From bad to worse.

The O bus runs along Ave. Alemania and the drivers are either pushing the accelerator or brake pedal through the floor.  Truce had been invited to a party in Cerro Yungay that involved a trip on the O bus.  We jumped off at the bottom of Yungay and looked at the 45 degree street in front of us, threw Truce on my back and set out sights skywards.  Spring has come to Valpo and the days are warming up.  About half way up Truce informed me that I was sweating.   Towards the top of the cerro I was grateful that we’d taken our anti-altitude sickness tablets.

We asked a young boy where number 579 Suchandsuch street was.  He pointed to the other side of a hairpin turn and pointed out a particular house.  Truce jumped back on board the daddy express and we found house number 570 and then 620 and a set of steps in-between.  We zig-zagged up the steps and asked for further directions and we were promptly pointed back down the stairs.

I asked a man who shall be named Mr Lungs if he cold help us.  He yelled to his friend up the street if she knew the family on the invitation.  Mr Lungs told me to go up another set of stairs, he crossed the street and went up another lot of steps.  While I was speaking to another person, who did know the family I was searching for – she was the great aunt of Truce’s friend, Mr Lungs shouted from the other side of the valley, “Hay un gringo buscando por la Smith familia.”  Somebody shouted back to him, Mr Lungs bellowed to me that the family I was looking for was on his side of the street.

The houses are all built on top of each other and there was no way I would have found them without Mr Lungs help.  The older sister of the birthday girl came down to help us navigate through the labyrinth to their house.  We arrived, hot, bothered and an hour late.  Inside the house there were party decorations, one table with a bottle of soft drink, four chairs, a potato salad and us as the only guests.  Surely we couldn’t be the only guests.  After a quick glance at the invite I asked la mama what time the party started.  She told me in another two hours.  The 7 on the invite for 17:30 looked like a 4 for 14:30.  We were two hours early.  Oh well, time to practice some Spanish. 

I think it's spelt with an 's'

A few miles north of La Serena is a village called Chungungo.  We didn’t actually go into the town but it is worth talking about.  The people of Chungungo had had a problem with water scarcity for some time but experienced almost daily fogs.  In the early 1990s large fog catching nets were erected.  Originally the idea was to help create a forest that could harvest its own water but the townspeople asked for water to also be diverted to their village.  While we were driving back from Punto Churros we saw one of the fogs, known locally as camanchaca, starting to roll in.

La Serena has 26 churches, all in various shapes, sizes and denominations.  La Serena is Chile’s second oldest city and there is a strong Italian and Spanish influence in the architecture.   It is vastly different to the chaotic randomness of Valparaíso and doesn’t seem to have the same problem of stray dogs roaming the streets.  Which is fortunate for Lena because she seems to be some sort of dog magnet.  On a few occasions dogs would deviate off their normal course to walk behind her.  One particular dog followed us across La Serena and was dubbed Pebre. 

There aren’t as many buses running through the streets as we see in Valpo and people who live out of the city centre have to rely more on private transport.  We strolled around the Japanese Garden, which could do with a little bit more TLC.  It’s very hard to maintain the gardens when the locals have trouble reading the “Keep of the Grass” signs and kids are allowed to chase swans around.

We went through the free museum.  It’s only a small museum but has great displays.  There is a Maoi from Easter Island, a mummy, several shrunken heads, weapons, fossils and some old crime scenes showing the bones of people killed in battle.

What does Mr Humboldt plan to do with those penguins?

La Serena is 7.5 hours north of Valpara…  Yes, you there, in the front row.  You have a question?  Well speak up man.  What is it?

I’m sorry, did you say, or 3 hours by car

I stand corrected.  You can choose to sit on a bus for 7.5 hours to get to La Serena or you can hire a car and halve the trip.  The bus is more economical but there is only so many times one can answer, “Are we there yet?”

It’s Indiana’s birthday next week and we’ve come to La Serena to see the Humboldt penguins as part of Indiana’s present.  Indy’s a bit of a nature girl and likes most things that slither, swim or fly.  For the sake of alliteration I could have said, slither, swim or sashay but that would just be silly.  Boris’ sister Nefer lives here and she was kind enough to pick us up from the bus station and drop us off at Hostal Balmaceda where we’re staying.  Check them out on tripadvisor.com – great value if you’re travelling as a family or group.

During the bus trip Indiana chatted with a young British backpacker for several hours.  She was so mature in her conversation; after all she is only a week away from being 8.

There are several groups that organise tours out to Punta de Choros.  Formally a fishing village the local fishermen have traded their nets for tour guide hats and take brave passengers out to Isla Choros and Isla Dama in fishing boats that seat about 26 people.  The attraction is that the boats float around a Humboldt Penguin colony.  You can’t go on the island but there are plenty of penguins, sea lions and sea birds to see before heading over to Isla Dama where you can explore the island for an hour. 

This isn’t a river cruise, it’s in the open water and I’m not a sailor.  I get seasick putting bath toys in the tub for the kids.  The human brain can only concentrate on one thing at a time so I’ve now learnt how to say the alphabet backwards.  Talluah managed to be a seat for Truce who has a bony bum, a case of the wiggles and doesn’t mind the odd snooze while navigating the ocean.  Talluah had to deal with her own nausea that seemed to subside after the bag of M&Ms disappeared.  Hers is more the effects of hunger than the Humboldt Current.  I think the phrase is, eating for two.

Room for one more.

“I’m hungry,” says she.

“You’re always hungry,” says he.

“I’m tired too,” says she.

“You’re always tired too,” says he.

“I feel a little bit nauseous,” says she.

“You’re always…”

We’d like to announce that there’s going to be a new addition to the Harper family.   This in turn leads to the odd-hour crusades for necessary foods to stifle cravings.

“I want a bacon and avocado sandwich,” says she.

He sighs a sigh of relief – they have those ingredients.

“It’d be really nice on that groovy bread from the other panadería,” says she.

For the viewers at home watching on Black and White sets, we have named all the bread we buy, groovy bread, dimbo, triangle thingys, the double ones, that one we bought the day we went to the park, etc.

Groovy bread comes from a panadería in el Plan.  “The bread from that panadería in the pan?” asks he.

She nods.

“How long will it take you to cook the bacon?”  asks he.

“Seven minutes,” says she.

“Time me,” says he.

Six minutes and thirteen seconds later he returns with a token of his undying love, groovy bread from the panadería in el Plan and enough lactic acid to drop a cow.

Tagged

For the most part, Valparaíso is covered with art but there is an increasing amount of graffiti showing up.  The local government has been installing rubbish bins all over the city and they usually end of with someone’s tag on them within a few days.  Last weekend they installed three new bins around the ascensor.

One week later they had been vandalised.  This isn’t an expression of art and when you see how much amazing art there is in this city it’s a shame to see graffiti like this.  Thankfully the proper art works seem to be respected and are rarely tagged.

We're going on a bear hunt.

Rain clouds threatened but we’d already made plans to explore out to Parque La Campana.  The first leg of our journey was on the Metro.  These clean, modern electric trains run every fifteen minutes between Valpo and Limache and it only costs CLP$650 to go from one end of the line to the other.  It’s a relaxing way to see the outskirts of Valpo and some of the more rural areas.

From Limache there are Micros (local buses) that run out to the National Park, almost.  In all it only took about 90 minutes to travel out to the park.  We had to walk the last kilometre to the park entrance but we’d gone there to walk so it was no big deal.  Plus we got to meet some dogs that were acting tough behind their side of the fence.

Charles Darwin visited the park but we missed him by some 180 years and had to be content with plaques recounting his musings on the countryside.  It’s a beautiful area with an abundance of hiking trails and streams that flow with clean water.  We only saw two other families there.  It seems that Chileans haven’t quite got into the groove of visiting their national parks yet.  There are two main mountains there that you can walk up but they take about seven hours return trip and we just weren’t ready to piggy-back the girls that far.  We did find some old mining caves but without torches we couldn’t explore them properly.

This is the sort of place that hikers look for, low crowds, good facilities and a variety of flora and fauna.

Onwards, to infamy and beyond.

We try to talk about a variety of topics but the student protests keep popping up and can’t be avoided.  Wednesday and Thursday past saw the biggest gathering so far.  Sadly the riots have claimed their first fatality.  There's more information here. 

The building I work in closed early, which means I lost a day’s work.  Is this the irony of wanting free education?  Due to the students I’ve lost a day’s wage – being an ESL teacher in Chile at the moment does not lead to Easy Street – but we still have to pay all our living expenses, the girl’s education being one of them.

It was anticipated that there would be problems with families joining the march, safety and transport so many schools were closed, ours included, for Wednesday and Thursday.  Lena and I were there with cameras at the ready and one old man turned sideways and crab walked past us so we could read his sandwich board and snap a picture of him.  This was his chance at 15 minutes at fame.  To be honest he wasn't worth photographing so I ignored him and he resented it.  Even if you don't know the words being spoken to you, you can still get the meaning.

There is a rumour circulating that if you suck on a lemon it softens the effects of tear gas.  There was one man selling lemons for 100 pesos each.  You can normally buy them in the markets for 200 pesos a kilo.

We skipped over to Boris’ house on the other side of town and made empanadas and crab pie while Truce took photos.