Maybe I was a bit harsh on Valparaiso, I´ll admit that much...only a bit though...After t´internet we walked around some more tight little alleys and backstreets for a bit and saw a church with missing tiles, buckloads of graffiti and loads of dog crap everywhere. This aside it was an interesting half hour or so in which we got to see how not to build a town prone to earthquakes. All the houses were built on sheer rock faces and stood about 5 stories high. I may be wrong but if another biggie hits I don´t think there´ll be a whole lot left of Valpo. We retired to the room where I promptly fell asleep only to wake around 11pm. Figuring I´d missed another tea and that if we felt a bit unsafe at noon it´d probably be worse at 11 we did the only thing we could...went back to sleep.

Now after 5 hours sleep in the afternoon I suppose I shouldn´t have expected a great nights kip anyhow but the sheer level of the outside noises and the frequency at which they occured was absolutely astounding. No sooner had you closed one eye than a taxi would hurtle round the cobbled streets seemingly with a microphone attatched to it´s exhaust, amp and speakers on the roof. When it wasn´t the cars it was the dogs. Now I love dogs as much as the next man (unless the next man happend to be, say, Chinese) but these bloody mutts decided to practice their barking all night, almost in time with the cars coming past. In fact every now and then a dog woulod bark itself hoarse only for a car to come past and start it up again. This must be the Chilean version of Chinese water torture.

We got up at 7 and, having seen all we wanted to of Valpo, decided to head to the bus station and try to bring our trip to Chillan forward from 9pm to something a little earlier. We got there at 8.30 to find a bus was going at 9.15 (RESULT!!) so we booked on it and here we are, now in Chillan. Off to the market and Bernardo O´Higgins monument (this bloke has everything named after him so he´s already become a bit of a legend chez Cornwell) tomorrow as well as a school donated by the Mexican government in 1939 after the other one was destroyed by...an earthquake (sense a theme here...) The hotel we´re staying at is really nice though so if Chillan´s really bad at least we´ll get some kip. I´ll let you know if the earth moves...