Hola!
So its now been just over a week since I left everyone back home and my first week has been amazing! The night before I left was very emotional saying bye to everyone and also very stressful trying to squish absolutely everything intoi my bag (I ended up not taking a backpack and my bag did weigh 26 kilos, but despite what people say, I honestly do not regret it one bit and there always seems to be a strong man who is more than happy to schlep my bag for me anyway)
After very emotionally saying bye to Soph in the morning and mum & dad at the aiport, I went through security and shopped around feeling very nervous and scared of missing the flight, but also very excited about the trip. (for those of you who know me best, they couldnt keep the bag for me at the airport for over 3 months, which means I couldnt get it :(, so I´ll have to wait 8 months for that indulgence and maybe travelling the world will make me not want to splurge as much, we shall see...)
Although I didnt manage to get an upgrade, everything ran very smoothly from London to Madrid and then onto Santiago and I arrived in Santiago early Tuesday morning, where a transfer was waiting for me at the airport & thankgod my bag came through on the conveyor belt! I arrived at the Hotel in Santiago in the morning and met my roomate, who´s from Australia, and is so lovely and we´ve been sharing a room since and are getting along really well. On that note, all the people are the tour are amazing, all so different, but all really chilled out, up for a laugh and easy to get on with.
So I dont want to disappoint with a very short first blog, but I also dont want to waste time sitting on a computer when there is so much to do - So in essence, the less time I spend on here, skype, facebook is really just an indication of how much fun Im having and how busy I am. Right, so, in summary, I loved Chile. I´m not yet sure whether this is simply because it was my first place and I was just so excited to be travelling as I have nothing yet to compare it with or whether its because Chile just is amazing. I spent the first 2 days in Santiago, which is pretty developed and similar to most cities I´ve visited, which equals lots of shops, restraunts and a very buzzing atmosphere with lots going on. We climbed a fortress which was where the city was founded, went up a cable car to a mountain where we had a lovely picnic in the sun and did a DIY wine tasting with some Chilean wines we bought (although we forgot a bottle opener and had to resort to using a big twig to push the cork into the bottle!), went to an amazing seafood restraunt, had a drunk and entertaining evening at a Kareoke bar and went to the seafood and fruit market and millions of local markets selling what my mum would call shmutters (basically crap, but I did buy a few bits that I though were pretty and would aid my beck to bohemiam transformation)
After Santiago we went South to Pucon, which is a lake district area of Chile and was very pretty, although the weather was very unpredictable and we had a couple of afternoons of heavy showers. Pucon is really the adventure capital of Chile and so I decided to be extra brave and opted for white water rafting at Grade 5 (which is very very hard! The Zambizee in Africa is 6 and that really is the only one harder!) as well as Zip Lining through the rainforest, which is basically when you get cliped onto a piece of wire and jump off a plank and fly down. Both were absolutely incredible, while at the same time some of the scariest things I have ever done and I bought the photos from both so that I could prove to people that I actually did do it!! White water rafting actually probably was the most frightening thing I have ever done (my face on the photos shows that) and for the first 3 rapids I litrally had my eyes shut, was clinging onto the guide and had my head in my knees crouched down, but after a while I did actually start to kind of enjoy it and was grateful that the guide told me afterwards that a young girl had recently died on the rapids we had just done). We also visited some hot springs in Pucon, that were literally boiling boiling hot and quite uncomfortable until you adjusted to the heat, which is when they became quite relaxing. but only quite and actually you couldnt really sit in them for very long as you skin burnt and wrinkled. we also took some wine and drinks to have in the pool, but they were confiscated by the warden, so all in all, it was quite a pointless trip, but still memorable.
After Pucon we went to Puerto Varas, which is a small, German influenced town, which meant loads of strudel-like-stuff and German restraunts. We went for lunch and dinner in the town, which was yum, and went to the 2 neighbouring towns the next day: Puerto Mont and Frutillar. Both was not anything spectacular, but Puerto Mont had lots of cool markets, with nice things to buy and Frutillar was a very small. beautiful town by a lake, where we went for high tea, but couldnt find the high tea restraunt, so ended up having normal tea, which was still pretty good.
Today we arrived, after 8 hours of travelling and 2 border controls (although I did manage to illegally sneak in a nectarine) in Argentina and Bariloche. Im happy to have sad farewell to Chile for now as the weather was gettting worse and Im going back in 12 weeks anyway and very very very excited for Argentina. We are in Bariloche at the moment, a lake district region that is very Swiss influenced, meaning literally hundreds and hundreds of amazing chocolaterias (mum, if your reading this, dont kill me!!! I´m being healthy elsewhere I promise and am going on a long bike ride to burn it off anyway!)
Tomorrow has in store horse riding and kayaking, and the following day a chocolate tour and tasting and hopefully paragliding (which is jumping off a cliff with a parachute! but is depends on whether conditions, and if not, I´ll be doing it in Rio). Oh and as a last note, tonight we went to an Argentian restraunt and I literally had the best steak Ive ever had in my life. And yes, I do realise I have spent a disproportionate amount of the blog talking about the food, but its part of the cultural experience I promise!!
Lots of Love, besos y abrazos (hugs and kisses), miss you all,
Em xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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