Santiago de Chile

km 16326
We´ve had some unexpected time to kill here in Santiago, recovering lost paper, plastic, etc. But it´s been nice to relax a little. As with any large city there´s enough to do here, that´s if you like museums, parks, and old buildings.
You might think that after what happened last week we would be a little more careful with our stuff. I (Pieter) decided that I would never put my camera in the outside pocket of my bag. Of course, after a week I start letting my guard down and got lazy. Yesterday we were walking through the city. My camera was in the outside pocket of my bag, accessible by opening just one zipper, but I had my bag in front of me with my hand over the zipper. I thought I was pretty smart. Once we hit the main square, with less people, I put my bag over my back. While we were walking Clay noticed a silhouette walking right behind me. He turned around to see what she was doing. I checked my bag, the zipper was all the way open, but thankfully my camera was still there. I hadn´t felt a thing!
I (Clayton) am really glad that I looked back when I did, because she was putting her hand into his bag when I said something to her. She immediately tried to say that she was only warning us that his bag was open. Amazing how brave they are. Should say that we meet a lot of nice people here too, even some that don't want money for their kindness.
Other than that things are great. The food here is good. They eat a lot of avocado. They have something called Churasco which is beef with tomato, and either mayo or avocado on a bun. Even the quarterpounders at McD´s come that way. They also have Completo, a hot-dog with tomato, mayo and ketchup. And then there´s the Italiano, the same but with avocado.
On Friday we went to Valparaiso for the day. It´s 2 hours from here, on the coast. Most of the city is on a bunch of hills (cerros) around a bay. To access the cerros you take an accensor or funicular if you don´t want to take the stairs. There´s about 20 of them. Most of them are on rails at a 45 degree angle but one of them is an elevator that goes straight up which you access by walking 100 metres into a tunnel in the side of the hill.
In a few days we will start travelling south to the lake district and then to Torres del Paine. We want to say that we really enjoy reading all of your comments and are glad that you're enjoying following along.
Pieter and Clayton

Life is funny sometimes...

Clayton here. In Arica, border town in northern Chile, we made a mistake on the time and missed our bus. No big deal. Sitting in the station, trying to figure out what to do next, and someone makes off with my little back pack. Most of the things I consider important were in there: all my books, journal, traveller's cheques, toiletries, flight ticket, and most notably my brand new video camera, with all the videos I had taken. I cannot describe how angry I was. The worst part being that it was a result of carelessness. The pack was less than five feet from me, but it was blocked from my sight by Piet's pack. Had I sat on the other side, nothing would have happened. Yes, life is funny... but sometimes you have to wait for the funny part, I guess. This adds to my list of things lost: my pocket knife and utensil set were taken by airport security (forgot to put them in checked baggage), my watch that Tyler gave me (in someone's taxi), and my glasses (lost to the pacific ocean; luckily I brought my spare pair, though they lessen my chances of finding Etta considerably). Thankfully I had my passport in my pocket. And to tell the truth, it's hard to stay angry when on such an adventure. There's too much to see and do. I just know I'll miss having the memories to watch and to show to others.
To update you, we are in Santiago, and will be spending a few days here. It is a big city, very modern, and a little more expensive than we are used to. But we are still managing to spend under 15 dollars a day, up from 10 previously. 7 dollars a night was the cheapest we could find for lodging (and you get what you pay for). The rest goes to food, buses, internet, phone and whatever we might need. The weather is still nice, however soon we will be in the far south and will expect some cool nights (I know, "boo-hoo"). What else... I don't recommend 60 hour bus trips. I hope Piet puts some pics of the desert on. For some reason it was strikingly beautiful. Apparently some areas have no record of rain in northern Chile, however, in the rare instance of precipitation, there are fields of flowers waiting to bloom. Unfortunately we didn't get to witness such an event. We did get to see three nights of Carnival celebrations while we waited in Arica, something we didn't anticipate. The music was addicting and the costumes very creative, quite a lively atmosphere. It's something not to miss if you ever get the chance.
That's about all for now. Until next time...

Arica, Chile

km 14261
Sorry about that. We´ve been on the road for the last week so haven´t had time to write. We are in Arica, the most northerly town in Chile. We Arrived here on Friday. I´ll give you a quick rundown of where we´ve been in the last week first.
We went to the beach in Costa Rica last week Friday and went back to San Jose on Saturday. We left San Jose after church on Sunday for Panama City where we arrived Monday morning. That evening we flew to Quito, Ecuador. We took an overnight bus from Quito to Tumbes, Peru, on Tuesday, another one from Tumbes to Lima on Wednesday, and another overnight bus from Lima to Tacna where we arrived Friday morning. Then we took a cab to Arica. It´s been an interesting week, especially the last two days have been rough (more on that later).
The beach in Costa Rica was amazing. If I remember correctly that´s the first time I´ve been to a beach for my birthday. We went to Manual Antonio, just outside the national park of the same name. All we did Friday was swim and tan. Saturday we got up early and went to the park where we saw several kinds of monkeys, iguanas, a sloth, and something that we don´t know the name of. We went swimming at the beach inside the national park too. There were some big waves so we had a lot of fun.
On Monday, we spent the day in Panama City because our bus arrived there in the morning, and our flight didn´t leave till 7:oo pm. We heard about some big ditch there, so we thought we´d go check it out. I´m talking about the Panama Canal of course. We went to the Miraflores locks, the first set of locks on the Pacific side and saw two ships go through.
Sorry, this internet place is closing so we have to go. We´ll be in Santiago in a few days. Pics coming.
Pieter

San Jose, Costa Rica

km 9300 (Piet just showed up. That's a handy little gps he's got)
Clayton here. I don't know what km it is, I just know it took us 19 hours on a bus with no legroom to get here. DVT, for the medics out there.
We survived San Salvador, obviously, nothing too extraordinary to speak of. We saw some cool country on the way to Eliu's house, and were very happy to meet his family. And we also met some very nice people, whom Piet introduced you to already. Viktor Linares, 43, is married with two kids, works full time, preaches at three different congregations, teaches at the bible school in San Salvador, and is also in the middle of a five year psychology degree. Stays up til 1 and rises before 5 to go to school before work. Our bus was to leave at 2:15am, Viktor dropped us off at 11pm, and thankfully he was still outside when we were told, by a guard with a shotgun, that we would not be allowed to wait for the bus in the lobby (seems like everybody's got a shotgun in Central America). Viktor seemed happy to take us all the way home again, only to make the same trip in the middle of the night. A nice guy.
Someone had said that El Salvador was a nation of thieves and prostitutes, stereotypically. We never felt in any danger at anytime, though we were warned by a stranger not to go downtown at night, "or you will be robbed" (sorry mom, but I gotta make this interesting to read, don't I?). Our first night, on the way home to the hotel, we were approached by a "friendly" lady. Something that could happen anywhere, I guess. Saw a lot of poor people, from those eating tortillas off the sidewalk, to the crippled, one of which shuffled down the middle of the street on his hands, asking motorists for what they could spare. I have little insight to offer in the light of such a mental picture, just thought you should know. How lucky are we, born healthy into a rich nation? You can draw your own lessons I guess.
Anyway, pupusa's are tortillas stuffed with cheese, beans or pork, or combinations of the three, which are then fried on a skillet. Quite tasty.
I'll leave Costa Rica for later, as we will be staying for another three full days. For now: it seems to be a rich country, prospering from a lengthy past of democracy. You can see it in the streets, the buildings, the parks, and it seems to have overflown into the female population. An explorable phenomenon perhaps...
Our plan is to arrive in Panama City by bus on Monday morning, then fly to Quito, Ecuador the same night. Looking forward to going to the beach in the meantime, though I am missing everyone back home. Hope to hear from you.
P.S. I didn't realize Piet had put those pictures up yet. In that awful one of me eating, I'm filling my face with pupusa's, for those interested. He tells me he will put on another of me eating a donut, hope these don't become a trend. (Those donuts were just what I needed however, a fantastic apple fritter, the sugar seeping all the way through, like a Robin's walnut crunch. And the regular old chocolate dip was filled to the brim with bavarian cream, delectible!) Check out the one of him drinking water from a bag, and don't miss the front of his shirt. He spilled on everybody in the bus too(ok maybe not everybody).

San Salvador, El Salvador

km 8500
¨Hablamos un pocito Espanol.¨ We speak a little Spanish now, but we have a long way to go. We finished our week of classes on Friday. We feel like it gave us a pretty good foundation to keep learning. About 90% of what we learned was verb conjugation. It will take a lot of practice every day to actually be able to use what we learned.
Besides language class we also took a Salsa class. I hope my Spanish is better than my dancing. Clay and I stayed with different families and had different teachers. I actually left one family because there were two Americans there who spoke English, and I wanted to only speak Spanish. The family I stayed with had two kids, 12 and 7. The food was really good. One of the meals was called Pache. It´s mashed potatoes with different types of chillis, and tomatoes wrapped in a banana leaf. There was a supper with the rest of the students (about15) on Friday evening. I was sitting next to a girl whom I hadn´t met, so I introduced myself and asked in Spanish where she was from. She answered ¨Yo soy de Belgica.¨ So we spoke Flemish for the rest of the evening. We´ve met one other Belgian, tons of Dutch people, and many other Europeans, Americans, and Canadians.
We left Saturday morning at 6:30 for San Salvador. We spent the first night at a cheap hostel near the bus station. We had pupusas for breakfast Sunday morning on our way to church which was only 6 blocks away. We met a family who took us out for lunch (more pupusas), and invited us to stay with them. So that´s where we are staying now. Another family member, Mario, is showing us the city. Apparantly it´s dangerous. Some people say that if you´ve survived San Salvador you can survive anywhere.
Pieter

San Salvador

Just to let you know that we arrived in San Salvador this afternoon. It´s an eerie feeling walking around in Central America´s most dangerous city after dark. It´s not that bad, really. We don´t have time to write much now so we will update you tomorrow on what all we´ve been up to.