Vina Del Mar

We arrived in Santiago and drove straight down to Vina Del Mar which is a large city on the coastline of Chile.  It is part of the port city of Valparaiso, which is the largest and most important port in the country.  In the 19th century a massive earthquake destroyed most of Valparaiso so there aren't many of the original buildings left there today.  Vina Del Mar means "vineyard of the sea" and was named that because the area is so rich with seafood.  It  is also one of the most visited beaches in Latin America, even the Chilean President has a summer house there called Cerro Castillo.  We thought Vina Del Mar was quite similar to the Gold Coast in Queensland.  

We had a nice time relaxing and going to the beach.  The water was freezing cold because the current straight from Antartica moves along the Chilean coast.  There were lots of kids playing in the water getting dumped by waves that landed on the shore.  Drew and I had a great time running into the waves and playing in the sand.  There was an icecream restaurant right on the beach that made giant icecream sundaes, milkshakes, cakes and waffles.  Ordering was difficult because all of the menus were in Spanish and the waiter didn't speak English, but we kind of guessed what things were by looking at the pictures. We all had a different icecream sundae, mine was with fruit and cream.  They were so big that all of us could have shared one!  There were lots of food stands along the beach, we got some churros and fruit juice on one of the days we were there and on another we got hand spun fairy floss on a stick.  

We went for a long walk along the bay to check out the surf, there wasn't any because the bay is too deep, so that's why the waves break straight on the shore.  There were small markets, a couple of sand carvings, statues and a fountain along the boardwalk (that had people washing the sand of themselves in!).  We went to a restaurant and ordered an asado which is a Chilean spiced meat grill that had chicken, pork chops, steak, sausages and potatoes all cooked in an onion gravy and served in a pot.  It was meant to have blood sausage but we weren't that keen so we got extra pork sausages instead.  The cool drinks were all served in glass bottles which tasted a lot better - yum!

There was a small museum just up the road from our hotel in Vina Del Mar called The Fonck Museum.  It is one man's collection of South American artefacts that were put into a private museum after he had died.   A tour guide showed us around the museum and she explained the exhibits to us.  Upstairs there were quite a few South American animals and insects including armadillos, turtles, flamingos, pumas and skunks.  They also had a live Chilean spider called arana de rincon that is similar to the white tailed spider at home.  If the spider bites you its venom creates a huge ulcer that eats away at the skin.  If you're not treated it gets worse and worse and you can eventually die or have to have your limbs amputated.  Once a female arana de rincon has mated it can keep on having sets of babies without having to mate again.  Once the museum caught a female spider and put her in a glass display dome and she had babies who escaped through the ventillation holes in the dome so they had to close the museum down and fumigate it.  

  This photo is of Tzanzas (shrunken human heads) made by the Jivaro Indians from the Amazon.  The heads were reduced to the size of a man's fist.  The Jivaro Indians were fierce warriors who lived in small individual communities and were constantly at war with each other.  The Jivaro believed that they had to avenge their dead relatives and if they didn't they feared that their dead relatives would bring them bad luck.  They would fight with another tribe, decapitate a victim, peel the flesh from the skull and throw the skull away.  Then they would sew the eyes and ears closed, seal the mouth with sharp palm pegs and boil the head for 10 minutes.  The Jivaro would then dry the head and put hot rocks inside, put it on a stick and place it near a fire.  As the head shrunk they would pull the stones out and put smaller ones in, when it shrunk a lot they would put hot sand inside to let it keep shrinking.  Even though this was a long process the hair and facial features would survive.  Once the process was finished the Jivaro would wear the Tzanzas around their neck or put it on a stick to show their power.  They believed that by wearing the head they would gain their enemies magical personal power called arutam.

  This is an actual mummy found buried in the Chilean desert, she is a woman in her 20's and she's over 1000 years old.  We also saw lots of jewellery that the Mapuche indians wore including earings, lip jewellery, head dress and necklaces.  The guide said that the Mapuche were really cool because they invented and wore lots of different types of piercings and the piercing people today aren't as cool because they're just not original.  The Mapuche also invented the game of hockey, it is played exactly the same way now as it was back then with goals at each end and the same number of players, even the sticks and the rules are the same!  We saw lots of other interesting artefacts including a climbing post that they would climb and sit on top to pray as they believed it helped them get closer to the gods by being high.  There were also clay pots, tools, clothing, musical instruments and a display all about Easter Island.  It was an interesting museum.  Hannah