pub for the game, but the weather was still unsettled and the manager told us nowhere would be open, so we nipped out to get some wine before the Brazil – Chile football World Cup qualifier. Raphael told us that he actually wanted Chile to win because Brazil were already through and Chile winning would mean that Argentina were far less likely to qualify; apparently Argentina are hated on the field by both Chile and Brazil, but not off the field, Raphael emphasised. It was the only one we could afford, so we had gone for the cheapest wine available: we each had two litre cartons of Gato Negro. It wasn't very nice.

As soon as the game started Raphael was shouting for Brazil. Apparently he couldn't stick to his plans to support someone against his own team once the game was actually happening. The school kids were Chilean, so they were all supporting Chile. The kids had been quite noisy in the evenings and at night, and Colette, who was very friendly, and some other people sleeping in the rooms adjoining the courtyard were not pleased with their behaviour. Quite soon it was clear what the problem was: they were all getting wrecked on tequila and pisco. Appeals to the teacher in charge of them were met with total indifference and we soon realised that he was getting just as drunk with the children he was supposed to be looking after. Furthermore we found out that the owner of the hostel was friends with the teacher (or was it headmaster of the school, I forget), so there was no way any complaints were going to be paid any attention. Oh well, if you can't beat 'em... by the end of the 4-2 drubbing by Brazil over Chile, the kids were far more talkative and wanted me to taste their pisco while they practised their English. Oddly, they were attending a German school, but none of them could speak German, only English. Both the pisco and the kids were surprisingly nice. I suppose I would have been exactly the same if I had been on a school trip where the teacher did nothing at all to maintain control. The only pisco I had ever tasted before was Pisco Capel when my local off-licence in Glasgow was selling it off at £5 a bottle, because it was so disgusting they couldn't sell it for any more. The stuff the kids were drinking, Mistral, was obviously much higher quality and had been aged in wooden casks for several years.

Many drunken conversations and not quite two litres of horrible wine each and we were probably contributing to the noise which kept the others awake, although I'm pretty sure we were much quieter than the kids. Near the end of the night I remember Raphael talking about the recent problems with shenofabee in South Africa. Joanne and I were both staring at him, clueless. And he said, you know when people were attacking foreigners. Xenophobia – aren't other languages a laugh?

Raphael, Colettle, us, and the kids

written by  The Happy Couple on September 9, 2009 from Hanga Roa, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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The six hour flight from Santiago to Easter Island was quite rough and when it came to the descent, the pilot had to back off and try again. In the end we spent two hours circling around around the island waiting for the weather to break. A few of the passengers were becoming visibly anxious and after a while we both started to wonder about the amount of fuel they carry for the flight; after all if they are completely unable to land, where can they divert to? - it's probably back to Santiago. Nonetheless we landed in one piece, prompting spontaneous clapping from the passengers, something I've not seen for many a year. Clearly there were a lot of relieved people on board.

Our flight path for two hours

Of course, the weather was still awful when we arrived, but this didn't stop the hostel manager from putting garlands around our necks when we introduced ourselves, as if we had arrived at some tropical paradise. The airport was tiny, though, and this combined with the garlands combined to give me a very quaint first impression of the place. It's the most remote inhabited place on Earth, over two thousand miles from Chile, and somehow I felt really aware of it as soon as we landed; maybe it was just the amount of time I had to meditate on that fact while we should have been landing, but I think there is more to it than that; maybe the way the skies look or the way the air smells or the way the sea moves. The drive to the hostel was a bit uglier than I was hoping. It may just have been the weather, but I wondered if we had made a mistake to stay there for so long.

The only other new arrivals on the minibus to be picked up with us were school children, and lots of them. Alarm bells were already starting to ring. We were booked into this hostel for three nights and we were planning to ask whether we could stay an extra two, despite what the website had said, because we really couldn't afford to stay at the place we had booked into for the last two nights. Were we really going to have to spend five night with a school party? We hid in our room and spoke to Guillermo, an Asturian who was already resident in our “dorm”. We had originally been booked into different dorms because the hostel was so heavily booked: with Joanne in a female dorm and me in a mixed dorm, but the manager must have taken pity on us and re-allocated us to Guillermo's dorm. The “dorm” looked like it was probably one of the owner's children who had been kicked out to make more space (and money). Seeing how easily he could re-shuffle we asked about the extra two days and were told it was no problem, saving us about US$100. We would be able to eat! By the evening the weather had improved and Joanne and I wandered down to the sea for the sunset.

The coast on our first night

When we woke I went through to the dining room, excited at the prospect of the free breakfast, while Joanne finished showering. I sat down and waited to be served; the table would need to be cleared first. But nobody came. After waiting some more I noticed that there were a couple of undisturbed places at different tables and I was so hungry that I collected together enough unused crockery, including a couple of plates with bread rolls covered with a paper napkin, and two glasses of juice, each covered with a napkin. Was this really how breakfast was supposed to work? We scavenged a little meat and cheese from plates in the middle of several different tables and half-used jam and butter. That was breakfast. At least there was coffee too.

Joanne by the Volcano

We had originally planned to rent bicycles but, considering that the weather seemed quite unpredictable and the difference in price was almost nothing, we opted for a moped again. The weather held for most of the day and never turned awful like the previous day. We intended to spend that first day seeing as many of the major sights as we could, reckoning we could tick off all of the moais in one day. We set out up the East coast of the island and found the terrain to be rather worse than we had hoped, but we had been warned that the roads are not much good apart from the main ones. Soon we found ourselves at a volcano, which was odd because we hadn't intended to head that way. It was an excellent bonus though. I've never seen a volcanic crater before and this small volcano offered excellent vistas over the town, Hanga Roa, the only town on the island. From up there (not really all that high) we could easily see two sides of the island and, were it not for a couple of other hills, we would have been able to see the whole thing. It really is tiny; it's about the same size as Bute. To think of an entire civilisation isolated here, without any outside contact, is incredible; for the whole of the known universe to be just sixty square miles, I find mind-boggling. Every single person would know almost every piece of ground that the entire civilisation knew of: reality was bounded, and they could walk from one end to the other in a day. How comforting that must have been. Or maddeningly boring.

Hanga Roa from the volcano

just slightly to the right: the other coast

First moai!

It's not very big

Old boys on the pish

First really big one

See how big!

The quarry

Joanne and stray moai at Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki

Finally totally awed by the scene, I felt obliged to pay a little tribute to Matt Harding, whose Where the Hell is Matt? videos contributed a significant nudge in finally getting it together to go on this big trip. If his videos don't make you want to see more of the world then nothing will. I don't think I quite captured his dancing but I gave it my best shot.

Matt

Me

Next we headed up to the quarry and got some nice shots, but we didn't pay to go in because the ticket only lasts one day and includes a couple of other sites on the island, which we reckoned we would be able to see all of another day. Instead we continued on to the beach at the North End of the island, which is a lovely fine sand beach with several moais looming in the background. We narrowly avoided getting stuck in the mud on the road on the way to the beach, but made it back completely unscathed and very please with the day we had.

Rano Raraku

Rano Raraku (el Gigante in background)

Rano Raraku

Rano Raraku (el Gigante in background)

Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki

written by  The Happy Couple on September 7, 2009 from Hanga Roa, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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We were keen to get a SIM card to save money on texts and for local calls, then head to the other hill, San Cristobal, to complete our set of things tourists can to in Santiago. So we went to the ATM to draw money. Not working. We went back to the flat to get the credit card. Not working either. Several times in India Nationwide had let us down badly, by preventing us from drawing money when we really needed it. This was the same thing happening. It seems like they have some problem with their international link because people with other foreign cards had no problem, but neither of my Nationwide cards worked. Then a few hours later is was OK again. This lack of money meant that all we could afford to eat were empanadas again. They might be a national speciality, but on our third day in Chile Joanne had already had enough of them.

An empanada. It's just a pie isn't it?

We waited around for hours, ate an empanada or two, and finally were able to draw cash and get the SIM card, which was the first real test of my Spanish. It's pretty rubbish, but between my Spanish and Joanne's female ability to read people's gestures and intonation we were able to work out what everyone replied to my clumsy questions. By the time we got the SIM card it was too late to do anything touristy. It was raining anyway, so who wants to go up a hill?

Joanne's hundredth empanada in three days

Back at the flat, Jaime and Pablo said they would like to cook for us. We had actually just had a little something to eat, but we needed something to go along with the New Zealand wine we had brought them. They explained that they don't drink much, only with guests, so it would just sit there if we didn't help them. They don't like to go to the Couchsurfing weekly meetings either, Jaime said, because they are just about getting wasted, and he can't be bothered with that. Even on the groups online, he continued, most of the people who join “Last Minute Couch in Santiago” or just say they are willing to host, never really do so; they just want to party, but he really likes hosting people, which is why they are in all the groups. What a difference from Japan, especially: people who are members of Couchsurfing and actually want to host people! For most people, they reckoned, it's just about joining in with the travelling spirit by getting drunk with travellers, without having to travel yourself (or host any of them). “I don't think Couchsurfing is about getting drunk”, Jaime said, whereas the most common attitude we had encountered online was “Couchsurfing isn't about a free place to stay”, which is patent nonsense. It seems the problem is that some people think it is just about getting drunk and some people think it is just about a free place to stay. Unfortunately most of the former group seem to be hosts and the latter, guests.

I reckon they have the balance right: free place to stay, eat a nice meal together, drink a bottle of wine, and sit around chatting for a bit longer than we should have considering our early morning flight to Easter Island. It didn't matter that we went to bed a bit later than we intended because the salsa club downstairs kept us awake for most of the night anyway! Travelling is all about learning to live without sleep.

written by  The Happy Couple on September 5, 2009 from Santiago, Chile
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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