Zelma’s Trip

In the morning we went through Taltal and went to the town museum.  The place was very informative and had a good collection of pieces from the time when the town was the Northern port of Chile.  There were also other pieces like skulls and old, Chilean pottery.  I´m always conscious that I sound amazingly dumb when I write about things like this.  I feel like I should be able to tell you the history, dates and things rather than, “it was old and interesting” but I guess that history´s not really my forte, anyway that´s the kind of thing that Google was invented for n´est pas¿  Yay, check the upside down question mark.  It´s actually surprisingly hard to type on foreign keyboards as the keys do straaaange things.  I still haven´t found the at sign so every time I access my email I have to Google “at sign” and then copy and paste it.  Okay, that´s probably sounding slightly stupid as well.  I think I´d better move on before I make myself sound even more ignorant…..  So where was I….oh yes the museum in Taltal, oh no I´d done that bit……  So, after a wander round town I went and used the internet and Mum and Dad headed back to the hosteleria to read and the like.  After I´d checked a few emails (yes using copy and paste functions for at signs!) Dad arrived and said we had to leave.  I wondered if Mum and Dad had managed to drop a Chilean faux pas but it turned out to be far less exciting in that the hotel had double booked.  Well, at least, that was their story.  Mum had asked for another night the previous day and I had also gone with her in the morning and they said it was fine.  It all stank a bit to be fair and marred our, previously very good, opinion of the place.  Mum reckoned that they probably had someone on business who wanted the room for some time who would be repeat business, which we wouldn´t, well definitely not now anyway after that shenanigans, but it was all still a bit mean!

With a slightly sour taste in our mouths we decided we had seen enough of Taltal and headed South to Bathai Inglesia.  A slight disappointment turned in our favour, as it had so many times previously on our trip, and we discovered the most lovely cabana stroke condimimium.  The reason I wrote stroke there by the way was not one of those affected type things, like when people say, “and I quote”, and do that annoying thing with their fingers, but as I have no idea where the slash key is on this keyboard.  Anyway, that´s another digression, I think this needs to be the last entry for now…..so we checked in to the place and lounged by the pool.  We were the only people there and the pool was right next to our place.  In the evening we headed into the nearby town and got takeaway pizza and I bought a couple of very cheap caps, including a sun visor which, it has since transpired, makes me  look rather worryingly like the female version of Eminem.  I just need to practice my “East side” signs and I´ll be the full ticket, or something.  So, anyway, we took the food back, ate the pizza, drank wine and relaxed in our rather nice, pool-side abode!