The Chilean Coast

Santiago, Chile was a beautiful, big city with a small town vibe. One minute you could be standing on the corner of a busy street and the next minute you are lost in a park full of fountains, flowers, and greens. I wish we had more time in Santiago but we flocked to the coast in hope of some summer livin´at the beach.

We took a 1.5 hour bus to Valparaiso, Chile which turned out to be a shipping town. The entire town was based off of the Navy and cargo shipping. There was no beach to lay on, just a dirty bay with cargo ships coming and going. So we scratched the beach idea and went frolicking up and down the steep hills in search of Valparaiso´s infamous artwork. Almost every wall was convered with some type of graffiti or painting but it is not your everyday graffiti gang symbols. It was beautiful art of people, animals, and the lifestyle of Chileans. While walking the streets looking for wall art, you find that every other house is some sort of bright, pastel or flourescent color. Bizarre to see bright pink houses with yellow shutters but it actually worked for Valparaiso.

Valparaiso was the first city in Chile to take on the idea of an elevator. Good thing they did because some people live on top of very steep hills. The cool thing about these elevators is that they are outside, on railroad tracks that scale a hill. They are very small ¨cars¨which are pulled up by cables spinning on a rotator at the top. Of course the whole time you are in it, you are hoping that the cable below you is not going to just split and drop you because most of these Acensors (as they are called) dated back to the 1890´s. So after we went up and down a few times on Acensors all over the city, we made a pit stop for some Completos and a beer at the local bar. At the time, the completo was delicious BUT, I was lucky enough to ask for no mayo because the after affects of the completo on Kevin were not pretty. About 3 hours later, Kevin was in bed, unable to move an inch unless he had to run to the bathroom...Food Poisoning! So I cooked some dinner (which unfortunately he could not eat) and I just took a night to relax. Valparaiso, unfortunately, is not a city for a young, female, foreigner to galavant around alone.

The next day, when Kevin felt better, we went to check out one of Chilean´s most famous .....Pablo Neruda. Not only was he a fantastic poet, but also a European ambassador, a presidential candidate, and a Nobel Literature Prize winner. He had multiple houses in Chile but we toured his home, La Sebastiana, in Valpo. It was a 5 floor colorful house with maps, pieces of art, and luxuries. It seemed as though he was a very interesting man who loved company, boats, and collecting priceless objects. I was amazed by his life history, including how he was sent into exile even after he ran for president! It seemed as though Pablo Neruda´s poetry was just a small part of his life and unexpectedly, it is what made him famous.

After the tour, we headed to Vina Del Mar which is a beach town about 15 minutes up the road from Valpo. We took the train that runs along the water and we enjoyed a pleasant day around Vina...until it started to rain! We just could not catch a break on the coast where we thought we would romp around in the sand in our bathing suits.

En route to Hotel Del Mar to play our luck in their beautiful casino, we found a stray dog that started following us. On our trip, we have found that stray dogs love to follow white gringos... we are not sure why. Well this dog wasn´t any different...it followed us for a while and it was precious so we named it Treehouse and called it our own. Too bad the doormen at the casino did not think the same way. We had to abandon Treehouse to play in the casino... I know it sounds a little selfish but that is just how it goes around these parts. But I am glad we did because I won$60 on the slots...poor Kevin lost about $25. After a good hour at the casino, I walked away with my winnings and we headed back to find Treehouse to clear our guilty conscience...to no avail, he could not be found. So we took some shelter in a coffee shop and watched the France vs. Ireland soccer match for the World Cup. France won...but one of the players hit the ball with his hand trying to keep it in bounds, passed it across the goal box and his teammate scored. Of course because there is no replay call in soccer, the goal stood but televised replays clearly showed the handball... sad day for the Irish.

Vina Del Mar was a beautiful town on the beach with lots of shops, casinos, restaurants, and apartments for the retired. It was very different from its neighboring town of Valparaiso which I found a little disheartening. Valpo was quaint and cute in its own way but it was dirty, grimy, and surprisingly dangerous. I had expected to be a fun beach town where I could just relax...but it didn´t even hold up to my expectations of being a wealthy, clean town. It was the exact opposite.
After 3 rainy days on the coast of Chile, the day we left, the sun came out.. no surprise there. But alas, We headed over to Argentina... our last border crossing.

What was meant to be an 8 hour easy bus ride turned into a 13 hour ride. As we were about to enter the Andes in which you have to scale up a mountain and then down on the other side into Argentina, there was an accident. A tanker truck with a huge gas tank flipped over on the side of the mountain and the gas tank was just sitting in the road. We were held up for about 2 hours on this one lane road around the mountains. When we finally passed the tanker (which looked like it was about to roll off the mountain and blow up) we scaled up and into the ice caps. It was absolutely beautiful but a little scary as well. We reached the border at the same time as everyone else in the traffic did so we spent another 2 hours waiting for them to check our bags and passports.

Nevertheless, we got to Mendoza, Argentina at 2 am... and got some rest before our day of wining and biking!