Surfing with Elvis

On Sunday I joined a tour bus to start travelling down to the far south of the country. We spent the morning on the bus, with a couple of stops at a village where they make traditional craft things and a huge hydroelectric dam. we arrived at Pichelemu in the afternoon, for our first overnight stop. The town is one of the main surfing spots in Chile, so we deicided we had to try it and went for a 2 hour lesson with an instructor named Elvis. After getting kitted out in the wetsuits etc. we went down to the beach where we did a warm up of various stretches and had a run along the beach. then we spent a while on the beach practising how to stand up on the board. this was hard enough on the beach so I was starting to think that maybe it wasn´t such a good idea, but changed my mind once we got in the water. I wasn´t very good at it, but it was amazing fun trying. By the end of the lesson I had managed to stand up a few times, but 2 hours really wasn´t long enough and its something I will have to try again when I get the chance. Later on we went further down the coast to the area where the expertt surfers go to see how its really done.

In the evening we had a good meal in the hostel and to celebrate my birthday I had a suprise chocolate cake with Happy birthday in English and Spanish. Later on we went across to the pub where I got to try a lot of Chilean drinks, wine, locally brewed beer, tequilla and various other spirits, but I never did find out what they were. After that much to drink, I think my Spanish was much improved so I got a lot of practise speaking to the trainee guide on the trip who also wanted to practise his English.

After a very late night, getting up for the bus at 7am was a bit of a challenge but as it was a long way to travel, there was plenty of time to catch up on sleep. we were on the bus most of the day, with only one stop at a town called Santa Cruz where there was a huge museum with evreything ranging from fossils to classic cars. We arrived in Pucon late in the evening and I´m staying here for a few days now.