Next Stop: Unknown

Vina del Mar is a strange sort of city – 1/3 beach playground for Santiago vacationers, 1/3 seaport settled by German-Chileans in the 1880s, and 1/3 South American conference center complete with posh seafront hotels and mega casinos. Since ‘Vina’ as the locals call it, is only a brief commuter ride away from Valpo, we set out to explore area for the afternoon. Our only real, well MY only real snaffu of the day happened just as we were setting out to the commuter terminal. I was busy taking in the scenery, and just slightly miscalculated how to maneuver along the concrete steps. My foot slipped, I caught myself (barely) one-handed so as not to harm the camera, but not before I’d really smashed my toe. It’s really, really smashed – bright and purple all over. At first I thought we were going to have to call it an early day as I couldn’t bend it, put pressure on it, or even jiggle it. But I figured out how to do a gimpy little walk – kind of pigeon toed – took a hefty Ibuprofen and we continued our day.

Like Valpo, Vina has tons of hills and our afternoon of walking was quite the little work out. I love checking out real estate, so our walk took us through poshest of neighborhoods, complete with BMWs and Mercedes parked glitzy homes. Some of the nicest were castle-esque. In fact, Vina has several castles.

These faux castles have some pretty nice views.  The white castle below is built right on top of some rock outcroppings. Part of the floor is glass and you can see down through it to the crashing waves below. Neat!

After we’d made a several mile circuit through Vina’s neighborhoods, we decided to treat ourselves to some appetizers at the city’s ultra exclusive Sheraton. There is a permanent stage set-up in front of the hotel. We couldn’t figure out exactly what it’s for, but it appears to be where they film a daily talk show. The hotel had air conditioning, our first in the country! The finger food was $7 USD and the cokes were $3 a piece, but the view of the beach from the restaurant was priceless.

There must have been 5,000 people out on this little stretch of sand, and everyone had a massive umbrella. The waves were pretty unpredictable and every ten minutes or so an irritant one would surprise the crowd and wipe out a few sunbathers. We had such fun watching the silliness.

At the end of the day, we took the metro back to Valpo, slightly sunburnt, mostly exhausted, and only one injury between us.   

Santiago didn’t hold our attention long… I’m sure there are many beautiful things there, but both Jenn and I were ready to leave soon after we arrived.  We remembered watching an episode of Andrew Zimmern’s “Bizarre Foods” where he travels to a strange city on the west coast of Chile.  It’s called Valparaiso, or Valpo for short.  The city itself was nominated as an Unesco World Heritage site in 2003, so we expected it to be charming.  It is most well known as a seaside town with lots of color, and some very strange methods of transportation… funiculars.  A funicular is basically an elevator that runs up the side of a hill, at a dangerously steep angle.  We wandered around the city for a while, and eventually found one to our liking. What followed was a culinary and photographic joy. 

However, as we were making our way down the side of the hill and towards the port area, we noticed all the shops closing up… right around 6.  We kept on going, only to realize that we were the ONLY people walking in that direction.  Everyone else was closing up and heading towards us.  Several locals came up to us and pointed to our cameras and gave us the signal to “be careful”, “watch out".  We were pretty big tourist targets heading into a potentially unsafe area.  So, we turned around and headed back to our hostel, no need to press our luck for a few good pictures of boats.

I looked out our hostel window to see this site.  I found it particularly funny, as it was a bit opposite what the pigeons usually see!  Too bad I couldn’t crap on them for a change

In the hillside, pretty much every inch of wall is a canvas for graffiti.  Some of it was very impressive… others not so much.  In this picture you can see a bit of the artwork, as well as the steepness of the hills we walked up and down all evening.  Where are those $5 massages now… I miss Asia already!

Jenn has such an eye for detail.  I kept taking pictures of random stuff, and she would be stopped to take a picture of every door we passed.  It wasn’t until she pointed out that every doorknob was different and likely custom made that I realized how cool some of them really were.

More artwork, some of the “not so good” category… but, we wanted to try an HDR picture in the crappy lighting.  This isn’t the HDR version (it’s not done yet)… but I couldn’t resist to slap up an image of myself

Jenn’s favorite Chilean drink, the Pisco Sour.  I haven’t tried it yet, but she claims it is pretty tasty.  For now, I’m sticking to the Pisco Mistral, or Piscola.  (it’s like rum and coke, only better)

The weather here is supposedly like Seattle.  Nice in the summer, crappy in the winter.  But, they have awesome palm trees here.  How come we don’t have palm trees back home?

We have no idea what this contraption was used for, other than a movable canvas.  There wasn’t anyone selling anything out of it… It was just parked right in the middle of the sidewalk.  Propaganda of sorts most likely.

One of the famous funiculars.  The ride was was eerily fast.  Something this old and rackety shouldn’t move that quickly.  It was bumpy, and fragile… almost like riding the Beast at King’s Island… except less safe.  The cart on the top left that looks like a square sitting on a yellow rail… that’s what you climb into.  One side goes up, while the other goes down…

View from the top of one of the hills.  I found this dry dock pretty cool.  The “Sociber” (red and blue thing) appears to be a moveable, floatable dry dock.  You can see how it has another ship docked inside and raised up out of the water for repair.  Pretty clever… the engineer in me wonders how it works… does it float, or is it attached to the seafloor somehow?

Lucas taking a picture of Jenn taking a picture of tourists watching me take a picture of her taking a picture.  Repeat that five times, get confused, and then realize they are watching her almost get hit by a car.  Just kidding, the car was parked.

This old lady was out walking her dog, but she was just so pretty.  I actually think the dog was walking her, as she wasn’t moving too quickly.  I loved the outfit.  I just wish I had the dog in the picture, that would have made it perfect.

Some cool graffiti work…  We never saw anyone actually painting though… I wonder when they do it?  Clandestine operations at night? 

Welcome to Chile!  After months of waiting for camera gear to be fixed and shipped, we finally purchased our tickets to South America.  Our first stop: Chile!  We flew from Seattle to Santiago, via Dallas.  The flights weren’t too bad, other than the whole not sleeping thing.  Airport to airport flight time was just about 15 hours.  Although, Chile is 5 hours ahead of Seattle.  I wouldn’t think 5 hours would be that much… especially after some of the routes we’ve taken… but so far on day 2, our schedule is out of whack.

We checked into our hostel, took a nap, woke up, had dinner, and then tried to go back to bed, only to lay awake until 5am.  When we finally got to sleep, it was blissful… but waking up at almost noon (checkout time) wasn’t ideal. 

We then wandered around the downtown area looking for cough drops, wool socks, and a towel.  We found cough drops, but I couldn’t figure out how to translate wool socks… everything we found was cotton.  I’m sure we’ll find an outdoor store eventually.  Anyway, just a quick update with a few pictures of the trip so far! 

Our hostel concierge pointed us to a place called “Patio Bellavista” for dinner.  We wandered in the general direction, figuring we’d need to ask once we got closer.  But, somehow Jenn turned up a random side street she thought looked cute, and there we were.  It was pretty nice!  It reminded us of Belltown in Seattle.  Everyone dressed up a little nicer, but with lots of outdoor cafe seating. 

This was the restaurant across from where we ate… they had live music playing, so it drifted our way.

Our first taste of Chilean food… the Plata… which was an assortment of meats, cheeses, and olives. To wash it down, Jenn had a Pisco Sour, and I had a Piscola… which are like a whisky sour and a whiskey coke.  Our waiter spoke very little english… and I spoke very little Spanish, so it was pretty fun ordering.  But, he had a good sense of humor, and fortunately the menu had both languages on it!

Our main course was a shared Gnocci con quattro Formaggi… gnocci with cheese.  It was great, especially washed down with a Chilean wine.  A perfect first dinner in Chile!

Ciao!