Wednesday 25 January 2012

Weekend at the beach

It has to be said that a rather wonderful aspect of living in Chile is the possibility of taking off for the beach for a weekend in January. Of course January here is the meteorological equivalent of July in the northern hemisphere, thus you begin to imagine the crowds, the difficulty in finding suitable accommodation, not to mention the traffic on the motorway... However, undeterred, we booked ahead and set off bright and early on Saturday morning for our chosen destination of Quintay, a picturesque and largely unspoilt fishing village with a tiny bay frequented only by fishermen, divers, the odd adventurous (or foolhardy) family and lots of seagulls. It was dull and overcast when we arrived, almost reminiscent of the English seaside were it not for the dramatic landscape, including valleys of fertile vineyards one passed en route to the almost vertical slope we had to walk down (and later up again) to get to the sheltered cove at Quintay itself. After a quick wander around the miniscule beach (dodging the stray dogs) we headed for a hearty fisherman's portion of fish and chips, Chilean-style (no batter, enormous quantities) and very good it was too. As we were settling the bill and ready to reach for the buckets and spades, DD2 announced she didn't like beaches after all, which was rather a bad omen for the two days we had planned of exactly that...
We attempted to begin to digest our lunch by visiting the ex-whaling station, now a vacant, shell of a museum mainly containing black and white photos testifying to its somewhat unfathomable past incarnation. As so often happens in Chile, the sun suddenly emerged from behind an apparently impenetrable layer of cloud to produce an absolute scorcher of an afternoon, thus we hurried to Playa Grande, a nearby stretch of golden sand which became more and more full of holidaymakers as the day went on... We had only just remarked on how peaceful it was when at around 4pm a sound system was plugged in and a DJ began blasting what can only be described as beach house music to a not completely gratified public...
By evening we were too happy and tired to care much that our cabaƱa, while recommended in two of our guidebooks, had in fact been a disappointment in terms of cleanliness and hygiene which may have been why some of us didn't have the best night's sleep...
The next day we set off further down the coast for Isla Negra, not an island but a locality so-called for its clump of dark granite rocks along the beach and also home to one of Pablo Neruda's houses, now a museum of the poet's eccentric and extravagant personal items collected from his travels around the world. Unfortunately choosing to visit Neruda's house in Isla Negra on a Sunday in January was a little like choosing to visit Shakespeare's birthplace on a Sunday in the summer months, that is to be avoided at all costs due to hordes of people, long queues and the selling out of tickets... Never mind we thought, a great excuse to go back to visit this little gem at another time of year. Instead we made straight for the beach which was beautiful and very atmospheric although made up of fine pebbles therefore not as interesting for more advanced construction purposes. However we still managed to keep busy for an entire day, making stone soup and tea amongst other delights and contemplating the ocean, whose icy water we paddled in but could not swim in. Clearly Chileans are made of sterner stuff than some of us...

No comments:

Post a Comment