Hola! Buenos dias!

Well...yes, some of you may have heard that my transit to latin America was not quite as planned. Despite arriving at Heathrow in plenty of time to take my shoes and belt off three times and to empty my evian bottle of all likely traces of deadly fluids, I managed to miss my plane to Miami due in part to poor advice from a BAA rep, in part to the co-existence of two flights to Miami at the same time (though from vastly different gates) and finally my general lack of vigour in checking the details on the ticket.....things did not bode well for the next six weeks!!!

Anyway, American airlines staff did an excellent job of finding me an alternative flight that went instead to Chicgao, then Dallas on its way to Santiago in Chile. Anyboy who has seen ´Planes, trains and automobiles´will get the picture of the 28 hours of my life that followed departure!!

So, I arrived to an amazing sunrise over the snow capped Andies and managed to use some (very basic) Spanish to get myself an airport bus to my hotel in the Providencia district. Jet lag ensued.

The next day it was straight to it with a two hour drive north with my Santiago host Dr Claudia Venegas to the marine outstation of the University Andres Bello in Quintay. The station has been developed from a now disused ´La Ballanera´(whaling slaughter house) that frequented this part of the Chilean coast until the 1950´s. The station now does some really nicfe work on the culture of native species including some brill-like flatfish, edible sea urchines and some crab species.

I presented some Cefas research and monitoring work during a talk to station staff and students bussed in from the UAB campus in Valparaiso. Via an interpreter my jokes did not seem to go as well as hoped for but still I managed to raise a few interesting questions from the students.

We ate lunch in an excellent bar next to the station (local crab sin Hematodinium!) and I tried a Pisco sour for medicinal and jet lag ´purposes. Local fishermen on the beach shared the sea with the pelicans though we did not spot the local ´chungungo´(sea otter) that frequent this piece of the coast.

A quick detour the world heritage town of Valparaiso and it´s coastal neighbour Viña del Mar preceded the jouney home to Santiago.

This blog is an online diary of my trip to Chile, Ecuador and US as part of my 2006 Winston Churchill travel fellowship. I will be keeping it up to date throughout the trip so keep an eye on it if you are interested in what I have been up to!

Dates: Travel to Chile 26th September, Travel to Ecuador 12th October, Travel to US 2nd November.