We arrived in Iquique at the start of the weekend and checked into an International Hostel called Backpackers. The people working there were lovely and made us feel at home straight away. We signed up for a Paella and Sangria night and met some of the fellow travellers who were staying there. That night after a few games of Uno we had learnt four colours in spanish and numbers 1 to 9, not bad for one night! We helped cook the Paella and helped when no one else could finish the Sangria! The other travellers there were really good fun and we arranged a re-match of Uno for the following night.

The next day we wanted to walk to the port to find the sea lions that everyone was talking about, apparently they are there every day. It was quite a long walk but we weren´t disappointed. The pellicans showed us the way and we saw about 20 sea lions, at one point they all came up on shore to eat some fish that a fisherman couldn´t sell. Gem tried to get as close as possible for a picture when one of the biggest ones roared at her, lesson learnt that you shouldn´t get too close to wildlife, it had massive teeth too!

We spent some time walking around the town centre, it is very pretty with decked sidewalks and a very european, almost french feel. There are old trams that are no longer used in the square which kids play on and the odd weary Chilean has a snooze. There are street artists and entertainers, the best one we saw was a pianist with an electric piano playing in the middle of the street with a tux on.

Christmas is round the corner now and Gem was beside herself when we spotted Father Christmas on a float just like home, waving to all the kids playing very loud music - disco music rather than Chrsitmas songs but you can´t be picky! It turned out there were a few of these floats and every time we saw one Gem followed it for a while! They actually give out presents to the kids in the neighbourhood. There are cars that drive around too adorned Christmas decorations and booming out loud music. No one told us what they do though. One afternoon we were standing on the street corner when one of these cars came driving past at about 39 mph. Kids seemed to come out of nowhere running towards the car with grins like cheshire cats. That was when we almost died. We were pelted with sweets, millions of sweets. Not soft ones, hard boiled candies. Kids were scooting around our legs scooping them up into their jumpers, we were just trying to get away with not too many bruises! It was funny, but not at the time!

On our penultimate day we spent the afternoon on the beach which was just across the road from the hostel. It was a Sunday so it seemed like all the families from within 50miles were there. The beach was packed with kids and hawkers selling anything from donughts to paninis and fruit salads. We were quite entertained by them, hence the 30 pictures of different people selling their goods. The beach was very nice but the sea wasn´t clear and was far too cold for us to swim in so Gem just had the obligatory dip.

We stayed in Iquique for 4 nights in total and cooked for ourselves in their well facilitated kitchen. We got to know the staff and other people staying quite well and our last night was a haze of chilean wine, jenga and uno, lots of fun. We would have loved to have stayed for longer but have now decided where we want to spend Xmas and need to make tracks to Peru...