Sunsets

I would guess that many thousands of photographs have been taken of Easter Island sunsets with the silhouettes of moai in the foreground. Equally, Chile itself invites many photographs of sunsets as it has such a huge west-facing coastline.

Sunset is a special time - the dying of another day in unpredictable light patterns. Surely no two sunsets have ever been the same and the appearance of a sunset can change significantly from one moment to the next. I think of past times when people who were never bedazzled by cinema or television would surely have stood in awe appreciating the strange beauty of a sunset that would have put their own humdrum lives into some kind of a celestial perspective before the darkest shadows of nighttime enveloped them.

Even today in our frantic, accessorised world of images and satellite communication, people will often sit or stand quietly observing sunset patterns - the sunbeams, a colourwash of clouds in amber, lemon, scarlet, mauve and grey-blue, a swirl of clouds, birds flying home to roost. It's something fundamental that connects us with those who have gone before. So let me share these six sunset photos with you. The last two were from the terraces of the Universitad Catolica football ground in Santiago:-

Home

Such a long flight from Santiago to Madrid with Iberia. No individual entertainment screens and once again I was berated by a stewardess for daring to look out of the window...I mean why do they think many people prefer window seats? This time the issue was the crappy Harry Potter film being shown on the central drop down monitors. Daylight coming in would spoil the viewing. I looked around but nobody seemed to be watching it anyway. Harry sodding Potter! Again I ignored instructions and looked down upon the rainforest of Brazil.

Frustratingly, when we touched down at Heathrow - pretty much on time, the plane had to sit on the tarmac for over forty five minutes waiting for a parking space at Terminal 3. Because of this I missed my 11.30 National Express bus connection back to Sheffield by no more than three minutes. Had to then wait till two in the afternoon.

So good to see Shirley again after almost three weeks apart but it's cold here and today has seemed amazingly short. Half of me is still over there in South America but I have to pinch myself to believe that I have really visited "the navel of the world" and touched the rough volcanic texture of a moai's face. Here are five pictures I took on the island...

The crater at Rano Kau looking towards Orongo.

Birdman petroglyph on the cliffs of Orongo

Horses grazing near the great "ahu" at Anakena

Finished moai at the Rano Raraku "factory" - they never reached their "ahus"

The lovely Hotel Tiare Pacific where I stayed.

Adios

Sunset over the Estadio Universtad Catolica in Santiago

How full these days have been - so many sights, so many photographs, so many memories. A friend of mine called Mick always seemed incredulous when I mentioned travelling solo but I haven't minded one jot. Having spent so much of my life in jabbering word-rich classrooms surrounded by jabbering word-rich colleagues, it is so nice to have peace and self-direction. I have met many people on this trip from Rob the international business intern from New England to nameless travellers and the gang at the Vina del Mar Fishing Club who took me into their hearts - Eduardo, Hernan, Raoul, Orlando, Jeronimo, Patricia, Gina... How we danced and drank there beside the Pacific Ocean with the lights of Valparaiso twinkling in the mid-distance.

Last night I went to see a football match (soccer to US visitors) - Universad Catholica - the champions of Chile - versus Universad Concepcion. The "Cruzados" fans at the other end of the pitch beat drums, chanted and sang their Latin football chants continuously. It was great and Catholica won 4-1 with sweetly taken goals. Bring Juan Morales to Hull City!

I had a strange experience. A co-incidence. On the terraces I spotted a man I thought I recognised. Remember that Santiago is a city of six million souls. Then it clicked. On Monday night I had seen this same man in La Marchigiana restaurant in Mendoza - a city of one million souls. He had been with his wife and four children at the next table. At the end of the match I went up to him and confirmed the fact. He recognised me too - remembering how I had sneezed. I said the chances of us connecting again were thousands to one but he said millions. I often think - what about those co-incidences that we just miss by a hair's breadth?

So I am on this old jallopy of a computer in the reception area of the El Presidente in the Providencia area of Santiago. Time to go up to cosy Room 409 to pack my suitcase. The adventure is almost over but no doubt I will be boring you with it when I get back - hopefully with some photographs too. Adios!

Vina

The "Hostal" where I stayed in Vina del Mar

Vina - pronounced Vinya is really Vina del Mar, the port of Valparaiso´s sister city. It isn´t a quaint little fishing village. It´s Chile´s number one coastal resort with some high rise apartment blocks and a "buzz" of activity - people coming and people going, laughing, eating, shouting, begging.

This is in marked contrast with the little working town of Los Andes where I stayed last night. I woke this morning and walked up to the Cerro del Virgen - a hill overlooking the town. It was hot and dusty but I was glad to get close up to examples of the ten foot cacti I had seen from the bus back from Argentina.

At the top of the hill was of course a white statue of the Virgin Mary watching over her people. But I spotted a couple of lesbians making out in the trees below. They had brought a blanket and a picnic and probably didn´t realise that anybody could see them. I notice a lot of public kissing and canoodling here in South America. Maybe it is true what they say about Latin lovers.

Down from the hill, wishing the lesbians good day, I ended up at the archaeological museum which had some commentary in English and I was the sole visitor. There were some pieces from Easter Island and the commentary reminded me that one of its other names is "Te Pito o Te Henua" which means "the navel of the world". Chile seems so obviously proud of its South Pacific "territory". Bur probably the best exhibit at the museum was a two thousand year old mummy from the Atacama region - she had died in childbirth and her mummified child was with her. The quality of preservation was amazing.

Between Los Andes and Vina there is some lovely. lush agricultural land - a lot of it given over to big scale viniculture - rows and rows of vines, neatly arranged to aid watering and harvest.

I had a light meal tonight - salmon and salad with a small bottle of local wine and then in the same little restaurant I watched the first half of Chile versus Paraguay in a pre-World Cup warm up match. It was still 0-0 when I left.

Tomorrow I will be "doing" Valparaiso - the funicular railways and the little colourful streets. The street I am on is itself very steep. It´s a basic but friendly hostel with only eleven bedrooms. Mine is supposed to be "en suite" but the bathroom is across the little corridor and I haven´t brought my dressing gown. The owner´s daughter had to show me how to fire up the boiler - no salacious pun intended!

Mendoza

Aconcagua - The tallest mountain in the southern hemisphere. It overlooks the main pass between Chile and Argentina.

Typical "avenida" in sultry Mendoza, Argentina

I will never forget Rapa Nui (Easter Island) - it was like a dream come true and there was so much more I might have seen. I talked to a fisherman called Tete and he told me of a volcanic vent he had found in one of the hills. He had crawled in with a torch and found evidence of ancient human habitation. If I had been staying longer, he would have taken me to see it but my air ticket said no. I had been greeted at the airport with a floral garland and left with a chain of seashells round my neck.

Today I travelled by "Andesmar" bus through the mighty Andes chain and into Argentina. It could have been five hours but it was seven because of the customary two hour hold up at the border - checking bags, papers - stamping this, stamping that. Much of the scenery was raw and enormous with snow on the peaks and condors circling. These were real, beefy, naked, soaring mountains that make the English Lake District hills look as though they were made by moles.

Mendoza seems affluent and self-confident. I arrived in sultry 32 degree heat and made my way through Saturday shoppers to the Hotel Cordon del Plata where because of overbooking they have had to put me in a suite! My jaw dropped. It is massive with a double sunken spa bath. I rarely have baths - I am a shower man but either tonight or tomorrow morning I will definitely be having a bath with jacuzzi bubbles and perhaps room service will send Mr Bond some champagne... Adios amigos!

Mecca

So dear visitors, I made it to Rapa Nui, Isla de Pascua, Easter Island which ever you choose to call it... and I am not disappointed I can tell you.

On Monday I scrambled down inside Ranu Kau crater to a unique microclimate, sheltered from the worst of Pacific gales and from the encroachment of disease and human interference. I felt like Simon in "Lord of The Flies", gasping in the thick green jungle undergrowth and further along the crater lake´s tangled edge I discovered a huge rock inscribed with petroglyphs from long ago.

Back on the crater rim having sweltered in the sunshine on the long climb back, I collapsed in a heap before heading down to the broken "ahu" at Vinapu. So many "moai" were pushed over or broken up perhaps in inter-tribal warfare or because the old certainties of the island were disappearing...but you still sense the echoes of the amazing culture that was developed here in total ignorance of the outer world which lay over two thousand five hundred miles away.

For the first people of Rapa Nui, this was their entire world and I feel privileged, even a little humbled to have this opportunity to witness first hand palpable evidence of those lost and distant times. I´ll tell you more when I am not in an expensive little internet cafe where speed of internet access is clearly not a priority but hey... blogging from Easter Island.... isn´t that just amazing anyway!

Santiago

Santiago, Chile

Dear Bloggers,

Arrived here safely after a gruelling thirteen hour flight. Wasn´t too happy about the bitch of a flight attendant who chose to tell me twice not to look out of the window and keep the shade down. Bizarre! Missed Paraguay completely! But by western Argentina I had the necessary permission and marvelled at the desert like landscape and parallel ridges gliding beneath us. Then came the mighty Andes chain with contours picked out by snow. This time the bitch stopped me from taking a photograph as we were about to begin our descent into Santiago which as you can see from the accompanying picture boasts an amazing backdrop.

Here in this city of six million it feels quit subdued - not as manic as I had expected. I went to the Mercado Central and enjoyed a tasty bowl of "curato" - fish and meat soup with some local bread and a bottle of Chilean beer. Delicious after that airline crap they bring you on little trays.

Santiago is, as you might have expected, essentially European in its appearance - like a huge replica of Madrid picked up and transported to South America. I have only seen one black person - a wobbly man-lady who squeezed out of a gentlemen´s club in very tight red slacks and bounced in front of me to the next bus stop. She or he was carrying a small black and yellow handbag that looked like a retro pencil case.

That wasn´t the highlight of the day. Number one had to be my first in person sighting of "rongo rongo" script at the Merced basilica museum. What is that I hear you ask. It is indecipherable writing from Easter Island. Nobody has fathomed it. I saw it on a wooden tablet and on the carved shape of a sea snake. Such items should of course rest on Easter Island itself but there are similar pieces of archaeological Isla de Pascua booty in Washington, Paris, London and Vina del Mar by the Chilean coast.

It´s a bit chilly in Chile this evening...Time for bed.

Best wishes,

Senor Pudding