Chilean (mis)adventures
Ola de Valparaiso, Chile. I arrived this morning after a pleasant hour and a half bus trip from the bustling and smoggy metropolis of Santiago. There, Paul and Anna put me up in their very comfortable apartment in the calm and carefully planned district of Los Candes and gave me a better taste of the city in three days than any other visitor could hope to achieve in seven.
The theme of the long weekend was beer, wine and food, three things we began to enjoy the moment Paul got off work early Friday afternoon to celebrate his birthday with a few Chilean friends and the rest of us Canadians (Anna and I). This lasted well into the evening, only to finish up after having a 930pm dinner, as per the norm in Chile.
The next day was spent at the Concha Y Toro winery - where we tasted some serious vintages, learned about what makes that particular valley particularly suited to growing Cabernet Sauvignon, and were made to believe we had booked a meeting with the devil himself - as well as on the hills rising up from dowtown Santiago (not the Andes on the outskirts of the city, which were pretty much obscured by smog for most of the sunny day, but a hill of Mont Royal proportions with a massive statue of the Virgin Mary on top instead of Montreal's cross or popometer). We took the liberty to ride up in the finicular and traverse the undulating plateau of the mountain via space-age (at least in the 60s when it was probably built) overhead gondola. A fine day to be outside exploring downtown Santiago's highest peaks.
Sunday was much more relaxed, including an afternoon with friends of Paul's and an evening football (soccer) match between Universidad Catolica and Universidad Espana (or something like that). The former dominated throughout the whole game and won with a well-deserved penalty kick. I couldn't help comparing the stadium and its surroundings to an Whitecaps (86ers) match at Swangard in Burnaby; Chilean fans definitely have a leg up on their Canadian counterparts, which I hope to illustrate with some forthcoming pictures.
I took off to the coastal city of Valparaiso this morning, and my lodgings this time are markedly opposed to those of this weekend. Valparaiso is a city of quirky port city of laneways, colourful houses blanketing the hills and resting perilously on eroding soil in a known earthquake zone, and many, many funiculars.
After arriving on the bus this morning and huffing my way to the hostel district, I found a small room in a quaint little auberge called La Bicyclette, having been attracted by the prospect of finally being able to communicate with someone in a language we both understand. The French owner was very welcoming, giving me the impression that the day to come was to be equally as pleasant. Unfortunately - while I certainly saw plenty of the city, ate a German lunch in an old and potentially still functioning firehall, was convinced to be taken on an awkward and complementary individual tour of some local attractions by an eccentric German man, a former engineer and current resident of Valpo who likes to introduce tourists to the city in his free time - it was, generally speaking, a frustrating day in which I felt more like Mr. Bean than a seasoned, independent traveller.
Out-takes include but are not limited to leaving my bank card in a Banco de Chile machine in a local Esso station (it was quickly and kindly given back to me after I had finished using the outdoor washroom); falling *up* the stairs to my hostel; and wandering aimlessly on the hills of Valpo trying to find the now infamous Open Air Murals Museum, which can only be compared to Vancouver Island's Chemanus by refering to the latter as a Picasso and the former to, well, one of my drawings.
So here I am at the end of a tiring afternoon typing this post on an unfamilar Spanish keyboard with someone's baby repeatedly banging her head against the wall of my computer stall. Unless M. Bicyclette convinces me to stay another day to check out the city's museums (which were all closed today), I will likely be hopping on a bus tomorrow for an 8 hour trip over the Andes to Mendoza, Argentina.
Asta pronto...
The theme of the long weekend was beer, wine and food, three things we began to enjoy the moment Paul got off work early Friday afternoon to celebrate his birthday with a few Chilean friends and the rest of us Canadians (Anna and I). This lasted well into the evening, only to finish up after having a 930pm dinner, as per the norm in Chile.
The next day was spent at the Concha Y Toro winery - where we tasted some serious vintages, learned about what makes that particular valley particularly suited to growing Cabernet Sauvignon, and were made to believe we had booked a meeting with the devil himself - as well as on the hills rising up from dowtown Santiago (not the Andes on the outskirts of the city, which were pretty much obscured by smog for most of the sunny day, but a hill of Mont Royal proportions with a massive statue of the Virgin Mary on top instead of Montreal's cross or popometer). We took the liberty to ride up in the finicular and traverse the undulating plateau of the mountain via space-age (at least in the 60s when it was probably built) overhead gondola. A fine day to be outside exploring downtown Santiago's highest peaks.
Sunday was much more relaxed, including an afternoon with friends of Paul's and an evening football (soccer) match between Universidad Catolica and Universidad Espana (or something like that). The former dominated throughout the whole game and won with a well-deserved penalty kick. I couldn't help comparing the stadium and its surroundings to an Whitecaps (86ers) match at Swangard in Burnaby; Chilean fans definitely have a leg up on their Canadian counterparts, which I hope to illustrate with some forthcoming pictures.
I took off to the coastal city of Valparaiso this morning, and my lodgings this time are markedly opposed to those of this weekend. Valparaiso is a city of quirky port city of laneways, colourful houses blanketing the hills and resting perilously on eroding soil in a known earthquake zone, and many, many funiculars.
After arriving on the bus this morning and huffing my way to the hostel district, I found a small room in a quaint little auberge called La Bicyclette, having been attracted by the prospect of finally being able to communicate with someone in a language we both understand. The French owner was very welcoming, giving me the impression that the day to come was to be equally as pleasant. Unfortunately - while I certainly saw plenty of the city, ate a German lunch in an old and potentially still functioning firehall, was convinced to be taken on an awkward and complementary individual tour of some local attractions by an eccentric German man, a former engineer and current resident of Valpo who likes to introduce tourists to the city in his free time - it was, generally speaking, a frustrating day in which I felt more like Mr. Bean than a seasoned, independent traveller.
Out-takes include but are not limited to leaving my bank card in a Banco de Chile machine in a local Esso station (it was quickly and kindly given back to me after I had finished using the outdoor washroom); falling *up* the stairs to my hostel; and wandering aimlessly on the hills of Valpo trying to find the now infamous Open Air Murals Museum, which can only be compared to Vancouver Island's Chemanus by refering to the latter as a Picasso and the former to, well, one of my drawings.
So here I am at the end of a tiring afternoon typing this post on an unfamilar Spanish keyboard with someone's baby repeatedly banging her head against the wall of my computer stall. Unless M. Bicyclette convinces me to stay another day to check out the city's museums (which were all closed today), I will likely be hopping on a bus tomorrow for an 8 hour trip over the Andes to Mendoza, Argentina.
Asta pronto...
posted by Per at 4:37 p.m.
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