Back home

Back home...the view from the computer desk (and, yes, that is a red-and-black Bombers windmill in the background)...

Santiago...and it all comes to an end...for now

Arriving at 5am in Santiago, Chile, without a hostel booking, was an unwise decision. For 4 months, booking hostels has not been necessary...but at 6am, one finds that hostel receptions are not manned...and so it looked like 2 hours or more on a park-bench...after an encounter with some would-be-street-thieves (you scoundrels!) and then the hospitality of an office building foyer guard, I finally got myself into a hostel...and all returned to normal.

Santiago is a modern city...with little of the noticeable poverty of other large South American cities...and the sight of the Andes towering above it to the east is awesome (for you Tasmanians, it's a bit like Mt Wellington over Hobart...but on a far grander scale)...






Sculpture park in one of Chile's pleasant green areas...






Owing to being located in a valley of sorts, the city's pollution has great difficulty in escaping and, so, for much of my time in Santiago, a grey blanket hovered above the skyline...

A tour of local vineyards was most enjoyable for not only the lovely tasting wines, but also the brilliant sights...

Back to the city...

Suburban night skyline from the hostel terrace (incidentally, another highly recommended hostel... Happy House Hostel)...

And so, my world travel trip comes to an end...a flight across the Pacific, quick stop at the Auckland airport and then a final flight into a cloud covered Melbourne signalled a temporary hiatus in my global travels...

Steaking out Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is a place of hissing buses, friendly stray dogs roaming in packs and seemingly disposable plastic toilet seats...but more than anything Buenos Aires is a city to indulge in beef steak.



I dont know what precisely they do with it between paddock and plate, but it is, without doubt, the best steak in the world...and I say that as an Australian who has a lot of time for our own beef cows and farmers.


Buenos Aires is also an intriguing place with its architecture...while some buildings in the city are immaculate and appear to be something out of the beginning of last century Europe, others are little more than the ramshackle you would find in a run-down, depressed city.



Unfortunately, I probably didnt take the amount of photos in BA as I had hoped...it was just a little bit too difficult to be swinging an expensive camera around on the streets, knowing that you would then become target no.1 for the local pickpocket/street thief...


Plaza de Mayo (one of the main squares for the frequent...hourly perhaps...demonstrations against this that or the other)...







Pigeon lady...

Looking down one of BA's wide avenues, Avenida de Mayo...some these avenues have countless lanes...well actually, I did count the widest one...I think it had 20 lanes....

Apart from the countless stray dogs, there appears to be a tendency for a high ratio of dog ownership in BA. Hence the need for the multi-leaded dog walker....( I counted 14 dogs)...









I stood for quite some time wondering why you would need so many doors (6) so close together? I am still not quite sure...and it was not an uncommon thing in BA...






Next stop: Ecuador

Ecuador´s coast...isolated fishing villages

My first two memories of Ecuador...or rather Quito, its capital...were of loud, chanting football fans in the minuscule arrivals hall waiting for their sporting gods to return from whence they'd been (presumably tasting victory)...

and then an extraordinary, though practical, sight of the local garbos (the gentlemen employed to collect one's refuse) adorning themselves with those army dark green garbage bags to protect themselves from the torrential elements. I chuckled.

But my time in Ecuador was mostly spent on the north west coast...enjoying the sunshine and the sea (ocean)...actually this was the closest I had come to to ocean since the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland and perhaps also the boardwalk at Wallasey on the Birkenhead Peninsula which is over the river from Liverpool....anyways...

The three places I spent my time were two small, relatively isolated fishing villages of Muisne and Mompiche...both of which had fantastic beaches...and then Atacames, a resort town which is said to be raucous at the peak vacation times, but was mild enough for me...

Some sights as the bus passed through...





Muisne beach...





Mompiche...a view from my hostel window...




And some fabulous sunset views from Muisne beach...matching the sunset from when I travelled up the Danube a couple of months ago...

Next stop: Santiago, Chile

Crossing the border to Chile

My next journey was across the southern ranges of the Andes from Argentinian Patagonia to Chilean Patagonia...travel was by bus and, yet again, wonderful views could be had along the way...










My first stop in Chile was Puerto Natales...a large town bound by fjords which are connected to the Pacific Ocean...

My first live football match in South America...two local teams I guess...much action all round...a bit of biff, followed not long later by a red card sending off and then minutes later a missed penalty shot! The pitch reminded me of my days kicking the football around in the front paddock at home...

Puerto Natales' tourism market is made through it locality to the spectacular Torres del Paine national park...of which I toured and got some great sights of local wildlife

But, alas, my bad luck with the weather in southern South America continued and the marvellous postcard sights of the mountains and lakes were largely hidden by low cloud...most unfortunate...