Ending the Chilean journey: Valparaiso & Viñe del Mar

Thursday morning, we woke up, packed our backpacks, took the Metro to the bus station and paid $5 to take the next bus to Valparaíso, which was in 15 minutes. On the bus, we called a hostel, booked a reservation for that night and hung up. It was that easy. So much for planning ahead being a necessity!

The nicest hostel I've ever stayed in! 

I knew that Valpo was somewhere you “had to visit” in Chile, and that it was on a coast, but asked a few people back in Santiago to describe what ‘the things to do there’ are. The most common answer: walk around the loopy hills, go into stores and stare at the view. And that’s exactly what we did.

The hills, colored buildings & Pacific Ocean in Valparaíso 

It was unfortunately a cloudy day in Valpo, but we didn’t let it ruin our experience. The general vibe of Valparaíso is its hipster, laid-back population, a unique attire, colored buildings and ton of artisan shops. It’s made up of nearly 20 “cerros,” or hills, and people identify themselves based on which hill they live on. Each hill has an “ascensor,” or elevator, that you can pay to take you up if you don’t want to walk up the discombobulated streets. It’s actually a funicular and not an elevator, but you just accept the fact that it’s a cart moving up an incline. We did some shopping, chatted with some nice people, had a lunch promoción and some coffee and it was a successful day.

The city of Valparaíso from Paseo Yugoslavo, a deck on one of the cerros/hills

The next morning, we planned to take a 20 minute bus to the other side of Valpo, where there are more beaches, called Viñe del Mar. On Viñe, we went to Reñaca, a beautifully located beach. The sun came out from its hiding around 12:30 pm and Elizabeth and I soaked it in and enjoyed the view and the weather. We bussed back to Valpo to get on our bus to Santiago after a relaxing two days.

Because my flight wasn’t until 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, we still had one more afternoon to see anything we missed in Santiago! We made it to the Bellas Artes museum, which was a lot cooler than I expected. My original perception was it would have similar work as the endless art museums in Argentina, but in reality, the exhibits change every season and everything was incredibly unique.

We had one last lunch promoción at a nearby restaurant, where we ate amazing salads with avocado and a yogurt dressing. GAM, Gabriela Mistral, is the premiere Santiago theater, so we checked it out and saw some exhibits inside its “Centro Cultural.” Elizabeth and I ended the afternoon at an heladería with some rich dulce de leche ice cream and headed back to her apartment to pack and watch the movie No! Although the week flew by, it was a wonderful spring break of travel, learning and reminiscing to my time abroad! 

Reñaca

Back in Santiago

After returning on a 7-hour bus through the mountains from Argentina, we packed in a ton of activities in Santiago. We headed to Lastarria, a nice neighborhood/barrio in Santiago, and ate a nice dinner at Sur Patagonica. I tried the signature “Pisco Sour” drink, the liquor of Chile, and Elizabeth and I shared potato gnocchi and empanaditas de mariscos, which are seafood empanadas. I rarely eat seafood, but this was the most phenomenal meal I’ve eaten in awhile. We continued to explore the area and stopped at a nearby bar called Berri to drink its signature drink, blue berri margaritas. Pretty full day for a Monday!

Tuesday, we pretty much hit every area of downtown Santiago in 12 hours. Chile has a rich history under the dictatorship of Pinochet after an attack on September 11, 1973, with political genocide and a crazy government until 1990. A few years ago, former president Michelle Bachelet ordered the opening of a Museo de La Memoria y Derechos Humanos, Museum of Memory & Human Rights, to commemorate this period and all those lost. The museum is very well-done and I learned a lot, ending with the excitement of the No! movement. A documentary was just done on this and aired at the True/False Film Fest, so maybe I can even catch it at the Rag Tag theater back at Mizzou.

From the museum, we paddle boated at Parque Quinta Normal, a beautiful park near the metro/subway. Lunch “promociones” are huge here, so we had to get our good food at lunch prices. The Bellas Artes area of town has some great lunch deals, so we stopped there and got a soup/salad, bread, soda, tortilla española (or other meal), mashed potatoes and dessert for $7! I’m still shocked.

Our next stop was La Moneda, the Chilean version of the White House. There’s a Centro Cultural inside to visit, and it was cool to see Elizabeth point out places in the Moneda where she has reported for The Santiago Times, her internship here. Our last metro/Subway ride of the day was toward Paseo Ahumada and Paseo Fuente, two long stretches downtown with good shopping. Since summer is ending here, we got some great deals on wedges and sundresses! Shoes were running for nearly $6; it’s great to be somewhere where the exchange rate is in your favor. Many trip advisor-type websites had recommended trying a drink called “El Terremoto” at “La Piojera,” a gringo establishment in the downtown Santiago area. For those of you non-Spanish speakers, that means trying out an “earthquake” alcoholic beverage at a restaurant called “lice.” Sounds appealing, right?

The restaurant reminds me of Dick’s Last Resort in the States--somewhere you just have to go for the experience, but where nothing is good about the food, people or environment. We practiced our Spanish and hung out with some Chileans at the bar, and enjoyed watching Santiago craze over Chile winning the Chile-Uruguay fútbol/soccer game!

Wednesday morning, I was pretty exhausted from the past two days but still needed to do something. While laying out at the apartment’s pool downstairs, I met a fellow American and UC-San Diego student. Part of the travel experience is bonding with strangers! We had both studied abroad, were the same age and were visiting friends in Santiago. We hung out at the pool, took a break for lunch, I checked out an artisan Feria Santa Lucia downtown for a bit and then we met up to climb Cerro San Cristobal, a huge hill in the middle of the city with a beautiful view. Pictures to come.

To end most of the Santiago experience, Elizabeth, Alicia and I reunited at Patio Bellavista - an adorable patio full of restaurants and bars contained in a mall-type atmosphere - and had another authentic meal. Pictures to come of all of this.

Takeaway of the day: Santiago has plenty of things to do, and you can squeeze a lot into each day in the city!

I’ll finish my trip by heading to Valparaiso, Viña del Mar and Reñaca on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, which is crazy because Chile is an hour ahead of the Eastern time zones like New York because of its geographical location! Thanks for reading about my experience and I promise, photos will make it more exciting. 

Mendoza: When do you outgrow hostels?

When traveling to Mendoza, our first instinct was to book a hostel because it’s what we know. The thought of paying more for a hotel didn’t even cross our minds, because college students are tough for money and you just book a hostel. You’re supposed to ignore the co-ed rooms, loud noise, pressure to socialize in multiple languages with everyone around you and dirty atmosphere.

Saturday after our winery tour, we stayed at Campo Base - a hostel in the same network of hostels on hostelworld.com that we used two years ago in Argentina. We had three girls in a six-man room, and many of the hostel residents spoke English. There were a lot of Australians and people from the UK visiting, and they were all heading out to bars. After a long night on a bus and long day at the wineries, all we wanted was a nap.

We arrived to our unmade bunk beds, and the hostel employees had to go grab sheets and blankets. No soap in the bathrooms, no towels and an overall moist feeling in the room. The other inhabitants were leaving the door open, the lights on and getting ready to go to the bars. Right as I fell asleep, the girl on the top bunk of my bunk bed tapped me to introduce herself. Why were we dealing with this?

Around 5 a.m., a stranger drunkenly stumbled into our room and thought Elizabeth was one of his friends. That was our point of no return. She complained downstairs, he wouldn’t own up to the situation and we could no longer tolerate the hostel. I looked up the prices for nearby hotels, which were $170/night -- not necessarily better than the $14/night we were paying at the hostel. Alicia, Elizabeth’s Canadian friend and co-intern, found a website called booking.com that books hotel rooms, similar to what Travelocity does for flights.

For just $15 more, she found a hotel a mile away that we booked for the next night. It might not have been in the “centro” / downtown area of town, but it was our own room. We’d have silence, our own beds, a locked room, a bathroom and a clean shower. It’s crazy to think that we would not have prioritized these in the first place. We arrived at the hotel and the staff was incredibly nice. Our room not only had clean beds and a bathroom, but we had our own kitchen! We enjoyed the rest of our Sunday with no crazy worries, and our stress levels diminished.  

The moral of the story: if you don’t want to be invaded by strangers, sleep in an unlocked room with loud music & lights on, and be bugged by international people all evening - you’re too old for a hostel. It’s time to take the financial risk and just book a hotel. 

Changes in Argentina

Saturday was the first evening I slept in a bed in three days. We arrived to Mendoza around 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, so I spent one night on a plane and the other on a bus. Entering Mendoza through the “Terminal de Omnibus,” or “Union Station,” felt like dejavu since I had done the same thing two years earlier, coming from Buenos Aires instead. It was absolutely amazing to be back in Argentina again, even if it wasn’t the same city where I studied, to get a taste of how things are going. Here’s what I noticed.  

Things that have changed in Argentina

The exchange rate

In 2011, $1 USD = 4 Argentine pesos. Now, $1 = 5 Argentine pesos. What does that mean? It’s exciting if you’re an American, but horrible if you’re an Argentine in their sinking economy. It was a big adjustment to look at prices with the new exchange rate, and interesting to observe how the economy can change so quickly.

Bus payment methods

One struggle living in South America is constantly finding coins, or “monedas,” to take the bus around town. Now, you can buy a bus PASS instead of beg for change. Unfortunately, we still got on the bus without enough change (or a bus card) and pulled the Gringo card to not pay the entire fee, but it’s nice for any individual to be able to use a pass instead of saving up change. Ironically enough, the bus fare was only 2.50 pesos, which is 50 cents in the US. So not a lot, but still at least three coins.

The Paso de Los Toros logo

Paso de los Toros is my favorite brand of my token Argentina beverage, ‘gaseosa de pomelo.’ That’s Spanish for grapefruit soda. Although Fresca and other citrus sodas exist in the US, there is something special about Paso de Los Toros. I’m addicted, so it wasn’t a surprise when I noticed the logo change because I bought this soda so much when I was there.

Things that are exactly the same

Medialunas and a good breakfast

Upon our arrival into Mendoza, Elizabeth, Alicia and I sat down starving at a restaurant and ordered a ‘promoción,’ consisting of two medialunas (croissants), a mug of coffee and a glass of orange juice & sparkling water. This standard Argentine breakfast was a great way to return!

The bus numbers and routes

It’s cool how consistent these are, because ewe took the same bus to Mendoza that my friends took two years ago. Lines 171-173 of bus route 10 aren’t going anywhere anytime soon!

Wineries and activities in Mendoza

After getting off of the bus, we stopped at the familiar Mr. Hugo’s bikes to rent bikes to take to the wineries. Mr. & Mrs. Hugo were there greeting every customer and showing everyone their way around the map. Although we went to entirely different wineries than the last trip, it was comforting to see a stable business and familiar faces from 2011. The policia even followed us on our ride home to protect us like they did last time.

Semicamas on buses

I wrote about this while I was in Argentina, but a “semicama” is exactly what it sounds like. “Kind of a bed.” When we got on the bus to Mendoza, our seats were semicamas, where a footrest moves down from the seat in front of you so you can lay down diagonally. I wasn’t able to sleep any better in it than I was two years ago, but it’s still the norm here.

Dulce de leche

We stopped at Havana (similar to Starbucks) for alfajores, Argentine cookies filled with dulce de leche, and a bakery to buy some dulce treats. Manjar nuez, a mock dulce in Santiago and some areas of Buenos Aires, just wasn’t the same. I made sure to leave with plenty of dulce to eat throughout the week!

Returning to South America

Friday morning, I arrived in Santiago, Chile to visit and travel with Elizabeth, my Mizzou classmate and roommate from Argentina. After 10 hours on a plane from Dallas, I arrived to the Santiago airport and made it through the 3-step customs. I forgot how much more intense international travel is, whether it be waiting in each of these lines or filling out forms with your passport number and information.

On the way off of the plane, I stopped a man who appeared to speak English to ask what baggage claim terminal our luggage would be at. Although he didn’t know the answer to the question, we bonded over being English-speakers traveling South America. His name was Jon, from Canada, and he quit a job at an ad agency where he was unhappy and came to visit his girlfriend for the month. We chatted, waited for each other through customs and decided to share a taxi to downtown Santiago to save money. We’ve been emailing trip tips to each other ever since - who said you couldn’t make friends at the airport!

The taxi pulled into Elizabeth’s apartment and I was in awe as I stepped out. Her building is right next to Universidad de San Sebastian, and right in the heart of Bellavista, a nicer area of Santiago. She left the key with the doorman and I found my way up, unpacked and headed out to explore. Patio Bellavista, a plaza of bars, restaurants and heladerias (ice cream shops) is right across the street, so naturally I started off by ordering some dulce de leche gelato and walking around. I ate some street choripan (like a hot dog with sausage) for lunch and sat over by the college.

My first instinct was to compare everything I saw in Chile to Argentina. They have Movistar, Claro and Despegar ads, so does Argentina! The apartment looks just like the buildings in Recoleta, Buenos Aires! This street reminds me of 9 de julio! It’s crazy how people revert back to what they’re familiar with. Elizabeth’s comparison so far is that Buenos Aires is like the United States, and Chile is like Canada. There, thriving and pretty cool -- but not as large. I’ve been considering it as Buenos Aires = New York, and Santiago as Chicago. We’ll see how things compare as the week goes on.

To finish off the afternoon while Elizabeth was at work, I decided not to be shy and walked about two miles to the main area of downtown Santiago, Plaza de Las Armas. There, I saw the Catedral, visited the Museo Historico Nacional in its cabildo, and climbed Cerro Santa Lucia, a large hill with parks overseeing the entire city. Pictures to come!

That evening, we met Elizabeth’s friend Alicia and hopped on a 10:30 pm bus to Mendoza, Argentina for the weekend so the girls could renew their tourist visas (which expire after 90 days). Plus, my Argentina visa is valid until 2021, so why not?! So far, it’s been an exciting few days in South America with more adventure on its way!