Pachamama

We haven't really done much in the way of organised tours on this trip. It's partly because we prefer the freedom and flexibility of doing and seeing things in our own time and at our own pace (which is generally slow and leisurely). Also, tours always cost an absolute bomb and we're never entirely convinced that they'll be worth the money. If we can do it ourselves cheaper, we will.

Unfortunately this looked like it was going to be tricky in Chile. It was harder to identify the sights worth visiting, and our limited Spanish meant it would be an enormous challenge to visit them using just public transport (Jesus tried his best, but sometimes it takes more than 5 days to turn water into wine). Also, it didn't look like public buses went to many of these spots anyway.

So we decided that a tour was probably our best option. We signed up for a 4-day trip with Pachamama Tours (Pachamama means 'mother earth'), which would take us from La Serena to San Pedro de Atacama (in the north), stopping at various nature reserves and sights along the way. It turned out to be an interesting four days, and we saw way more than we would have if we'd been left to our own devices. Chile's a pretty big country so unfortunately there was also a lot of driving, and this combined with the amount of sight-seeing crammed into four days made for quite an exhausting trip. But well worth it.

We started off by spending the morning at the excellently named National Reserve Pinguino de Humboldt. We all boarded a small boat and set off for some islands in the distance, which never seemed to get any closer.

Another outing for my stunning pink waterproofs.

As you can probably tell, I wasn't particularly enjoying this boat trip.

Just as the choppiness of the sea and the seawater splashing in our faces was starting to make me feel a bit miserable, we came across these chaps lounging around on one of the islands:

There were loads of them snoozing on the rocks, rolling over to see the inconsiderate bunch of tourists that had disturbed their sleep.

For the next hour, the boat slowly made its way around the islands and we spotted more sealions and lots of awesome little penguins, waddling drunkenly and jumping clumsily across the rocks.

Right in the middle of this photo,

you can just about see a little pingu standing on a rock

We got a chance to get off the boat at Isla Dumas, walk around what felt like the coldest, windiest beach in the world and eat our sandwiches by the shelter of a big rock whilst being watched by enormous seagulls. We walked around the island a bit and found some super spiky cactuses (cacti, whatever):

Spiky. Not to be thrown at your girlfriend.

After an afternoon of driving, we arrived late in the evening at Bahia Inglesa, which is about a half hour drive from the town of Copiapo where the Chilean miners were trapped and rescued. Bahia Inglesa means 'English Bay' and is apparently named after an English pirate who arrived there in 1687. It turned out to be quite a suitable name – it had a freezing cold sea, grey skies and dog poo on the beach.

Moments before Karl stepped in dog poo

We were staying in cabins by the beach for a couple of days, and Karl and I decided to share with two fellow Brits, Poppy and Kayleigh, who were travelling Chile for a month. We've met lots of European travellers on our trip and, as lovely as they always are, they just don't have the same sense of humour. It was so nice to finally have other people to make stupid jokes about bums and farts with. For some reason, Europeans don't find that sort of thing very funny.

The next day we had a wander around the nearby town of Caldera and had some really good empanadas (pastry filled with meat and cheese) for lunch. In the evening, our tour guide Vanessa and driver Roderigo prepared an impressive BBQ and we spent the rest of the night drinking wine and feasting like kings.

Karl made friends with the local dogs, who had made themselves at home outside our cabin after taking a shine to Poppy and Kayleigh. Actually, it almost verged on stalking – earlier that afternoon, the dogs had followed them to the beach, sat on their towels with them while they sunbathed, and then escorted them home!

Leader of the pack

The next day we were back on the road, driving through the driest part of the Atacama desert to the city of Antafogasta. The landscape was like nothing we'd ever seen before. Dry and totally barren.

Along the way, we stopped at a service station in the middle of nowhere for some cazuela – a soup with meat, potatoes, pumpkin, corn on the cob, and rice:

We also visited a cemetery in the middle of the desert, near an abandoned nitrate mining town. Some of the graves were pretty elaborate:

A little further on was the 'Mano del Desierto' (the hand of the desert). It's an enormous hand sculpture that was installed as a greeting to those passing by.

Our group

High cinco!

Antafogasta turned out to be a bit of a shithole. Very grim and quite dirty. On the plus side though, we had some delicious churros. They taste like freshly made doughnuts, and they were filled with dulce de leche.

Tastes better than it looks. Honest.

The final day of our tour was probably the best. We wandered around a train cemetary. Because the desert is so dry and there's so little moisture in the air, the trains don't rust or corrode.

We stopped for some photos at the Atacama Salt Flats. All of these rocks are pure salt, and that big white thing in the distance in a huge salt cake. Obviously everyone felt the need to lick a rock and make sure it was salty.

We can confirm that the salt was salty

Unfortunately the salt tasting had an adverse effect on Karl, drawing all the moisture out of him until he was just three inches tall.

Pocket-sized Karl

It was all rather traumatic, but luckily there was an oasis nearby so we gave him a good soaking until he was restored to his former size.

Like one of those weird toys that expands when you soak it

in water. Except less slimy.

That evening we watched the sunset at the Natural Reserve Los Flamingos. The sunset was beautiful, but I had hoped to see more than four flamingoes.

Flamingoes from a distance

We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama after dark and headed out to a nearby restaurant for dinner and drinks. After eating, the waitress asked Karl in Spanish if he had enjoyed his meal. He misunderstood her question and answered 'No, gracias' (No, thank you), before realising his mistake and declaring 'Mucho gusto!' (Pleased to meet you!) instead. I guess it's going to take more than an act of God.

We're hoping to have a little more success with our Spanish in Argentina, our next stop, where we've heard they speak slower and clearer. If not, at least it'll make for some more funny anecdotes.

No entiendo

“I don't understand”

In our first few days in Chile, this was one of our most used Spanish phrases.

To be fair, I had learnt it at high school. I'd even done an AS-Level, although I got a D. But all that was over 6 years ago, and apart from a week in Barcelona I've never had the opportunity to practice it. So, when we arrived in Santiago, I felt like I barely remembered a thing. It doesn't help that Chileans are renowned for speaking super-fast and dropping their S's (much like how we might sometimes drop the 't' when saying 'water'). So even if people were saying something I'd learnt before, I wasn't likely to recognise it.

Karl's situation was even worse. Let's just say that he'd paid so little attention to any language classes at school that we may as well say that he's never tried to learn a second language before. Beyond being able to count to 100 (he learnt while we were in Barcelona) and say the usual “pleases' and 'thank yous', he didn't know a word. For him, grammar was a complete mystery.

So our Spanish tutor Jesus had quite a job on his hands. I badly needed to refresh my memory (the knowledge was in there somewhere, I was sure of it) and Karl was desperately in need of some education.

On our first day, we went through the phrases that you might use to introduce yourself to someone. Talking about where you're from, what you do, your age, and so on. Unfortunately, Karl was running into some difficulty with regards to pronunciation. The tutor asked Karl his age, in Spanish, The phrase is 'Cuantos años tienes?' and in English it translates literally into “How many years do you have?”. The squiggle over the 'ñ' creates a 'ny' sound. For me, the answer was “Tengo 25 años” - “I have 25 years”. Karl's answer was a little more unusual.

TUTOR: Karl, cuantos años tienes?

KARL: Tengo 27 ano.

TUTOR: No, you need to pronounce it 'años'. Ano means 'arsehole'. You've just told me you have 27 arseholes.

To be fair, he hasn't got that one wrong since.

There was quite a lot to cram in over the five-day course, and with 4 hours a day as well as a couple of hours practice each evening, it wasn't easy. It was well worth it though. I realised that I remembered a lot more than I'd given myself credit for, it had just needed some unearthing and refreshing. And although the amount of new information could often be overwhelming, and the difficulty of trying to remember it all was often frustrating, Karl's come quite a long way. Don't get me wrong, we're not discussing politics with the locals or anything, but we can at least order stuff from the deli counter, buy a bus ticket, have simple conversations and get our laundry done without too much difficulty (there are good days and bad days). Karl even managed to get a decent haircut, asking for everything in Spanish!

Now, to make up for not having any photos so far, or in my previous post, here are some snaps of the gorgeous views from Cerro San Cristobal, a huge hill in the middle of the city. You can see the whole city, with a backdrop of the Andes. Truly magnificent.

Check out that view!

We travelled up the hill in the 'funicular', which is basically a fancy way of saying 'train on an inclined track', and it basically transports you up steep hills with ease (and some creaking):

Furnicularing

We'd been told that the walk down was quite pleasant, but unfortunately we took totally the wrong path (there were hoof marks, so I'm thinking it was perhaps a horse path?) and ended up scrabbling and scooting cautiously down mud paths and through bushes. Once we'd got down to the bottom of this 350m hill, we were faced with a wire fence and a steep drop to the road, but luckily there was a happy looking young, stoner couple sitting on a log and staring into space who very kindly pointed out a little exit path. I'm surprised there weren't any signs in English at the top of this path telling people NOT to go down it (there was lots of stuff in Spanish, none of which we understood), but I guess this just proves how important it is to learn Spanish before you travel to South America.

Part of our path downhill. What do you mean 'Where is it?'

And yes, those things ARE spiky.

After Santiago we journeyed on to a little coastal town called Valparaiso where we spent a lovely day wondering around the hills and riding more inclined railway thingies, except here they were called 'ascensors':

Oh, and I couldn't resist making Karl pose for this photo:

We also used our Spanish to buy a huge selection of food from the market. For 5000 Chilean pesos (about £6.50), we bought half a kilo each of cherries, tomatoes and avacados, 250g of olives, some chilli sauce, a red pepper, minced meat, loads of bread and a piece of lemon pie. Karl cooked up a delicious batch of chili and guacamole, and the rest of the evening was spent tucked up in bed, watching cable TV (very pleased to find an over-the-top episode of Nigella's new series, where she wears a blue outfit to match her blue kitchen. Read this article about her yesterday, which I enjoyed).

Tomorrow we're joining a 4-day tour which will take us to San Pedro de Atacama in the north of Chile, via various sights and points of interest.

Last Legs

Finally, we're in South America, the last leg of our trip. Our next and final stop will be home.

I'll be honest, there were times when it felt like we'd never make it this far. I still remember lying in bed on our first night in Mumbai, and a small panic creeping into my chest as it suddenly dawned on me that we were going to be away for one whole year. I mean, I'd known that all along of course, but it wasn't until we were there at the very beginning of it with no solid plans that it suddenly seemed to stretch out ahead to what felt like an eternity. One whole year. 365 days. And we were at the start of day one.

Already we'd been hassled by a hoard of taxi drivers when we emerged from the airport, demanding that we tell them our destination and shouting out prices in a currency that we hadn't yet got to grips with. No one seemed to recognise the name of our hotel, and as we drove through Mumbai in the middle of the night it looked like an eerie, abandoned construction zone. Everywhere we looked they seemed to be in the process of building a new flyover. We saw more cranes than people. When we finally reached our hotel, it took them a good 10 minutes to find our booking, with a bunch of young Indian guys glancing over, muttering and laughing in the corner the whole while. We'd only been in the country two hours. “One whole year of this?” I thought later, “I really don't know if I can do it”.

As is often the case, everything looked brighter in the morning, and it didn't take long for us to start enjoying our trip. Since then, though, we've occasionally gone through phases of wanting to go home. Travelling is amazing, but incredibly tiring. The things you take for granted at home – a place to sleep, finding your way around town, knowing where and what to eat, finding a usable loo, general communication – all of it becomes a daily challenge while you're travelling. Most of the time it's easy enough to deal with, especially when the rewards of travelling vastly outstrip the difficulties. But sometimes it all just gets to you, you know?

Anyway, for that reason, sometimes it felt like South America was a distant plan that we were never getting any closer to reaching. And now, nine months after we set off, we're suddenly here, feeling like we're on our last legs and totally unprepared.

You see, we'd been spoilt in Australia and New Zealand by the familiarity that came with being in a Western, English-speaking country. For a couple of months we went back to being able to communicate easily, cook the same meals that we'd eat at home, browse bookshops and go for a nice coffee, book buses and hostels online, buy good bread, cheese and wine. And we got to spend time in two nice home environment during our work exchanges. Now we were going back to a non-English-speaking country, where we wouldn't know how anything worked or be able to ask for help as easily. Unlike a lot of South East Asia, this is a part of the world where people generally assume that you are able to speak their language seeing as you've decided to travel there. Unfortunately, we can't.

It was all so daunting, and we were just SO jetlagged that we spent our first two days sleeping and reading in our hostel.

Let me tell you, time travel is not all it's made out to be. We took off from Auckland airport at 4:40pm on Thursday 28th October. We landed in Santiago at midday that same day. We'd crossed the International Date Line. I can't get my head around it on a good day, and after a 10 hour flight I couldn't get my body to accept it either, especially when the time difference between New Zealand and Chile is a ridiculous 16 hours. We spent most days trying not to fall asleep, and most nights lying wide awake wishing for sleep.

Once we were semi-recovered and had gotten over a new “Oh fuck it, can't we just go home?” phase, we decided to take action. We signed ourselves up for a five-day Spanish course at our hostel. Our tutor was called Jesus. We were hoping he was the sort of Jesus who could work miracles.

Taking the scenic route

Even before you land in New Zealand you can see why it was chosen as the setting for the Lord of the Rings movies. Even if you found the films incredibly dull (I did), you can appreciate the scenery. As our plane descended into Auckland airport, all you could see out of the little windows were tumbling green hills, harsh rock faces, intense blue sea. It was all very dramatic looking, and very beautiful. I did have a small moment of panic when the plane looked like it was going to land in the sea. But just at the last minute, the airport came into view and we bumped along the landing strip. I don't know whose idea it was to put the runway so close to the sea, but it definitely made for a more interesting landing than usual, for me at least. Good one, guys.

We spent just two days in Auckland before heading to Wellington – we were due to start another HelpX work exchange in a nearby town. The bus journey from Auckland to Wellington was 10 hours, but it was easily one of the most fascinating bus journeys I've ever had. It's amazing how often and how dramatically both the landscape and weather change en route from the north to the south of the island. In the space of our 10 hour trip, we drove past tumbling hills, snowy mountains, an enormous bright blue lake, huge barren patches, rocky gorges, and miles and miles of flat green fields used for sheep and cattle farming. So many sheep! New Zealand has a population of about 4million, and I'm pretty sure we saw close to a bajillion sheep on this drive alone, so it must be true what they say about the country having more sheep than people. You'd think that lamb (my favourite meat) in New Zealand would therefore be cheap and plentiful. But actually, the majority of it is exported, and what's left is sold at very high export prices to local people, so many can't actually afford it, which I thought seemed very unfair. When we spoke to people about this, they looked quite shocked and slightly appalled when we told them that legs of New Zealand lamb are on special offer every other week in Sainsbury's!

Anyway, back to the coach trip. We also experienced clear blue skies and sunshine, dull grey skies with wind and rain, the odd rainbow, and – to our enormous surprise – white skies and snow blizzards! From our startled faces, the bus driver must've thought we'd never seen snow because he made an announcement along the lines of “Ladies and gentlemen, if you've never seen snow before, this is it!” To which everyone started to take photos. Including us.

And we thought British weather was unpredictable.

Wellington, when we finally arrived, turned out to be a great little city. Much nicer than Auckland which is decent enough but ultimately quite plain. Wellington is full of nooks and crannies and interesting side streets. It's bright and lively, and has a really nice harbour. The only downside was the wind. It's the blusteriest (new word, means 'most blustery') place I've ever been!

Karl shelters from the wind

It has a brilliant museum though, called Te Papa, where we learnt all about earthquakes. Did you know, New Zealand experiences an earthquake almost every single day? I mean, they're generally quite small scale (usually under 3 on the richter scale), but still – that's a lot. While we were in the country, the town of Christchurch on the South Island was still recovering from it's big earthquake a few weeks back, and was still having big aftershocks almost daily.

We also sought out Wellington's only Welsh pub for a glass of Penderyn (Welsh whisky) on the recommendation of Karl's aunt Keili. I'm not normally a fan of whisky (or whiskey for that matter), but this was lovely and smooth and warming. We've been promised a trip to the brewery by Keili when we get back next year, so I'll stock up then.

Welsh boy in a Welsh bar

From Wellington we moved on to a small town called Featherston, where we were met by, our HelpX hosts Jan and Maryanne, with whom we'd arranged to stay and work for a week. Our first work exchange had gone so well, and saved us loads of money, so we'd decided to do another in New Zealand. Another huge bonus is that, by living with an Aussie or Kiwi family, you get to learn so much about a country. Finally you have people who can answer all your questions about how things work on the other side of the world. And Karl had an unlimited supply. In Maryanne's words, he's “incredibly inquisitive”, which luckily she thought of as a good thing!

Jan and Maryanne emigrated to New Zealand from Holland about 20 years ago. Their property, Whispering Winds, is a stunning lifestyle block. A lifestyle block is something that's much bigger than a garden, but not really a farm. Whispering Winds was about 12 acres, and they'd dedicated much of it to planting some 100 different trees, from eucalyptuses to fruit and nut trees.

It had gorgeous views of the mountains, and was a very peaceful place to spend the week. The work we did varied from removing wire mesh from around the youngest trees (it had been put there to prevent small animals like hares from breaking the branches) and collecting hedge clippings, to cleaning windows and helping out with the new greenhouse than Jan is building.

One of the best things about staying with Jan and Maryanne was definitely the food. Maryanne is an amazing cook - like Annie, everything she cooks is from scratch, and most things are from the garden. We had lasagne, risotto, quiche, pizza, a hearty meat and veg soup and mezze. Plus Jan bakes fresh bread a few times a week, which made for some delicious suppers. Breakfast was homemade yoghurt with fruit and muesli. And much to Karl's delight, twice a day we would sit down for coffee and cake/biscuits. Twice a day! We haven't been this spoilt since we were last at home!

We also learnt a lot during that week, which is the great thing about work exchanges. You meet some great people who are so willing to teach you new things. Like Rick and Annie, Jan and Maryanne are dedicated to living as sustainably as they can. As well as a veg and herb garden, they also have a cellar which Jan built himself. It's half underground, and it houses a huge variety of pickles, chutneys, jams and preserved fruit. It can also be used to store things like root veg. It's something people used to do all the time, but very few bother with anymore because supermarkets make everything so convenient. But how amazing would it be to have access to your own home-grown produce all year round, without having to depend on supermarkets? Your own little food house!

Maryanne also makes her own soaps and shampoos, and we spent an afternoon doing just that. It's a difficult process to master, and a lot of effort goes into getting it just right, but it's well worth it. She very kindly gave us a bar of the soap to take away with us, and it's so much nicer than that Dove or Palmolive stuff.

After our week was up, we headed back to Wellington for another couple of days. Then it was on to Napier, a little coastal town with lots of art deco buildings. We went to a gypsy fair, strolled along the beach, ate hot chips while enjoying the views, went for coffee and pie, and generally chilled out.

From here it was on to the gorgeous Lake Taupo. It's more touristy here than Napier, but just as nice in our opinion.

The weather was sunny, there wasn't any wind to mess up my hair, and there was skydiving.

When we set out on this trip, it was with the assumption that somewhere along the line we would scuba dive and skydive. Scuba diving turned out to be one of the best things we've done on this trip. But the nearer we got to skydiving, the more apprehensive we became. We uhmed and ahhed quite a lot – was it too expensive for our little budget? Did we still really want to do it, or was it just that we felt like we should? Ultimately I think we were both just a bit chicken. It was slightly terrifying but also a huge relief when one morning Karl just went and booked it. Two hours later we were being picked up and driven to the DZ – the Drop Zone. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be dropped.

Going up in the plane was nerve-wracking, because as the plane ascends and the world gets smaller beneath you, you realise how high you're jumping out from. Falling out from. You're just falling – literally falling through the sky at 200km/h from a height of 12,000feet. Who would do that??

Don't look down!

Me. I would do that. Again and again. It was amazing. When they open the hatch, there's a moment where your legs don't want to move and you suddenly want to say “No, I've changed my mind!” except your mouth has gone dry and you can't make the words come out. But by this point you're tightly attached to your instructor guy. And besides, it's too late – by now, you'd have to pay whether you jumped or not. Luckily you don't really have enough time to think this whole thing through or translate your thoughts into words. Before you know it, the instructor has sat you down on the edge, you're asked to turn your head for a picture (a very clever distraction from the drop view), and then before you know it you're hurtling towards the earth.

Smiles and grimaces. Why does my instructor look more nervous than I do?

I don't even remember the moment we jumped out. I just remember suddenly falling, and thinking how weird it was to be falling. Being scared would be pointless because by now there's definitely not one single thing you can do about it. So you just forget your fear and just enjoy it. It's a brilliant feeling, all the air rushing past you, the coldness, the views, and then the jerk when the parachute is opened and suddenly you're vertical not horizontal, and floating not falling. Karl enjoyed the falling best, but I loved the parachuting. Just gliding down, enjoying the view, with lots of swooping and sweeping through the air.

We landed on our bums, with Liam possibly sitting in some dog poo, although I'm not sure as I just thanked him quickly and then ran off to jabber excitedly to Karl about how great it all was. And it really was.

Post jump

Then it was back to Auckland. That was it. Our three weeks in New Zealand was over all too soon, and it was time to embark on the final leg of our trip – South America.