Chillan

The difference from Peru and Ecuador to Chile was obvious even before we landed in the plane. The scale of the agriculture and infrastructure is much larger and the country is generally completely modern and just like Australia (except for the Spanish of course). The main difference we are having trouble adapting to is the South American timing for meals and sleeping. We are quite far south so its not completely dark until about 10.30. People don't seem to get going much before about 9.00am then a big breakfast with lunch lucky to be before about 3pm. Dinner is just a couple of snacks around 10pm and everyone including kids gets to bed at midnight. Nothing wrong with that but its just taking a bit of time to adapt to for us early risers.

We have been having a fantastic time with our friends Barb and John Cote. They have four children, Josh (14), Erin (12), Morgan (10) and Lyndon (8). Our kids get on really well with them and have been enjoying having the oppurtunity to play.

The drive down form Santiago to Chillan (about 4 hours) was fascinating as the entire trip was through the Chilean central valley which is chock full of intensive agriculture. I lost count of the number of huge fruit packers, wineries and grain set ups. Every sort of crop and vine and fruit could be seen along the way. The roads are good (nice change) and the road rules, well lets just say that there actually are road rules in Chile which is a nice change.

We have spent the last couple of days at the beach about an hour west of Chillan with Barb and John and some of their Chilean friends. It has been a really nice change of pace to just sit on the beach for a couple of days after 4 weeks of constant movement. The beaches were great but very different to what we are used to. Black sand, amazing rock formations including huge walk through caves, seal lion colonies and freezing, freezing water. A couple of the beaches that we went to had these weird little crab/bug things that burrowed into the sand on the edge of the surf. There were so many of them that you could scoop up a handfull of sand and there would be ten or twenty in your hand. The girls had hours of fun filling buckets full of them.

Today we are back in Chillan where we will go to the markets this morning then go flying with Barb this afternoon.