The one that is from Valdevia...

Greetings from Valdevia!

Sorry for the delay in information... We have been muchos busy!!

I will start with Friday the 7th... as that is where we last left off!

Friday

We carried out the usual drill- u´know, up-breakfast-out... and met Loreto at the Metro station, jumped aboard the metro, and met with Karin. They were to be our tour guides for the day and a great support for the buying of resources. This place was like a cheap version of Staples... Teacher Heaven!! If only we had one of these in the UK!!!

It has to be said that Char, Sam and Rach did really well at keeping their overwhelming desire to buy stationary at bay whilst in the shop - full marks!

We managed to find nearly all the resources we wanted - and bobbed across the street to buy wool - top marks to Linz who successfully ordered and bought a variety of colours of wool for us!

We then caught the metro along to the bus station to buy our tickets to Valdevia for the 12 hour bus ride... eeeek!!!

Karin and Loretto took us to a restaurant for lunch, it was really nice, most of us tried a random pizza, Charlottes came with nearly a whole pigs worth of pork on the top, Rach had "4 seasons", Linz a variety of meats, Kirsty had "Tropical" - banana, pineapple and cherries, Sam and Helen went half and half on a Mussels pizza and a "Tropical" pizza... main and desert on a pizza!!! We also had papas fritas!! (Chips!) for the first time since leaving the UK! The food was really nice and we were all stuffed!

After lunch Loretto left us - but first took us to see her office (where we could store some resources for Camp Callejones), we went up in the normal lift but came back down in the service lift... very exciting!

We then visited the museum outside the Presidents building, and Karin came to accompany us. It had artefacts and exhibitions about some of the surrounding Islands.

We went to the Supermarkado to buy supplies so that Kirsty and Lindsey could cook a suprise tea... lemon chicken, veg and fresh salad... yum! We then ordered the session plans ready for Camp Callejones... provisionally anyway :P

Then a very tired set of people headed to the land of nod...

... Saturday

Today started quite gently, up and ready, then Char and Rach headed to the Supermarkado for food supplies for the next few days, Kirsty and Linz headed to investigate the corner market and Sam and Helen stayed at the hostel to email documents and info to Karin (in German and Spanish respectively) bravo!!

Helen and Sam had a caterpillar session on the sofa (in our sleeping bags to keep our feet warm!)

Cheese, avacado and salami sandwiches later we dressed to meet Manuel. Once Helen and Sam got outside they realised the hostel was a fridge and had to de-layer (as did others) 'cos the sun was warm!

Half an hours drive from Santiago to Lampa for an afternoon of activities with local children. We all began by supporting children on a giant bouncy castle slide. Rach and Sam then went to help 'control the line' for facepainting... a few paints in hand and we were painting 'Princessa' (Princesses) and ´Hombre aranya' (Spiderman) and... rabbits... a word I STILL can't remember how to pronounce... and trust me... I should be able to remember!! (This was Sams crash course into the face painting world!!) Soon Charl, Helen, Linz and Kirsty also came to join us in the madness of the facepaints!! Once the queue had gone we turned on each other... all ready and raring to continue on the facepainting... trust me, you want to see photos of this!! We were all covered, clothes and any available skin... but it was a great laugh!! We sang songs with Mauel and his Guias y Scouts and then made our way home... many attempts to get clean, face wipes and lots of washing in the shower but we STILL have shadows and colours on our arms... thankfully our faces are clean!!

The weather that day was lovely - we went out in long sleeved tops with t shirts over the top and were warm enough... until the sun set. As soon as the sun drops the temperature changes a lot!!

We had Chile for tea - thanks Rach and Char - then a relaxed evening catching up on journals.

Sunday

Most of Sunday was spent on the bus to Valdevia. 9.30am departure... 8.40pm arrival at Valdevia.

We were met by Andrea and 3 other Guias leaders from Valdevia. They took us to the hotel we were to stay in and then we had a chat about the plans for the week (We are in Valdevia until Thursday evening)...

We are going to visit schools, but this will follow when we've done it!! We are currently waiting for Andrea to collect us... so...

TTFN!! Team Chile xx