Off on our merry way

Hello all. Well we've been on the road now for...ooh..all of 6 days and so far we're having a blast (although thanks to Elizabeth's penchant for 8 course meals and fine wines I could be back in April). We got off to a heroic start by missing our bus from La Paz (thanks to the machinations of the terrible, terrible lunatics we had to hang out with in La Paz). Thereafter all has gone swimmingly. We got away from Arica fast and sat on a bus for 32 hours through some of the most distressingly tedious scenery in history - desert for about 10 hours and then patchy scrub for the rest. I kept Liz entertained by prodding her throughout the journey, making asinine observations and generally behaving like a 2 year old which pleased her no end.

Then Valparaiso which is a fantastic city. We seem to be inexorably drawn to the finest restaurants available to mankind wherever we go - we got off the bus at about 9 pm and it just so happened that the nearest place to our hostel was "one of the finest restaurants anywhere outside of Santiago" (guidebook). Setting the tone, what. Anyway, we mooched about a bit for a few days, accidentally stumbled across one of Pablo Neruda's house which was fantastic, ate (lots of seafood), had a few drinks (great beer, wine obviously good too) and went to the seaside although by that time the weather wasn't great so little more than a paddle was had. Suppose I should describe the city. Hum. Well it's a port, so lots of ships grazing in the harbour (that's a nautical term). Um, half the city is built on various hills around the bay and they have a big thing for painting their houses in various different bright colours. Very picturesque. Will that do?

Then, this morning, we arrived in Curico and hotfooted it to the vineyard (Miguel Torres) where we had a slap up lunch with wines and then went on the vineyard tour which involved lots of "aaah"s, "mmm"s and "I see"s from Liz and lots of vacant staring and looking for places to sit from me (it was a really good lunch). Then the guide made us taste about 10 more wines. So, those wines. Allow me to enlighten you. Well, some were red, some were white and there was a couple of pink ones. They were, in the main, very tasty. Look out for my new wine book any year now. Maybe Elizabeth will tell you about them later. I just don't know. Look, I'm very tired. Tomorrow we're off to the lakes for a bit of walking (hopefully), maybe some cycling, a bit of this and a bit of the other.

So, Chile is great. Expensive (compared to Bolivia anyway), the people are much more outgoing (not like your strong, silent altiplano type) and it all seems very swish and....oh, Elizabeth's finished now so I'm going as well. Bye.