Valparaiso

An hour and a half from Santiago is a town called Valparaiso - a place that reminds me of a cross between San Francisco and La Boca in BA. The streets are all up on massive hills, and the buildings are all brightly colored and covered with beautiful artistic graffiti. We got there and made friends at the hostel and all went out to dinner at a place called Mastadome, the wooly mammoth, which looked like Rainforest Cafe with giant dinosaurs and animals hanging off the walls. It was a nice change from the veggies I'd been making for the last few nights in Santiago to try to save some money on food. It's not hard to want to eat out every night in Chile when I don't really like anything but the candy anywhere.

The first full day in Valparaiso we walked around all day, taking millions of pictures of the artwork and buildings and marveling in the adorableness of this town. On the other side, there are a lot of sheisters around trying to steal your bags and run away with your passport, so the people take away from the scene a little bit. Two things I learned in Valpo were that the farther you get from cities, the less likely it is that you find English speakers in restaurants and hostels, and 2 - don't trust Lonely Planet.

The most recommended restaurant not only didnt exist, but no one had ever heard of it so it must have been closed for quite some time. We came across a policemen parade with cops from all over Chile. My favorites were the ones from the southern region who had skis in one hand, guns in the other. At the parade we ran into Sophie, who I met at the volcano in Pucon. I still think it's funny how I can be all the way in Chili and run into people I know! It's happened 3 times so far, once at a hostel, once at an Internet cafe and once in the street. Back at the hostel the employees were cooking compleados, which are hot dogs covered in every condiment imaginable - ketchup, mustard, mayo, salsa, avocado - probably other things too but it was piled so high I really couldn't tell. We all split one and it was interesting, but I was happy to have a third and not a whole thing. Almost a month in to the trip started to take it's toll, and my tiredness and hunger have officially both caught up with me. I slept until nearly 9 both days in Valpo, which is so late for me!

Our second day here we took a hostel group trip to the beach at Vina del Mar, a 15 minute train ride away. It was only about 15 degrees (yes I speak in Celsius now since America is the ONLY country who uses Farenheight), so we couldn't lay on the beach but it was nice to walk along for a few hours. Everything is really beautiful here, and I can imagine it being a really nice beach in actual beach weather. I seem to like to go everywhere off season so I never get the full experience of it, but I think for the second half of my trip (Bolivia, Ecuador) by coming now I'm avoiding the rainy season in those places.
The 8 of us from Hostel Casa Valpo had a great 3 hour walk, and finished out brief stint in Chile at a restaurant called color cafe. We are now on the night bus to Mendoza, which crosses the Argentinean border at 1 AM and gets to Mendoza at 6Am, so there will be no sleep for me tonight. But then I will have 4 horseback riding, winery filled days in Mendoza so it will be worth it!