Hello everyone!
As we are now in our last month in South America, we decided to spend some time updating our blog!
In this post I´ll tell you about our first few weeks in Chile. An interesting country. Coming from Bolivia, Chile feels very westernized and friendly. How long had it been since we had seen skyscrapers and flats. If people see you looking at a map, they walk up to you and ask if you need any help. Not in Bolivia, where there is a sort of general rule to not talk unless absolutely necessary (certainly so with foreigners) Supermarkets here actually sell hummus (oh how I have missed hummus!) and well, there are supermarkets!
Chile´s valuta is a bit ridiculous though. it works with thousands. a 1000 chilean pesos is about 1,35 euro. Each time we enter a new country here in South America, we have to learn a new currency.
San Pedro de Atacames
Our first town in Chile! A little, charming, touristy hub in an oasis in de Atacames desert. As we checked into a nice looking hostel the first thing that hit us, coming from Bolivia, was the price. Auch, I´ll review my description of San Pedro; A little but expensive touristy hub set in an oasis in de Atacames desert. There is lots to see and do however. I would of liked to visit some renowned Geysers in the area, But the only good way to get there would be through booking a tour, which was of course, way over our budget (something that happens a lot unfortunately). We did rent bikes the following day though. We rode to the moonvalley, a scenic desert valley which looks a bit like, how did you guess it, the surface of the moon.
We spent some hours cycling around, getting a sore behind and quite a thirst (2,5 liters of water is not enough in the desert!).
It was pretty though. I did notice however, that I still don´t like mountain bikes, or gravelly surfaces. Not since my tumble coming down the Cotopaxi near Quito. Not that this ride was anything near as hard as that one. I´m just still a bit nervous and have to tell myself ´look at the size of those wheels! they´re made for tanks! they can handle a bit of gravel!´. And that sort of works :). We had a setback after we returned to the hostel though. There was a charging area for phones and laptops and unfortunately someone decided to take my phone charger cable whilst I was showering and Sander was skyping on the phone. This quite upset me because the hostel was so nice and we felt comfortable there. I needed that charger cable and well, backpackers shouldn´t nick stuff from other backpackers. We all don´t have a lot of money.
I´d left the shampoo in the shower that afternoon, when I went back, it was gone. (who does that? I don´t mind you using some if I leave it there by accident, but actually taking it?) Sanders milk got taken from the fridge (also bad taste). To top it all off, a few weeks later I found out that my sport sunglasses, which I´d last used cycling to the moonvalley, weren´t in my bag anymore. (we thoroughly check every room before we leave so we can´t have left it behind) So I don´t now how exactly, but I reckon they also got taken in San Pedro. Seeing as I´m still having a bit of a rant about it right now, I think I´m still a bit upset with someone taking our stuff.
The owner of the hostel saved the day though. She handed me a bunch of chargers left behind by other travellers and said I could pick whichever one fitted and keep it! Very friendly!
Lots of perfectly cone shaped volcanoes in Chile!
the next day we caught a bus to Calama, which was our transfer to Antafogasta. Seeing as it was the 30th, we we´re trying to catch a bus to Caldera, a coastal town where we planned to spend New Years eve. All the busses though, were sold out. We finally found a company that could take us to La Serena (quite a lot more south than Caldera) and which left that very night.
La Serena
After another night on a night bus ( I slept surprisingly well). We arrived in La Serena early in the morning. We didn´t know anything about the town and there wasn´t really a lot in our guidebook.Whenever this happens there are usually two options: 1. ask the locals about hostels and the town. 2. Find the tourist information. We found the tourist information. They not only had a map of the city for us, but also a map of the whole of Chile. With Chile being so long, It´s quite a funny, long and narrow map. The staff were excellent! They had no problem calling a hostel and booking us a bed! The hostel choice turned out excellent too. Not really because of the hostel, but because three german travellers had arrived there that morning too. We got talking about plans for New Years eve and decided to spend it together. We went and cooked an excellent meal, (the hostel had an oven!) Sander and me made Oliebollen (which they liked) we listened to the Dutch Top 2000. (top 2000 music list that counts down to New Years) whilst we were cooking. New Years wouldn´t be in Chile for another 4 hours. (strange experience!). The Germans the told us about Dinner for one. A short silly film that gets broadcasted every year between X-mas and the New Year. A tradition! We had never heard of it, but enjoyed watching it. If you´re interested in this german tradition, the link to the film is right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1v4BYV-YvA
After a great meal (lemony potatoes from the oven, cheesy spinach and steak with garlic bread(veggie burger for me). We set off for the beach. There was a big stage with a typical Latin American band playing on it. Whole families had set up tables and were enjoying themselves. At a quarter to 12 we all went to the beach to watch the fireworks at midnight.
Lots of champagne corks flying about! When we returned to the stage a new band had started playing with a local celebrity singer. There was quite a lot of this local singer, enhanced by the white suit he was wearing and the skinny girls in Bikinis dancing next to him. He was enormous! 
We had a great time though. We didn´t really make it out of bed the next morning (there had been 6 bottles of wine (with one 2 liter bottle) and a bottle of champagne for the four of us). Breakfast was a big bag of potato crisps.
we took a day to recover, said goodbye to our New friends and left for Pisco Elqui, in the Elqui valley.
Elqui valley
Pisco Elqui is about a three-hour ride from La Serena, heading inland. It´s in the Elqui valley, which sort of reminds you of France. Lots of green, lots of vineyards and lots of campings. We found a nice camping in Pisco Elqui and spent two nights there. Our tent was pitched right next to the valley cliff. A few rocks did come tumbling down, giving us a little scare. (we moved the tent the second night). It was a nice little place to visit. A lot of the campings in Chile and here in Argentina have a BBQ next to every spot. It´s a thing here in South America that if you go camping, you barbecue. Starting late and often not eating before 12 o´clock at night. ( I think I would starve). Leaving Pisco Elqui we took the bus back to La serena, spent a few hours on the beach, ate the chilean version of chinese food (every country has their own). And in the evening boarded a bus to Valparaiso.
Valparaiso
We arrived at the bus terminal very early in the morning. A helpful bus driver pointed us in the right direction to the hostel we were looking for. Unfortunately, the hostel was fully booked. It took a few hostels but we did find one that could take us in. We had arrived early, ate some breakfast and then set off for the rendezvous point from where the free city tours leave. Funnily enough we met Simon again, one of the Germans from La Serena. He´d decided to take the same tour at the same time.
Valparaiso is quite an interesting town. It´s colourful, with lots of street art. Unfortunately there is also lots of non street art, you know, the stupid graffiti squigglies you get all over the world. Ruining some great pieces. But the city is an art museum that you can walk through.
Valparaiso had another attraction; Ascensoren, old little lifts all through the town. I think there used to be around 19, only about 7 actually still run now though.
ascensor! Which we had to ride of course!
Valparaiso, or Valpo as it is often called, used to be an important harbour city, and is a UNESCO world heritage city. That doesn´t make it safe though. Our guide was quick to inform us not to go beyond a certain street, or head east. Apparently, when the people from UNESCO visited the city, to judge if it could go on the world heritage list, they got robbed when they wandered into this neighbourhood.
One of Valpo´s attractions is it´s cemetary, which is on a hill. It used to be on sea level, but every time an earthquake hit the city, the dead would shake their way up out of their graves. (sort of morbidly funny). To deal with this problem, they moved the graveyard up, onto a hill, which is more earthquake proof. Although Chile is famous for it´s tremors and earthquakes, we haven´t felt any. Another little shock to remind you of earthquakes are the signs next to beaches here in Chile, they say: Tsunami zone. Ah yes, there is a risk of that here.
We only stayed in Valpo for one day, leaving for Talca the next. (about three hours south of Santiago)
Talca
Old Macdonald has a farm, beeheeheehebhee. And on that farm he had some goats, lots and lots of goats!
There was one main reason for us to visit Talca: Goats! A couple that we had met in San Pedro de atacames had told us about their workaway experience on a goatfarm in Chile. I really liked the idea of working on a farm! with goats! (beehee) Sander liked it too. So we joined Workaway ( an internet site with all sorts of hosts on it who offer accommodation in exchange for a few hours of work.) and were soon in contact with Sergio, who welcomed us.
The farm in Talca is owned by Sergio (don Sergio) and his family. He has about 200 hundred goats, of which about a 100 need to be milked every morning. Once a week he makes cheese from the milk. We arrived the same day as another German couple. It was a nice house with a pool! The farm also had 3 pigs a few cows and a horse, who walk around freely in a big field (one of the pigs was named after the president).
Once arrived we met the house keeper Ida. A very friendly woman from Peru who had been with Sergio´s family for a while. I must admit that I was a bit weird having a housekeeper. She cooked, cleaned, did the dishes, everything. A luxury, but still weird. (not by her doing, she was lovely).
The very next morning Sergio showed us how to milk the goats. It starts with finding the herd.
As I said there are about a 100 female goats who need to be milked. There is one male for this ´harem´ his name is Pirata, and he was gorgeous (just saying he was a nice specimen, no attractions to goats or anything) With lovely long horns
Big guy Pirata!
Sergio has quite a lot of land, so every morning you walk around calling cabra, cabra, cabra, cabra! (cabra is spanish for goat). Once you´ve found the herd, most of them generally start walking towards you and the milking house if you keep calling them. Some need a bit more persuasion.
goats following Lisa, milking house in the distance
And watch out not to get too close to pirata (who separates himself from the herd when they get to the milking house, but who will walk in if you leave the door open and hope to reach the grain!)
The goats are locked in a pen and led into the milking house in groups of about 20. Although Sergio has a machine to milk the goats, Sander and I still had to learn to do it by hand.
Every goats milk needs to be tested before you hook them up to the machine. The first bit of milk tends to contain a lot of bad bacteria, so best to get rid of it.
I didn´t know, but goats only have two udders. Milking and udder is a sort of pulling whilst closing your hand in a wavy way. It´s hard to explain :). It took a bit of practise, and some goats are just easier to milk than others, but we managed!
Sander milking
After the milk had been tested, you hook the goat up to the machine. You hang two black pressure pulsation handles of their udders, hich milks them automatically.
goat hooked up to the milking machine
It takes a while to milk a group because we only had 6 pairs of these handles. After one group is done,you let the next group in, until there a none left.
The milk barrels collect the milk from the machine
You then reunite the mama goats with their little ones (who spend the night separated, or they would drink all the milk). Always a nice moment, lots of blaring, an avalanche of baby goats and a happy reunion. We then lead the goats into a field with good grass, not too long and not too short. Where they spend the day wandering around and eating until around 7 o´clock, when we come to separate the mothers and baby goats for the night. It takes about 5 hours to milk all the goats, weigh the milk and clean everything (the last group shits a lot). We would then have a lovely cooked lunch and the whole afternoon was free time. Time to jump into the pool!
ah, the beer!
(I must admit, I did a lot of siestas! we did get up at 6.30 every day though)
Another one of our jobs was giving all the goats anti-parasite medication. The fist part was taken orally, the second part had to be injected. So during the course of a week, I injected around 270 goats (all the babies had to be done too).
One holds the legs, the other injects
One of the pigs was slaughtered the very next day (a first for Sergio, in which his neighbours helped out). I didn´t watch, the pig was making quite a lot of loud distressed noises. Sander did though. Part of her got eaten on the asado (barbecue) in the weekend. (I made the Child family potato salad)
After a few days, a new worker arrived, hired by Sergio. He was Chilean and communication wasn´t his strong point. He wasn´t the easiest to work with. That was the only down side to the week though! We had a lovely time and it was fun to learn everything and work with the goats.
baby goat with a bad broken leg
Sergio took good care of us (we got full board). The area was nice and tranquil, the goats fun. Sort of a shame we could only stay a week.
hope you are all well!
Lots of love,
Sander and Lisa
p.s. Beeeheehehe
sanderenlisa 