Sunday, December 15th, 2013
After a relaxing morning in the hostel with breakfast and a
lunch of leftovers from last night’s steak, I boarded a bus to go from Mendoza
to Santiago. This bus will take the same route that I had been on Friday
morning for the trip to Aconcagua, so the views were sure to be spectacular on
this route. Additionally, it’s a very curvy and windy route, earning the
nickname “Road of 365 Curves”. So I did a bit of research to get in a front row
seat on the second level of the bus (all of the long-distance buses are double
deckers) for precisely this reason.
Unfortunately for me, this bus company had chosen to put a
grid-like material on the windshield of the second deck to minimize the impact
of the sun, which decreased visibility to the point that you could barely see
anything. They had curtains as well, so I don’t know why the grid-crap was
necessary. While I did get some wonderful views and pictures from the side
window, I was still a wee bit peeved.
The bus ride was supposed to be about 6 hrs, but ended up
taking close to 9 hrs due to not-so-surprising delays at the border. Chilean
immigration scans all luggage and 3 of the bags (not mine) were deemed
suspicious and it took a small amount of time to get that sorted out.
After arriving at the bus station in Santiago close to 9pm,
I hopped on the subway. For my time in Santiago, I’m staying with my old friend
Michelle and her husband Ed, who had been living in the city the past few years
on an expat assignment. I met Michelle during an organized tour to Spain &
Portugal well over a decade ago and we kept in light touch over the years,
mostly via the powers of Facebook.
The subway here was very clean, fast, and efficient. It
reminded me a lot of the Metro in DC (rip BC), except that it was busy like
NYC’s system during most of the day and there were lots of trains. It was also
so clean that riders felt perfectly comfortable sitting on the ground. I can’t
imagine doing the same on most of the subway cars in NYC…
When I finally arrived to Michelle & Ed’s deluxe-apartment-in-the-sky
an hour later, they had a burger and some salad & veggies waiting for me.
Thank goodness – I was starving and it was excellent. It was nice to have my
own bedroom and bathroom as well. After 11 weeks of shared rooms, I was looking
forward to spreading out for a few days and decompressing. This stop in
Santiago was fortuitously falling smack dab in the middle of my adventure.
Monday, December 16th, 2013
I slept in a bit this morning. In addition to having my own
bedroom, I also was sleeping in a queen-sized bed, which was nice to stretch
out in. You know, since I’m so tall and all.
Michelle had recently left her job, and so she was happy to
serve as tour guide for me today to give me the lay of the land as well. She’s
quite the student and asked & researched lots when she was doing her own
acclimatization to the city, so she was generally able to answer most any
question I had and then some. It’s nice to hang out with engineers – I think
our minds are wired the same.
We started in one corner of the downtown area and Michelle
showed me some parks, hills, and neighborhoods that I should walk around later
in the week. We also grabbed some sushi at one of the only places she knows of
in the city that doesn’t lace every roll with cream cheese. I hate cream cheese
in my sushi, so I’m glad she saved me from figuring this out on my own.
Santiago is a very walkable city, but many tourists find it
difficult to spend more than 4-5 days here and I could understand why. It felt
more like a great place to live and an okay place to visit – this seemed to
match Michelle & Ed’s assessment as well. Additionally, a really strong
earthquake from a few years back had shuttered many of the museums while they
find the money for repairs. The city is expanding rapidly and lots of funds are
being spent on infrastructure development. Heck, the metro itself is currently
quite bigger than my 2-yr old guidebook would suggest.
One of the things I wish I snapped a picture of was the
“café de piernas” or “café of legs”. These are heavily scattered about, much
like Starbucks in Seattle, and is a spot where you get your coffee served by
women with long legs wearing tight short shorts. It’s perfectly normal for
people (both men and women) to stop by these in the middle of the day for a
coffee break. Apparently there are some such cafés that have an added random
“happy hour”, and when the bell rings the servers go topless for a song or two
or something like that.
After walking around for 4-5 hours, we hopped on the subway
at about 6pm to beat rush hour back to Michelle’s place and had a home-cooked
meal. It seems that rush hour is about 7pm because most people start work at 9
or 10 in the morning. As I mentioned a few posts back, it seems like life in
Chile and Argentina is just shifted a few hours – in fact, clocks here are 2
hours ahead of us so they are actually doing everything generally at the same
time most of us do in eastern standard time.
Tuesday, December 17th, 2013
I slept in again today. It was a really nice feeling to do
that two days in a row actually. When Michelle and I were coming back to the
apartment yesterday evening, we stopped by a grocery store so that I could pick
up some oatmeal and lactose-free milk – I had been craving those a bit.
Breakfast has generally been my most dreaded meal because there’s only so much
eggs and buttered bread you can take. For me, it doesn’t take long before the
idea of eating eggs gives me the heebies.
The key thing I did today was head to the Museum of Misery
& Suffering (more correctly known as Museum of Memory and Human Rights).
This is an important civil rights museum that tells the story of the military
junta that took the country over from the leftist president Salvador Allende in
1973 and started a brutal dictatorship under the general Augusto Pinochet for
the next 17 years. In the immediate aftermath, the government went about
denying civil rights in an effort to rid the country of opposing thought –
dissidents were captured, tortured, and buried at sea; a daily curfew was
imposed; certain books were banned and burned… and oh yeah, our own US
government was supportive of the coup because of Cold War fears on the spread
of communism, not to mention the direct benefit to some very large US
corporations who were exploiting the mineral resources in the country. Even
after Pinochet left office, many of the economic reforms that he instituted
remain alive today and it’s no secret that Chile has modeled a lot after what
we have in the US. As a result, the country even today remains very divided on
their opinion on what took place during the Pinochet years.
I spent about 4 hours in the Museum, and it was obviously
some very heavy material… to the point that I got a bit choked up at a memorial
set up where framed pictures of all of the missing people are hung on a massive
wall in the middle of the museum. I think we often associate democracy and
capitalism for freedom of speech and civil rights… and in many cases, that’s
absolutely true. In this case, the capitalist government was the oppressive one,
and I suppose you could say the same was true in the US during the McCarthy Red
Scare years where we jailed anyone associated with communism.
To clear my mind and process the information I had heard
(thank you, audio tour), I just wandered around a bit for the next two hours
around the city.
That evening, I joined Michelle & Ed at dinner in a nice
area of town at a tapas bar with some of their expat friends – this couple is
also originally from Australia (like Michelle & Ed) but is leaving to go
back home in the next few months. It was nice to have a “normal-ish” dinner
with friends, even though I barely knew most of the people at the table. Even
on this trip, I often struggle to find people to go have a nice lunch or dinner
with since many people in the hostel are on a fixed budget.
Wednesday, December 18th, 2013
I slept in again. Loved it. Then I got some laundry in the
washer since it was free (to me, at least – thanks again M/E).
After another oatmeal breakfast that hit the spot, I headed
back into the city to check out some of the spots that Michelle had pointed out
to me on Monday. On the northern end of the downtown area is a mountain called Cerro
San Cristobal which has fantastic views of the city; at the base of this cerro
is an area called Bellavista where a lot
of hostels are located and has a pretty nice bar & restaurant scene. I
figured I’d spend the majority of the day there.
To get up the cerro, there were two options: walking up a
set of switchbacks or taking the funicular. It’s a wee bit on the hot side in
Santiago, so I opted for the funicular route. This also allowed me to say the
word funicular more times than were really necessary.
There’s a zoo halfway up the cerro, but I decided against
going in on Michelle’s advice. The zoo is very old and the animals don’t have
very much space and I think I would have left feeling very angry. I still don’t
understand how people can believe it’s ok to treat animals as though they were
put on this earth for our pleasure. Anyone who has a cat or dog (and actually
treats them with dignity) would realize pretty quickly that they have their own
personalities and characters… something merely put on our planet for our
pleasure would not have that.
The views at the top were really nice. Even though there was
a heavier layer of smog today than in previous days, I could still get a sense
of the sheer size of the city. On clearer days, you can see the Andes serving
as a nice backdrop to the city. The top of the mountain had a number of
religious statues and buildings: from the large Mary statue overlooking the
city to a small church to a nativity scene with an amphitheater.
I headed back down the mountain (via funicular) and parked
myself at a funky artsy illy café (quite popular in Europe) for a few hours to
take care of some things. The only other real thing I did today was walk back
into the center city to explore the other cerro in town, Cerro Santa Lucia.
This is a much smaller hill surrounded by the center city but is still quite
interesting and beautiful despite it’s apparent disrepair – it looks like no
one has cared for it in a decade, though admittedly that kind of added to its
charm.
There were lots of footpaths up and around this cerro, which
had all sorts of buildings and fountains and boardwalks and other such
structures built into it. Some of these footpaths were wide and comfy and
others were steep and winding – I imagine that as a little kid, I would have
loved driving my parents insane by running around and hiding from them. Who am
I kidding, I’d love to do that now too!
Thursday, December 19th, 2013
Today marks the exact halfway point in my trip. The first 10
weeks have gone both fast and slow in a sense. I find myself both very excited
for what’s coming next and very nostalgic for my home back in Cincinnati (and
my dogs too). One of the people I met in Mendoza was from the US and on a
similar length of trip – she decided after several months to cut her vacation
short and head back home. As she put it, “I found out that the desire for
work/life balance goes in both directions.” I think that’s true – for me, I
think traveler fatigue starts to set in somewhere around this two month point.
Hopefully I am able to find something to shake it up a little on the second
half of the trip.
I packed up my belongings this morning and bid a farewell to
Michelle and Ed. Seriously, I can’t thank them enough for their hospitality. Of
course, if they ever showed up in Cincinnati, I’d be more than happy to return
the favor.
After a few hours on the subway and a bus, I arrived to
Valparaiso, a smaller city located on the western coast of the country close to
Santiago. The city has a distinct vibe, very different from other areas of the
country. It’s a bit of a haven for artists, and the indications are everywhere
from unique shops and galleries to the stunning graffiti plastering many walls,
doors, alleys, and steps. While the city is located on the coast, it also about
45 hills or cerros that buildings and homes are scattered up, down, and across.
I had picked out a hostel that I wanted to stay at, but
unfortunately it was full. They sent me to a neighboring hostel that was also
on my list, but unfortunately they were full as well. The third hostel (not on
my list) had a ton of space, so I checked in. It looks like I need to start
making reservations from here on out. January & February are high season
for Argentina and Chile, so it follows that I won’t have the same ease of
walking up to anything at the last moment.
I went to a nearby eatery and had a spectacular lunch – while
the food was pricier than in Santiago, it was a ton better. Spending $15 in
pesos for something that I would have to spend twice as much for in Cincinnati
is still a deal, though I definitely won’t be traveling as cheap as I had
before. I suppose it’s really no different than Mendoza. Except here, even the
restaurants have touches of artistry on the walls.
The afternoon was spent wandering the streets a bit – the
graffiti was everywhere as were some spectacular views. Cerro Concepcion, the
hill I was staying on, has a few boardwalks built facing the sea that were nice
for a quick stroll. It didn’t take me very long at all to understand why so
many people had told me that Valparaiso was worth visiting, even if only for a
day. Valparaiso seems like Greenwich Village might have been in the 60s or 70s back
before it was overrun with high prices and yuppies.
The weather was a bit spotty – very cloudy and a bit on the
cool side, which was unexpected for this area, even by the locals. This suited
me just fine since it made it easy to walk around without getting hot and
sweaty. After more walking, I had dinner at a nice Italian pizza place with a
nightcap at a tiny café. This café had a great vibe, even though it was empty
at the moment – the guy there told me that there’s live music during the
weekends.
Friday, December 20th, 2013
Today, I explored a bit farther out from Cerro Concepcion.
The famous Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, had built a house Valparaiso that was
about a 45 minute walk from my hostel. Along the way, I was treated to lots
more graffiti and excellent views of the city. Neruda had asked some friends in
Valparaiso to find him a unique place with views of the entire city, and this
is what he got – it was pretty spectacular.
I haven’t really read any of Neruda’s work, nor do I know
much about him at all, but the 2 hr audio tour of the house made it clear that
he was a very interesting fellow. He had an extremely odd and quirky set of
belongings, and his house had a garden that even had a teeter-totter. There’s a
quote he has that goes something like, “A child who does not play is not a
child. A man who does not play has lost his inner child.” I kinda liked that.
After the Neruda house tour, I walked down the mountain and
had dinner at an extremely overpriced restaurant. A bottle of water was the
equivalent of $6, though I must admit it was actually pretty tasty. I was going
to bypass it but somehow I’m a sucker for a waiter standing outside asking me
if I want to come in to eat. If I’m actually thinking about eating food,
somehow I’m unable to lie or tell them that I’m not interested unless I
actually know why I’m not interested.
This afternoon, I joined about 40 other people on a free
Tours for Tips tour. Since we had so many people, we split into two groups and
Elias was our Wally. The tour guides dress in a red/white striped shirt like
Waldo of Where’s Waldo fame… except in Latin America, they call it “Donde eres
Wally?” instead. So his name tag (and the others too) said Wally.
Elias was an overly energetic tour guide who liked to yell
every single word
individually as if
that point of
emphasis helped his
message get through
instead of annoying the
hell out of
most everyone. But we learned
a lot, including why much of Valparaiso is now a UNESCO heritage site, why
there are so many firefighting companies in town, and how the pecking order of
graffiti artists works.
After leaving the
Wallys, I meandered back to the hostel and then ended up at a fancy-like
place for dinner, and it was really quite good. I followed it up with a nice
dessert and coffee at a nearby pastry shop. Today was not the cheapest day I’ve
had on this tour. I don’t think my waistline can afford too many of these days
either.
After swinging by a grocery store for an inordinately cheap
but extremely tasty bottle of Carmenere wine ($4 for 1.5L), I enjoyed a few
glasses with some others in my hostel. There were two French girls
living/working at the hostel for the past month – they invited me to join them
to a new bar a few blocks away that had a live Brazilian band playing that
evening. “Say Yes more than No” was another good choice tonight – the music was
excellent, people were dancing, and it wasn’t too crowded.
Saturday, December 21st, 2013
I took it slow today, deciding after a few hours to stay
another day and linger. I got in pretty late last night, and you could say that
I felt the impact. I’m not young and spry anymore.
I heard from another tourist that there was a fish market
along the coastline north of the city that was worth walking to. Though I’m not
a huge fan of fish, I didn’t have a better plan and I thought the exercise and
prospect of ridiculously fresh fish might not be too bad an idea.
The day was a bit overcast, so it was perfect for me.
Through the next 2 hours, I saw 3-4 large Naval ships (the Chilean Navy is
based here), a cruise liner, lots of sea lions, waves crashing constantly on
rocks, and lots of joggers and bikers. They even had exercise equipment on the
boardwalk in several locations.
As I arrived to the fish market area, the coastline had
transformed from a rocky outcrop to a steady beautiful beach, and there was a
sand volleyball tournament going on to boot. I picked a restaurant at random
and ordered a salmon ceviche… but unfortunately, it tasted a bit on the fishy
side. I think I’ve explained my “I don’t like fish when it tastes fishy”
feelings before, so I’ll leave that be for now.
The rest of the day was pretty low key for me.
Sunday, December 22nd, 2013
My bus was leaving late tonight to Southern Chile, so I had
all day to kill. After checking out of the hostel and dropping my bag off at
the bus station, I grabbed a local bus to Vina del Mar, which is a few kilometers
north of Valparaiso. It seems that the local population and the super-wealthy
prefer Vina del Mar and when I got there, I understood why. The city is much
newer and more modern, with a larger beach and green spaces and multiple posh
hotels with prime beach real estate. Valparaiso is too old for the luxury
hotels to grab a prime spot, so they went north.
I’m glad I didn’t have much more than a few hours to spend
here, but even this was incredibly too much time. I must have circled the main
part of town three times looking for somewhere decent to eat, before I spotted
a fresh Mexican grill. As I walked in, I realized it was a chain. As I ordered,
I realized it was an American chain called Lime, one of which had opened up a
few blocks from my house a few months ago.
The only other thing going on of note was some sort of
military or police graduation or celebration. I wasn’t much in a mood to watch
since they can be a wee bit on the boring side, especially when you can’t
follow what they are saying. With still lots of hours to kill, I realized that
I could just walk back to Valparaiso and that would solve all of my time
issues. Along the way, the clouds started to disappear and the sun came out.
It’s amazing how much more beautiful a coastline or a city can look with the
sun shining. It's also amazing what the "dramatic" filter does to photos of rocks and waves - can you tell the difference?
Tidbits
1.
Cafes in Argentina and Chile give you a small
glass of agua con gas (carbonated water) with your coffee. At first I found
this strange, but it is strangely refreshing in fact.
2.
If I ever move to Santiago, I would need to find
a place to live that is off of the Tobalaba stop. I like that name. It reminds
me of the greatest fictional name of all time, Bob Loblaw.
3.
Even in South America, it seems that black
people are better dancers than white people.
4.
Breast feeding in public is completely fine
here, and no one stares or anything. Given the high volume of catcalling that
goes on in this hemisphere of the Americas, it’s curious how a people can be so
disrespectful and respectful in these two (albeit, very different) situations.
Or perhaps it’s just our perception of what is respectful and disrespectful
that is different – it’s easy to forget that it’s more important how women here
feel versus us trying to be offended on their behalf.
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