One of the key lessons I
learned from Emma and James over this past week has been wiley-ness about money
(who would have thought a Scot could learn anything more about this
hey?!). From the first day in Valparaíso I had a
better grip on the currency with Jame’s quick approach to working out the
conversion rate and then gort comfortable with the pricing system by following
Emma’s eye for the cheapest deal on our regular trips to the local fruit and
veg market for ingredients for home cooked meals.
The other major local
market, and the end point of our route the day Emma James and I went running is the fish market. A fascinating hubbub of activity, colour and
smells, the stalls are piled high with various fish and seafood that comes
straight off the boats and onto the ice,
Unsurprisingly, the area
is swarmed with gulls, who seem to enjoy all sitting facing in the same
direction when they land and perch along the length of the pier barrier. (Perhaps something to do with the wind
direction? There was only one out of maybe 50 facing the opposite way!) Interestingly, on a Sunday when there were
barely any stalls open so very few entrails available to be scavenged, there
were hardly any gulls in sight. The
beach that day, however, was the busiest I’d seen it, all ablaze with colourful
umbrellas.
Using the waterfront as
our running route was great not just for having the market as a fishy carrot
–on-a-stick at the end (we ate deliciously refreshing fresh prawn-in-lime pots
as soon as we got there) but also because as we went there were a good few free
gyms (just like the one in London parks) where we could stop and do exercises
while looking out across the stunning views of the Valparaíso bay. One of the points looked onto a platform
where the ‘lobos del mar’ and cranes gather, so as we were doing our leg and
arm pushes we could watch the seals jumping in and out of the water. Sometimes their way of dragging their heavy
bodies up onto the platform looked as hard as it feels to lift your whole body
up by the arms!
Signs like this one indicating the tsunami
evacuation route are dotted along the
the shoreline roads of Valparaíso. This
is because the earthquake risks in Chile
also mean that there is high risk of tsunami, as these are triggered by quakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment