CAUTIOUS CARGO ↑ This way up ↑: Iquique to Pichelemu, Chile. February 2014.

So a glorious reunion in Iquique with American Matt where we drank red wine and talked for three days on a swing chair,chilled at the beach and made salami samwiches. We headed south to Caldera to stay with Matt´s friend from home, Patti, and her husband, Philippe (uno). One night we drank Chileno cocktails and ate two types of raw sea urchin, one of which tasted like paint stripper. I digested mine with gusto though may have been a different story for Matt. Alsatian and labrador at the house. Chilled at beautifully-still Bahia Inglesia where English pirates once hid. Philippe (dos) and Rose from Santiago offered us a lift all the way to their flat in Providencia, Santiago which, as we were travelling south, was too good an offer to refuse. Had ´Chile´s best empanadas´ en route but I beg to differ. After giving us an excellent night-time tour of Santiago where we viewed the entire city from way up high, we left for WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms - work in exchange for board) in Pichelemu the next morning.

We arrived at American ex-pat Este´s house where we worked for about two weeks. Sanded, painted, cleaned, swept, pruned, picked and Matt even fumegated. He would surf when he could and as it was Chile´s holiday month of February there were amazing drummers in town. The best live performance I´ve ever seen. Ate anticuchos, barbecue pork on sticks. One day we three, with Este´s three dogs, walked the beach for two hours in search of a waterfall that we never found. Pine forest. Drank a lot of wine over dinner where we learnt of Este´s colourful past.