We had a lovely weekend. On Friday we spent the day at Punto de Lobos; Conal surfing and me lazing on the beach trying not to get sunburnt. On Friday evening we went out with another couple from our hostel (French guy and Mexican lady) for a few beers We sat at a table by the roadside and watched the scenes go by. Then Adriana offered to cook us a mexican dinner back at the hostel so we went to the supermarket to buy supplies.. While there we experienced our first South American earthquake - only a short sharp one, but the earth moved nevertheless and I didn´t like it one bit. Anyway, back at the hostel we had Chilean wine and Mexican quisadillos (tortillas stuffed with cheese and vegies) and Irish salad (in other words, I made a salad). It was a good night and we got to bed at 1.30am. Our new (younger) friends went out to a club but told us the next day that it wasn´t that great.
The night life doesn´t get started until about midnight here. Conal and I are usually tucked up in bed but because our room is directly off the living area, the front door and the outside deck we here all the comings and goings. We usually sleep okay regardless but I´ve been awake at all hours and enjoy listening to the chatting, the laughing and even singing. The place usually gets quiet at about 5am and then we´re the first to rise - at about 9am we make our breakfast and go out to sit on the deck and watch the world go by.
On Saturday night it was La Ola Cultural here (The Cultural Wave Carnival). It started at 6pm with groups of drummers going through the streets. There were 3 different drumming groups, dancers and balloons - very colourful, noisy, happy. The drummers were having a great time and everyone on the streets were tapping their feet, dancing and smiling. It was fantastic. At about 8.30pm a series of bands started playing - I think they were all local bands judging from the way they were talking with their friends in the crowd. They were all good - one sounded contemporary/traditional, one was PUNK!!!, one was heavy metal, the last one to play were a bit jazzy. We really enjoyed ourselves, it was a great atmosphere - and all free entertainment.
We had another small earthquake yesterday. Afer the big quake that hit Chile in January a tsunami hit the coast here and the sea surged up the street as far as our hostel - the locals are still a bit jittery about it and I don´t blame them.
We cook for ourselves most nights. Last night we had a big pile of potatoes and omelette - the potatoes were lovely.. There's a great bakery near our place where we buy amasados (bread rolls) fresh from the oven - fantastic. We've been eating them with honey, nutella, peanut butter, etc - no vegimite:( We have a supermarket nearby too so we pop in there most days to buy stuff for dinner - rice, lentils, cheese. We haven´t eaten out much yet because we don't know what to order and there don't seem to be many vegetarian options but we'll get the hang of it as our grasp on the language improves and our confidence to talk to people! The empanadas are great and at only 1000 pesos each (about $3.50), a good snack.
So - that's all from us for now. We've updated the blog and mangaged to put one photo up. We'll keep working on that - we think that some of the computers we use are pretty ancient, very slow and uploading photos is a bit beyond them.
If you don't hear from us again before the weekend, we wish you all a happy Christmas and send our love from peachey Pichi.
Ana & Conaldo xx
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