Kayaking with Whales

The second part of our holiday was fairly extravagant (this is the beauty of both being employed, not having expensive hobbies and having no children! ;o)) and we decided to do a once in a lifetime experience sort of trip: Kayaking with Whales.

Las Torres del Paine National Park

December in Santiago - 30 degrees and blazing sun... In an attempt to escape the heat, as well as making good use of the holiday season, we decided to travel to the southern tip of Chile and visit a part of the country which we haven't seen, yet: Patagonia.

Our first Puma encounter in Patagonia :o)

Having a great time in Patagonia. A long post will follow in about a week but so far we have done some amazing walks (to the Torres mirador and to Glaciar Grey), seeing some local Fauna (nandues, guanacos, pumas, condors, grey foxes and hares among others).

Cerro Provincia

Only a few days ago we blogged on the subject of how to work out your dog. Of course we also like the good old loooooong walk. Here is the story of the one we did last Sunday, which took us to the summit of Cerro Provincia.

Cycling dogs, vegetable milks and language classes!

Most dogs we know (just like most people) are massively underexercised (with workout routine of fence barking and lazying around in the front garden if they are lucky). We make an effort with Mario to keep him in shape but this has clear time constraints as we both spend quite a lot of time working 5 days a week (not to mention language classes and trying to keep ourselves in good shape too)....

Our first earthquake

Today we experienced a little earthquake, the first one since we moved here. It occured around 20min to 5 in the morning and we probably wouldn't have noticed it had the phone not rung 5 minutes prior to that (...some random call which we ignored but which woke us up).

Summer in (and out of) the City

Before moving to Santiago the two of us lived in the Rainy Kingdom. Each year sometime around the month of May the press which is also called yellow started speculating about the likelihood of an exceptional BBQ summer that may or may not lie ahead. Usually references were made to some complicated science from the Queen's witches and wizzards at the Met Office. Needless to say, in all those years we lived there, those BBQ summers never arrived. And so the years passed by, 8 months of autumn followed by 4 months of spring, two seasons and that was it.

Our move to Chile

It was 4 months ago (almost to the day) that we first arrived in Santiago. Each of us had one backpack and one suitacase. Since then, we have found a place to live, met a dog friend, opened a bank account, got registered with the health system, got a pension plan (yuk) and I have had my Visa approved (and now have an ID card! :o)).

The Freegan dog...

So here is the thing: dogs and humans are ommivores. Dogs' roots are predominantly carnivore and humans' are predominantly vegetarian. There is not really much debate on any of this, you can look at our pathetic canines, muscles, speed etc when compared to real carnivores or even omnivores like bears, wild boars etc. You can also look at the length of our intestines, the fact that our mandibles are able to move from side to side like most rumiants, sweat glands instead of panting and lots of other minor little details (like for example, have you cut your claws recently?! do you think  you could kill a rabbit with those?!). Longer video cartoon on this point in this funny vegan video.

The road to Bolivia

Patricia had to come back to Arica for some field work so we took the opportunity to get out of Santiago to spend a few days up North. After walking around town on Saturday (and going back on site to check up on a contractor in the afternoon) we had a free day yesterday and decided last minute to hire a car and drive up into the mountains. Cycling would have been nice but wouldn't have got us very far in only one day, unfortunately.

Arica - The city of the eternal spring

Arica is a place of extremes:   it happens to be very close to the subduction zone known where the Nazca techtonic plate dives beneath the South American plate, threatening the city with huge earthquakes. In fact, in my past visit, someone told me that a big earthquake has been predicted for the area in the next few years.  Average rainfall per year is 0, one of the driest inhabited places on earth... and yet, near the city, there is an oasis where vegetables and olives are grown.

A wintery walk in the mountains

Santiago's location between the Coastal Range to the west and the Andes to the east is both source of frustration and joy to us. Frustration, because all the air pollution emitted by us 8 or so million inhabitants has nowhere to go and frequently billows as grey layer of smog amongst us. Joy, because of the impressive views and the opportunity to go exploring.

A difficult dilemma…

This is a sad story.

A couple of weeks ago we found a beautiful and playful little puppy in the street. It was bitterly cold and the puppy was probably about 8 weeks old.  He had a bit of a cold but other than that he seemed in very good spirits, lots of energy and an incredible will to explore everything that life has to offer.

I could not leave it there. 

Making tofu in pictures

Due to popular demand, here is a set of photos and explanations on how to make tofu. Enjoy:

(Thanks Sergio and Ieve for the very professional photos!)

How to make tofu

Tofu is a food with origins in ancient China. It is not really a staple in a vegan diet (though it can be and no doubt it is for some!). It is lovely as comfort food and it is also very versatile. You can use it in sandwiches, cakes, stews, fry it, marinate it or eat it as a snack without doing anything to it! If you want to know more about Tofu you can click on the link.

A brief summary of the last couple of weeks

Lots have happened since the last time we wrote:

1. Quick visit to Europe - fun, enjoyed some sunny summer days :o) (and lots of work of course!)
2. Got fridge and kitchen (second hand of course ;o)) 
3. Got mattress for bed - great story behind this one but maybe one for another time! Involves dark alleys, old ladies and a German man trying to explain to them he wants an organic cotton mattress made for him (in spanish of course...)

Student IKEA for grown-ups

In the long-gone student days my house mates and I used to furnish our flat with the perfectly clean and adequate, but no longer wanted items that our lovely fellow citizens left in the streets the night before the bulk rubbish collection which the local council organised twice a year. We called it the 'Student IKEA' because the

Mario - our dog friend

Living in the streets can't be easy. There are several issues to deal with in Santiago that make things challenging:

1. The elements - rain, cold, wind, snow (or the opposite, just not so much at this time of the year when we are all grateful for some sun in the southern hemisphere ;o))
2. The cars - Santiago is a car jungle. From an outsider's perspective, the quality of life of the Santiaginos/as would  dramatically increase if they dealt with reducing the amount of traffic in the city significantly (smog, noise, stress, commute times, asthma and other pulmonary diseases etc)
3. The others - human beings can be (but often are not) very caring. The same applies to dogs.

Home sweet home!

Today we managed it! We have a permanent place to live in! :o)

It is a beautiful house with a bit of a garden where we hope we can grow some veg, have a compost  (link in spanish) or compost (link in english), a vermicompost (spanish) or wormery (english), a couple of dogs (rescued of course, that is not even a question) and a dog poo compost too... honestly, it is not that hard and you get the picture:

Cerro Manquehue - the place of the condors

From the apartment where we currently live one can see an impressive little hill - Cerro Manquehue. It is dome shaped but with a flat top and towers above all the high rise buildings around us. It is 1635m or so in elevation, or roughly a thousand metres higher than where we are. Wikipedia says it is an extinct volcano.

Meeting the carabineros de Chile

We ended up in the back of a police van today. Seriously...

Atacama desert photos

A few photos of our San Pedro de Atacama trip (see previous post)

Gorillas in the dust - the Atacama desert

What a week!

If you have ever been in a desert before, you will know how fascinating they are: they are totally inhospitable places often without a shade in sight to protect yourself from the burning and constant sun during the day. They are also bitterly cold at night. At the same time though, if you pay attention, they can in places be full of life and they have the most beautiful sunsets and starry nights that you can probably find on our planet.

Light at the end of this (house hunting) tunnel (?)

Today was our first day at work, separated :o(

My colleagues were all very nice and helpful and I am looking forward to the big challenges ahead (busy days with lots of learning!).

We also saw a great house! The first one that has potential :o) and we are trying to go for it  - though we do not have any of the papers that they supposedly need... so we have tried the poker face and "we can pay in advance" strategy... let's see what they say! :op

The weekend when the snow and rain arrived

So the winter has finally caught up with us...

Santiago... where the old world meets the new world

HOUSING:
The last couple of days we have been having a reality check. We visited some houses... and let's just say they were not what we were hoping for. They were old, run down, smelly and the Santiago predominant idea of a garden is some paved outdoor space to put a table and chairs and park your car(s/lorry/tank)... We have other plans in mind for a GARDEN: pots, compost, raised bed to grow veg, wormery etc... perhaps even a dog or 2!

Life is a treasure hunt

After yesterdays relatively painless experiences at the the Tax Office and the Foreign Ministry, bureaucracy caught up with us today at the Immigration Office where we were hoping to apply for my (Christian's) temporary residency permit.

The queue in front of us was about 50 strangers long, so we had little choice but to wait and subject ourselves to the crap spilling out of two wall mounted TV screens in the waiting area. Something to do with transforming

some more pics

due to popular demand, more photos and less food related photos ;o)

Half way in the system

A successful day :o)

Christian has a RUT number - it took 10mins and the guy there was very helpful and said to us that he loved German rock bands!?

In addition, all the required documents for our visa have been legalised (this does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that we have a Visa yet! - Though we are legal for the next 3 months)

A few photos from our trip so far

A few photos we snapped around our apartment:

Ubuntu - in abundance

Ubuntu is a concept that we came across a few months ago thanks to Sonja Kruse. It is difficult to translate but it means something like: "I am what I am because of who we all are"
  
"Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity." (Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

Getting to grips with LIFE...

FLIGHT:
13 hours of flight - lots of sleep just not in a horizontal position... which is problematic.

Aircraft meals are at best satisfactory... when you try to avoid animal products the fun really begins... dinner was ok, vegetable paella with some salad and some fruit - BORING but satisfactory

Breakfast was TERRIBLE (thanks iberia)... so, here is the misconception(S):

A new life... a new continent... a new adventure

This is it.

For the last 3 years we have been messing with the idea of moving away from Europe to Chile (or actually anywhere else that we did not know much about and was different from the UK).

We... is Christian and I (Patricia), the veg warriors, our joke name because we do not eat any animal products... more on this maybe in a later post.

And finally it happened... in the most random and timely manner. A good job offer (in Chile of all places), enough time to relocate and tie loose ends (eye surgery follow ups done, car sold, work commitments relatively tidied up, enough time to sell furniture and lots of other things that are so unlikely to happen by chance that we are actually a bit scared!)