Sleepless In Santiago

  Valparaiso, Chile
Thursday, May 13, 2004

Wow, this entry has been a long time coming. So since my last one, I've finished off New Zealand, spent ten days in Fiji and now I'm in South America.

Fiji was amazing! I loved it. The Fijians are such wonderful, warm people. Although I only went to the main island of Viti Levu and then to Nacula, one of the Yasawa Group, there's so much to see and do in Fiji. From the mountainous interior of Viti Levu to the stunning islands, there really is a lot of variety there.

I started off in Nadi, the tourist capital of Fiji and spent a night in the Nadi Bay Hotel there. I'd heard good things about the place, and they were all correct. However, Nadi itself is nothing special, and its best to get out of there as soon as you can. After my one night in Nadi I joined the Fiji Experience, as it offered the best option for me in terms of seeing Viti Levu in a limited time, and getting into the villages to find out a bit more about indigenous Fijian culture. The first night was spent on the Coral Coast, at a wonderful place called the Crow's Nest. Me and four others had an apartment to ourselves, and it was really swanky! In the day we'd been to Natadola Beach and then to a village called Malo Malo, where the local kids showed us around.



On the second day we went to another village for a pottery demonstration. The second night was spent in Suva, the capital of Fiji, where we stayed in a hostel in someone's house! That was really nice though too. Suva was fine. Apparently, it's quite dangerous and you can be mugged at any time of the day or night, but I made it back from the city centre to our hostel by myself just fine! I saw the Parliament where the 2000 coup took place, visited the museum and stuff.

Heard an interesting story too. Apparently during the 2000 coup, two British backpackers heard that something was going on and decided they'd go and take a look. They went to the government house where the hostages were being held and somehow managed to blag their way in. Then they came across a BBC news crew who were covering the siege and asked them if they'd film them so their Mums could see them on telly!! The news crew told them in no uncertain terms to go away.

Anyway after a night out in Suva we headed up to Nananu'i'ra, an island just off the north of Viti Levu. Stayed at a good hostel there and enjoyed a kava drinking and singing session with the staff.



We also went for a walk up to a waterfall in the mountains near Sabeto on the way up there. Unfortunately I didn't actually go, as the hobbit foot



wouldn't fit into my walking boot! But I had tea with the village chief's wife whilst the others went for their walk, and that was great. She covered my foot with a mushed up plant, and made me tea with some leaves from a nearby tree. That tasted like lemon tea and was really refreshing after the barbecue lunch I'd just eaten. She told me that in that area of Viti Levu there's only two types of snake present. One is black and harmless and when the locals see one, they take it as a good omen. The other is red, venomous and a sighting is taken as a bad omen. The chief's wife told me that her husband saw one in a dream and it was weeping, and the next day his father died. Crazy stuff! I had bought some stationery for village schools (a much appreciated gift) and gave some to the chief's wife for their village school. She had two lovely young sons, and the youngest one was so excited when I gave her the stationery! He doesn't even attend school yet, being just 4, but he asked his Mum if it was for his class! Like the inhabitants of many third world countries, Fijians place a high value on education. I can't imagine many British children getting excited by a pack of pencils and some exercise books!

After Nananu'i'ra the Fiji Experience finished after a visit to geothermally heated mud and hot pools. After one more night in Nadi, I caught the violently yellow Yasawa Flyer catamaran to the beautiful island of Nacula. I had received a recommendation for a resort there from some guys in the UK before my departure. It's called Oarsmans Bay, and as you can see from my photos, it's absolutely stunning. It was so chilled out and on an amazingly beautiful bay. I saw some of the other resorts in the Yasawas from the catamaran and I think that the bay at Oarsman's was the best by far. The food was great, the staff were lovely and the dormitory was really nice too. They had private double bures (a sort of beach hut) too which were really nice. If I hadn't been on my tod I would definitely have enjoyed one of those.

After four nights sunbathing, swimming, snorkelling, diving and snoozing whilst waiting to be summoned for meals by a tradiotional Fijian drum, I finally managed to tear myself away from Oarsmans! It was a struggle I can tell you! I spent one more night in Nadi and then flew to Auckland, for a six hour stopover in the airport whilst I awaited my eleven hour flight to Chile.

I arrived in Santiago before I left Auckland due to crossing the International Date Line, which was really weird, and is the reason for the title of this entry. Upon arrival it took me four days to sort my body clock out, which was not helped by having met a similarly jetlagged Irish girl called Sarah. We became partners in crime in Santiago, having dinner together and going out two nights in a row. The first night we just went to a local bar and had a few beers and chatted with Chileans. The second night we went to a Chilean night club just around the corner from the hostel and they were all doing latin style dancing! Sarah and I were forced on to the dancefloor and made to try all the twirling around stuff - which we we were crap at, but we had a laugh anyway! Frankly I think everyone else in the place did too - at our expense!

Santiago was nice but very polluted. The Andes are just behind the city - but I didn't see them once because of the pollution! Most disappointing. I also saw more dogs in that city than I've ever seen in my life before.

Yesterday I arrived in Valparaiso, Chile's second city and biggest port. It is built on a crescent of 43 hills, which are serviced by mad little funiculars called ascensores. I went on one today, and it cost 12p. They were built in the early 1900īs and are rickety, tiny old things that take a maximum of 7 people. It was great fun! I am staying on the Cerro Concepcion, which is currently under consideration as a UNESCO world heritage area. The hills in Valpo (as it's affectionately known) are mad, with higgledy piggledy winding streets everywhere, and beautiful buildings, many of which are made of brightly painted corrugated iron, some of which are held up just by wooden poles and some of which are built at crazy angles. I've taken some piccies and will try to stick them on the travelogue as soon as I can. Cerro Concepcion is a bohemian arty area with an open air museum which consists of 20 murals by contemporary Chilean artists just dotted about on the side of buildings on one of the hills. What a great idea!

I'm really enjoying it here and the old Spanish is coming along quite nicely now. By the weekend I will probably be in Peru and making my way to Cusco and Macchu Picchu, which I'm very excited about! I'll tell you all about it very soon.