Fine arts & horse riding

Its been a big couple of days here in Santiago, Chile. Yesterday we did a double-decker bus tour around the city and visited, among other places, the fine arts museum, a huge fish market and a very ornate hill near the middle of, and overlooking the city. The next day a horse ride in the Andes.

We stayed in a hostel called EcoHostel Even Bob Brown would be proud stay there. The hostel staff and management are very environmentally aware with separate bins for cans, plastic, glass, paper, batteries and organic waste.

There were plenty of posters around showing of the Chilean environment.

We ended up meeting two Irish blokes that had great senses of humour and had plenty of bad stuff to say about Ireland. They had been living in Australia for about 9 months. As they had just flown in they were suffering a bit from jetlag so they stayed up late at night and slept a fair bit during the day. They were drinking the local beer which can be purchased from the supermarket.

Alcohol is amazingly cheap here. A really good bottle of wine works out about AU $3, a six pack of beer about AU $4 and a bottle of Chivas Regal about AU $40. Everything else seems about equivalent to Australian prices though.

After a pretty relaxing first day at the hostel we went on a tour around Santiago.

The fine arts museum had some great sculptures and statues, as well as some interesting paintings dating back to the 1600s.

The statue on the right was part of a larger set. It reminded me a bit of the Easter Island statues. You see a fair bit about Easter Island here as it is a part of Chile.

The next day we went horse riding in the Andes.

We had to be ready by 8:30 am which wasn't easy for me ;-) and got driven about 30kms into the base of the mountain range.

Everything was catered for us with a barbeque near the top of a large hill. We had chorizo sausages in bread, pork ribs, turkey and beef, with a rice salad and some red wine.

I think our altitude was about 2000 meters, not far below the snow line. We got a pretty good view of the mountains and the ski fields.

Going up was much easier than coming down. We were both pretty exhausted at the end of the day. Strangely I didn't end up with sore buttocks. Maybe all the push bike riding has paid off. :-)

Here is a brief video from the back of my horse. Kim overtakes me on her horse before it stops for a quick snack, on the way up into the Andes.

The Andes

Its hard to put in words the impression that you get when you see the Andes mountains .... spectacular, majestic, unforgettable ... don't do this spectacle any justice, just as none of these photos will.

These mountains represent the immense power of the Earth as it reshapes itself with tectonic movement.

Yesterday we had one of those once in a lifetime experiences when we flew from Buenos Aires Argentina to Santiago Chile.

From outside the plane window we got a clear view of Aconcagua, at almost 7 kms high, the tallest mountain on the American continent and the tallest outside of Asia.

Aconcagua

I ended getting about 20 photos and have made a slideshow video to give you some idea what we saw, but nothing I say or show on here could convey the impression that you really get.

We reckon it's great reading your comments but haven't seen that many so far. I hope that we aren't in the bad books. :)

So, don't be shy, click on the comments link below, you don't have to identify yourself if you don't want to.

If you have the time and the bandwidth then press the play button to watch the video.

Big day for protesting

I had heard a bit about protests in Buenos Aires before I came here. Apparently some of these can get quite violent, so it was a bit unnerving to see heaps of people protesting today accompanied by loud explosions that sounded like guns going off.

The protests started first thing this morning (jetlag time 10:30 am). There were heaps of people walking past our room with the usual banners and everyone was clapping in unison... no worries really. Some of the placards had words like hospital on them, so perhaps this one was about the health system.

Then we went for breakfast (jetlag time 1:00 pm) and could see a huge stream of people walking past and a fair few police getting around on motorbikes. You could hear explosions in the background that sounded like gun shots. However most people didn't appear to take any interest at all in what was going on. It was weird really; heaps of action but almost no one even looked at them.

After lunch we went for a bit of a walk up towards where the people had gathered. By then the protest had ended and people were leaving. Then, when we got back to our room yet another protest went past. This one had someone singing and people carrying a massive piece of blue and white cloth in the same colours as the Argentinean flag.

The other weird thing is that it has been impossible (so far) to find anything on the Internet on what these protests were about. All this left me with the impression that protests are so normal over here that no one even cares about them anymore and also that simply walking around with a few placards would be such a non-event that it would have no impact whatsoever. Even with the huge flags and the fireworks going off, it seems that not even the media got interested.

Here is the video, see what you reckon.

Buenos Aires es mucho bueno

Well, here we are again, in Buenos Aires, eating huge meals and living it up. Over here everyone seems to go out late and stay out late, even the little kiddies, which is great when you have jetlag.

All my Spanish lessons are paying off. I have been able to order meals, adjust the hotel booking, and get taxis in Spanish. I am feeling more confident each day. Carting a dictionary arround also helps. Sorry about the post title, it just means that Buenos Aires is very good.

The weather has been excellent, it has been T shirt weather over here, as good as a warm summer's day in Tas. mid 20s maybe. I have heard about the rain in Tassie, and the Stowport landslip, oh well, the farmers need it.

One big difference with this visit is that smoking as been banned in the restaraunts. I guess it had to come sometime.

Last night we went to a tango show and we got front row seats. It was free to get in and next door to the hotel where we are staying .. bonus. The tango originated in Buenos Aires, with origins in Spanish-African fusion and is said to good for Parkinson disease sufferers. I didn't know that, but you can read more about it if you click here.

Here is one of the tangos we saw last night. Both of these people can dance better than me I'd say :-) .. fair dink. Press the play button if you want to watch it.

One of the reasons I like this place so much is the architecture.

It is amazing I reckon, and not what we are used to in Tassie.

Here is the Congress building in the same street that we are staying in. The statues in front of the building are great.

Here is one of smaller statues with fountains in the background.

This afternoon we went to La Boca, a suburb near the port district where tourists flock to and get exploited.

We met a bloke from Argentina wearing a T shirt with Australia on it in big letters. He was Argentinian but knew a lot about Australia, and was pretty funny and friendly.

He took us to a cafe where we had a beer, watched a few more tangos and an old bloke singing. It turns out that it was the same cafe that we visited 3 years ago, and the same old bloke was here then too. Apparently he is 85 years old.

A top day, hot, sunny ... excellente.

we r here

We have just been out for dinner at 11.00pm and of course place we wanted to go was packed (we have been there before three yrs ago) but we squeezed in, had great eye fiilet steak and bottle wine and liquer and accompaniment, like bread, anchovies, olives, liquers for 75 pesos about $7.50 oz, can u believe it??? The bizarre thing is, its like we were there just yesterday. We are staying in the same hotel as last time although only for a couple of days as we are looking for a place we can stay for chrismas and new year. Life is good, I would like to live here....maybe who knows :-) We had an ok trip over, except for the delays. Tony and I were lucky to have a 4 seater row to ourselves so that was great. I think the last decent sleep we had was sat night oz time. Oz is 14 hours ahead of us so it is 2.00am here on a Monday morning which as a guess about 6.00pm Monday Oz time. Weather is a bit better than Oz not freezing but ok if you think of terms in latitude Buenos Aires, I think, is about same as Sydney so mild is good. Speeling and grammer is crap but I am sick of typing on this laptop so adios xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Airport adventures

We flew into Melbourne and ended up meeting a bloke from Zeehan on the plane that reckoned he might have known me because I lived in Zeehan 25 years ago. I went throgh a few names and finally found one we both knew. He was following us a bit at the airport because he didn't know where the baggage claim was.

While we were waiting for the next flight, we sat next to an old lady. There was a security shiela walking around with a walkie talkie. Next thing the old lady is crying and the security shiela is comforting her. The security shiela then gets up and razzes people on the radio. It turns out that the old lady needs some medication from her laggage which was mislaid. It was quite sad really, the old lady was crying and the security shiela doing her best to be supportive. It was like being in one of those airport TV shows. After about 10 mins some more people with high-vis coats and radios came along with the baggage. Happy ending, the airport staff were excellent.

Prices for the Internet at the hotel were outrageous - fifty five cents per minute!!!!!!! I snooped around for some free wifi but didn't do any good. We're at the airport now, plane delyed, with a five hour wait for the twelve hour flight. Times like this I wish I had of bought the airport lounge pass, a snooze would have been all right. :-)