Hasta Luego Chile!

Ok, final day in Chile today and I will fly south again to Santiago this evening. Tomorrow I fly north to the Quito, Ecuador´s capital city - the second highest city in the world (almost 3000m asl) and bang on the equator. I will be signing out for a few days while I travel to, and find my feet in, Quito. Once I have recovered from the effects of the Quito elevation and locate an internet cafe I will post more entries! Expect things to get a little more tropical in coming days!!

It has been a hectic and productive fortnight and I have had a great time seeing the sites of the Santiago, Pt Montt and La Serena districts. Chile and it´s people have been very kind to me and I would particularly like to thank several people who have been really helpful during my stay. In no particular order these are:

Claudia Venegas (for greatly assisting with my intinerary for Santiago and Pt. Montt....many thanks), Hernan Cañon (IFOP), Prof. Juan Carvajal (iMAR), Patricio Bustos (ADL), Oscar Parra (Intervet), Marcos Godoy (Intervet), Daniel Suarez (Homing Ltd.), Sandra Bravo (Universidad Austral), Kurt Paschke (Universidad Austral), Roberto Flores (iMAR), Enrique Paredes (Universidad Austral, Valdivia), Alejandro Yanez (Universidad Austral, Valdivia) and finally, Karin Lohrmann (Universidad Catolica del Norte) and her son Rodrigo for allowing me to lodge with them in La Serena and for showing me the sights, sounds and tastes of Chile. I look forward to establishing fruitful collaborations with these new colleagues in the future.

Thanks for reading over the past few weeks. Hopefully you have enjoyed the tales. Just enough time to post a few assorted images of Chile. Chao y hasta luego. See you in Quito!

Mussel farming at Metri (south of Pt Montt)

Mini ´Trabulco´(whelks) in culture
Fish farm security - Chile style!