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Next stop was a stopover in Chile, in the lovely City of Antofagasta. Here we stayed for a few days, and being one of the ships company football team, I had a run ashore here, and had terrific time with the local English and Scottish community, who made up most of the opposition team. We were beaten by them, but for some reason we were the winners of the trophy, which went back to the ship; to be placed in some room, where for the next ten months or so, saw many more join it, mostly as the good losers. Each watch had their runs ashore, and as usual the locals couldn't do enough for us. It's always sad to leave these ports, but we had to move on.
Yes, and so we did, to another place in Chile, a place when I first saw it and stepped ashore, didn't ring any bells or anything spectacular. It was called Talcahuano. We had the usual two-day stopover, and I took advantage by getting off nice and early. I was joined on this trip ashore by another killick Stoker, Jonno Johnson. We had nothing planned, but what a day it turned out to be. We started off in this bar having a quiet drink, and this little scruffy bloke kept tugging away at my sleeve, saying in what Spanish I could make out, that he wanted us to go to the fire station. I asked the barman as best I could, what he was on about, and again in some broken Spanish, I was told that we should go with him and have a look see. So having got this amigo new found friend of ours, to get the taxi, and have him pay for it, we were off to see what he was on about.

When we arrived at this Fire Station, we were both amazed at the size of it for a start, and after being introduced to the chief of the station, we were then given a tour of what was more like a hotel than a fire station There were in all, five different or separate fire departments in the one building, with each one of them having its own nationality. After seeing all of them and their chiefs, I would have to say the best one of the lot, had to be the German one. But Jonno and I told all fire chiefs that his was the best, just to make them feel good. We had lunch there, and then they insisted that we be their guests for dinner that evening. We were told that they had also invited a few friends along to celebrate our stay in their lovely town of Talcahuano. We agreed to their invitation, and found ourselves sat that evening at a table that had not only all the chiefs of each department, but also the chief of Police, Customs, as a matter of fact the only one missing was the Lord Mayor I think. You can imagine what it was like trying to give a toast to each of these depts. in their own particular language, and stay sober.
It was Salute to this one, scole, to that one, Slange i var, to the next, I can't remember the one for the German Chief, but we did get through them all eventually It was a great night, and when the officer of the watch seen us come back to the ship in a police car, you could see the look in his eyes a mile away, he had the cell doors open and ready to for us to occupy. But when the chief of police got out the car and saluted us, and said good night, it was a different story. Again it was another place to remember, and a place that we had to leave, but with very fond memories, that's life.

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