Living the high life: Zapallar

Playa Zapallar

We found a nice hotel on the net for a very good rate in Zapallar, an apparently good diving location and so we booked it. Only to find out from our hotel that there was apparently no way to get there because the buses there are limited to very early and very late to try to keep poor people away from the exclusive area. That was not going to stop us.
We left the hotel and went to the main road near the shore to get a bus to Quintero or Maitencillo. We managed to get to Quintero and had no idea if there was anyway to go further. Eventually we asked a collectivo taxi and he said he could only take us some of the way because he was not allowed to go all the way. So he dropped us at a bus stop near Laguna, and we hoped for another bus. Evetually one came. We finally arrived in Zapallar after a 4 hour journey. After we checked in we went for a walk along the shore South, towards an island that has penguins on it. We eventually decided the island was too far away and walked back to have yet another average but overpriced dinner on the beach. Chilleans sure don't like flavour.

On Monday we got up a bit earlier to see if we could organise diving and paragliding sometime. The hotel was not the most helpful in this and we had a number or awkward conversations with people who didn't speak a word of english. Google translate isn't really possible to use in reverse unfortunately. We managed to get a dive organised in Maitencillo for the next day and decided to head there to see if we could do paragliding that afternoon. With our first bit of hitch hiking and a bus we made it to Maitencillo. We had some terrible empandas from a rather crazy man who relished in explaining the flavours to us "jamon y queso: jamon chez, carne:met, queso:chez'. This was after we had already ordered mind you. Anyway we escaped there and saw something that might be the place we would dive with the next day. Which made me think we might die under the ocean. After a very long walk up hills we came to a parapente place, paragliding. They have a word for paragliding but not for toes... there wasn't enough wind, so we waited, 1 hour, 2, 3... and then we left. To wait for a bus and be rejected for hitch hiking. We found out every restaurant in town is closed on weeknights except the local. That was an awkward meal, since we had dressed up a little and were the only gringos there (and in town).

Pretty flowers near Maitencillo

Today we headed to Maitencillo again, and thankfully it went more smoothly, on the way there and on the way back. Before we left we asked reception where would be open for tea... We are none the wiser, as after he had said the name of a place he said no it will be shut. Awesome. Anyway. The weather looked awful for diving this morning as we headed out, cloudy and foggy. But we thought we would get there and see what it looks like there. We went to the area where we thought the diving was, the shop was definitely locked. So we sort of wandered in what appeared to be a car park for a fish market. I was just going go the toilets before were going to leave when a man with squid in plastic bags said something that included the word buceo, diving. We figured out that he was the guy we called and we started getting set up to go for a dive. All the time me thinking we might die, but anyway. There we were suited up and backing into the ocean, with a mis mash of gear on. It wasn't q very deep dive, only 5 metres, which was comforting. We followed some kind of pipeline out to a small kelp forrest around rocks. There were heaps of really colourful crabs around, purple and red amd yellow ones. Our guide handed us an abalone and a star fish and there were what looked like a few anenomes on the rocks. Brandon had some issues with being too buoyant,  but that was fixed with some rocks in the pockets, and then some larger ones when he was still floating to the surface. We didn't die, which is great! It was actually pretty fun, although I'm not sure Brandon would say the same. Tonight I managed to ask in Spanish if we could use this kitchen, and we can! Yes! *Update: we tried to cook ourselves dinner but different women were here and they said that we couldn't, so we await our steak sandwiches prepared by Chileans, hopefully to an Australian standard.

Tomorrow we had back to Santiago for a couple of days before we leave for home. Zapallar was nice and it is a secluded little beach, but it's a weird town. If seems like it just shuts down when it's not Summer. It would be fine to stay here if you had a car and your own kitchen, otherwise it's a pain. It had been so stupidly hard to get anywhere and it's really annoying that we can't eat food here... I can't wait to put some more pictures up when we get a chance.