lou's 2 pesos

Lou: So we grabbed a few things & headed toward the beach. The first night seaside, we stayed at a hostel on the hilltop of Cerro Concepcion in Valpo (Valparaiso). This meant more rides up cable elevator cars to get up the small hill (it was well worth the $.20 to $1 for the ride—as opposed to walking up San Francisco type streets!) We heard that this was the cool place to be—a place with a “Bohemian feel”. But we weren’t really sure what there was to do there other than check out the views or hang out on the side of the street-- like we saw a few young people doing. There were a few artisan shops and art exhibit places open during the day, but we didn’t really figure out the scene.

The next day, we made our way to Viña del Mar by commuter train; its just up the bay. The town was interesting in that there were very nice places for the tourists—where restaurants, bars, green space and nice hotels abound. Then, there was also the area where we stayed that was still very tourist-y, but had older buildings. Getting a room was more in the lines of getting a room in an old (sometimes a bit run down) building or Victorian style house.

We ventured to the beach, and well, that’s what you do in Viña! There were a lot of people, but as with the rest of our experience in Chile, it felt very safe & family oriented. We managed to come away with only a little sunburn in the places that we missed the sunblock. The high’s were only in the 70’s, and with the ocean breeze, it didn’t really feel all that warm. The ocean was cold, not Lake Superior cold, but cold. Kids played in the waves near shore.

Random first impressions: the definition of pizza is open for interpretation; the fruit is wonderful; downtown Santiago (the capitol city) is not the metropolis of skyscrapers that I expected; the people speak so fast (I’m having trouble understanding even the simplest things—I find myself hanging on Dan’s shirt-tail because he’s the only person I can understand!); public transport is pretty easy, extensive and safe; it is not a total culture shock on the streets and in the day to day kinds of things, but it still feels very Latin American to me –central markets with stalls selling meat or fish or fruit, paying for one’s ration of toilet paper at the public bathrooms, people selling things on blankets or carts on the sidwalks, beggars, the lines of small shacks outside of town…