Santiago
The first twenty-four hours of the trip were about the same as any trip: lots of time spent miserably sitting uncomfortably or waiting in line. We connected through LAX and Panama City and then landed in Santiago on a cool Tuesday evening. After hitting up the currency exchange and securing our baller status with hundreds of thousands of colorful pesos (which I affectionately refered to as "Monopoly money"), we hopped in a cab for downtown. Becca was able to chat up the driver a bit with her Spanish, though we realized later that that poor driver now mistakenly thinks San Francisco has eight million people because (at the time) we weren't able to say "eight hundred thousand" in Spanish. Oops.
A short while later, we arrived at our hostel (H Rado Hostel) in Barrio Bellavista, a neighborhood reminiscent of the Mission in San Francisco with its nice restaurants, dive bars, and youngsters. The hostel was certainly on the swankier side with its large wall murals of American icons, a large, sunny common area on the top floor, and a huge roof deck. I'd say it very much epitomizes the idea of a "boutique hostel" and our stay there was very pleasant, especially considering we had a private room with a private bathroom.
After dropping off our stuff and cleaning up a bit, we wandered the neighborhood in search of noms. Much like San Francisco neighborhoods, downtown Santiago neighborhoods are very walkable and you get a great feel of the city and the people simply by walking around. We stumbled upon Patio Bellavista, which Lonely Planet describes as "upmarket eateries and posh souvenir shops ranged around a huge courtyard". That's a pretty accurate description and the area does feel a bit different than the rest of Bellavista, but we still found it to be a pleasant part of the neighborhood. If nothing else, it's a nice respite from the hordes of college students drinking shitty beer and eating hot dogs.
After taking a lap to survey all the options, we settled on a jack-of-all-cuisines restaurant (MosaiCafé) that had some balcony seating with a nice view of Cerro San Cristóbal. Luckily our waiter spoke English and was able to make some suggestions for food, as I was having some trouble finding a good veggie dish (a not uncommon problem in South America). My first meal in Chile was a hot stone bowl filled with veggies and molten cheese, which is as delicious as it sounds. As would become our custom over the course of the trip, Becca and I split a bottle of Chilean red wine at dinner. We thought it apropos to treat ourselves to a very nice Carménère, a grape that was originally French, then thought to have gone extinct, then rediscovered in Chile, and is now decidedly Chilean.
Once we finished dinner, we wandered the neighborhood for a bit, noticing the popularity of the small tables on the sidewalks in front of the bars. Even with the relatively cool weather, most people opted to sit outside (which we noticed in almost all the cities we visited). The bar scene in Bellavista mostly entails sitting at an outside table with a small group of friends and conversing over drinks. And by "drinks", I mean "cheap beer". The rule of thumb for drinking in Bellavista is to order cheap beer by the liter, be it Escudo or Cristal (yes, spelled exactly like the expensive champagne). For the sake of doing as the Romans do, we stopped into one of the bars and split a bottle of Cristal ourselves. Our entertainment for the evening was the video jukebox in the bar, which was monopolized by a couple locals who evidently love 80s metal music videos. After getting our fill of Chilean light lager and Guns N' Roses, we turned in for the evening.
The next morning, we grabbed breakfast at the hostel and then went for a stroll to get a feel for some of the surrounding neighborhoods. We walked through several of the parks next to the Mapocho River, worked our way south through Barrio Providencia, then walked west and ended up in the downtown shopping district around lunchtime. Clearly Chileans enjoy shoe shopping, because I've never seen so many shoe stores in one place before (even Becca thought the same). We stopped at a hole-in-the-wall Peruvian place for lunch, which delighted us with bread and (really good!) sauces, a heaping mound of veggie noodles, raspberry juice, and a TV that played only Spanish-language club bangers.
After lunch, we walked to the Plaza de Armas (the main square of any respectable Latin American city) to partake in one of Santiago's free walking tours, which are offered every day of the week (multiple times a day). They are completely free (other than your tip for the tour guide), are in English, last anywhere from three to four hours, and offer some thorough historical and cultural insights into the more popular parts of the city. Our tour guide was Filipe, who became an inside joke for the rest of the trip because of his unusual, yet delightful personality. He maintained a constantly serious countenance, yet was very pleasant; he was animated and almost theatrical, but in a very controlled and subtle way. (We found out later from his walking tour colleagues in Valparaiso that Filipe is an actor, which explained everything.) The tour was very entertaining and informative and really helped us familiarize ourselves with some of the neighborhoods and some local places we should visit. Filipe insisted on a brief stop in Barrio Lastarria, where we had enough time to sit outside and enjoy some pisco sours.
That night, we went to a more traditional Chilean restaurant in Bellavista (Galindo) that Filipe had recommended on the tour. The food was certainly good (I had the porotos granados, which is a bean and pumpkin stew), but the critically important discovery at this meal was drink-related. As we were ordering, our waitress brought us a separate wine menu and tried to offer an explanation in Spanish (and her limited English), but the language barrier was a bit too high for us to fully understand her. We picked a bottle (Chilean red, of course) and had a quiet, enjoyable meal. As we were settling the bill, she came back to the table with another bottle of wine in a plastic bag. As I looked confusingly over the bill and tried to explain to her that we didn't order another bottle, she was able to cobble together enough English to explain:
Game. Changer.
Cue the Kenny Loggins, because we're heading into the fucking danger zone.
It was around this point (my memory is fuzzy from consuming massive amounts of wine) that Becca and I made a pact to have at least one bottle of wine (between the two of us) every day for the entire trip. Special consideration was given to any restaurant that proudly displayed the reserve wine menu in their window. Sometimes we'd have the second bottle that same night, sometimes we'd take it on the road with us, and sometimes we'd donate it to a particularly nice employee at the hostel we were staying at. In any case, I feel pretty confident that we thoroughly tasted every red wine on that menu.
After dinner, we dropped the wine off at the hostel and went to a small bar (Cuatro & Diez) a couple blocks away. Semi-swanky, candlelit, with live music, it was a great spot to enjoy some cocktails. I tried a Piscola (pisco and cola), a somewhat common local drink, though I wasn't a huge fan (pisco sours are much better). After a couple drinks, we went back to the hostel and took the aforementioned second bottle of wine up to the massive roof patio (did I mention this was a boutique hostel?) to enjoy the skyline and the sounds of the city.
Fast forward six hours to a healthy hangover at 8:00 in the morning. We grabbed breakfast and then hiked up Cerro San Cristóbal, which was a really nice way to work off the lingering effects of the previous evening. From the top of the hill, you get a breath-taking view of... well, mostly smog. I'm told that after a rainfall, the smog is gone temporarily and the view is spectacular. Nevertheless, we still appreciated the beauty of the view of a sprawling city with the Andes in the background. We enjoyed some quiet meditation time before descending back to Bellavista.
For lunch, we went to the fish market so that Becca could try some seafood soup (another Filipe recommendation). After fighting our way through the gauntlet of outgoing (read: annoying) restaurant hosts, we settled on a small, unassuming spot that was mostly filled with locals eating lunch by themselves. After explaining to our waitress that I was vegetarian, she responded simply with "Ensalada." and reached for my menu. I resigned myself to eating bread, sauce, and rabbit food (Becca's term for my salad that looked like a plate of condiments) while Becca enjoyed her cauldron of seafood.
After fighting through the restaurant gauntlet on the way out, we walked over to Cerro Santa Lucía, a small hill in the middle of the city with facades, stairways, patios, fountains, and really great views. We walked around the grounds for a while, snapping photos and enjoying the weather, until it was nap o'clock. With lack of sleep, a food coma, and sunny weather all conspiring against us, we laid down on the grass (amongst the usual collection of Chilean teenage couples) and checked out for a while.
That evening, we hit up a nice Italian spot in Lastarria for dinner, then wandered around Bellavista for a bit before settling on a karaoke bar. Surprisingly, a good amount of the music was English-language and a few of the singers really killed it.
The next morning, we checked out and took the Metro (Santiago's light rail) to the bus depot. Another commuter (who spoke English) offered his help when he saw a couple gringos unfamiliar with how the Metro system worked. (It was one of many acts of kindness we encountered during our trip.) Once at the bus depot, we hopped on a coach to Valparaiso, a nearby coastal city that we had heard a lot about while in Santiago. This was probably the first point at which our itinerary diverged from our pre-trip plans and, unbeknownst to us at the time, would eventually lead to a completely different trip than we had initially imagined.
We arrived in Valparaiso in the early afternoon and took a shuttle to our hostel (Hostal-Cafe Nomades), located on Cerro Alegre, one of the forty-two hills in the city. The term "hostel" is a bit misleading here, as this place felt a lot more like a B&B. Like the city itself, the entire hostel was colorful, cultural, and artistic; the walls were covered with murals and paintings done by the property owner, who is also a local artist. Our private space on the top floor had two rooms, two beds, a private bathroom, and a private balcony.
Once we dropped off our things, we walked back down the hill to the main square, where we intended to take the free walking tour put on by the same company that coordinates the walking tour we took in Santiago. We stopped at a restaurant on the plaza to sit outside underneath the bright yellow umbrellas and have an afternoon cappuccino. What started as a simple coffee break turned into a full-blown meal once we saw the pizzas on the menu and realized how famished we were. Just as in Santiago, the walking tours are offered multiple times a day, so we decided to pass for the time being. Slowly but surely, we were acclimating to the Chilean lifestyle: having very leisurely meals and blocking off multiple hours in the late afternoon to just relax.
After lunch, we started our own walking tour, wandering through various parts of the city that we knew weren't going to be covered by the "official" walking tour. We walked through a few plazas and shopping districts until we found ourselves by a church at the base of one of the city's hills. So we started walking up. And up. And up. And up. Every time we thought we were getting close to the peak, we would round a corner and see that there was still more to go. There weren't many people out and about since the hills are mostly residential, but we did run into a few friendly locals. Taxis whizzed by us constantly, mostly to bring people home from work. There's no way buses could navigate those hills safely, so unless you want to spend an hour or so walking up a steep hill to get home, you're going to take a taxi. We saw scores of colorful and uniquely designed houses, rundown cars, stray dogs, beautiful views of the city below, and even a halfway-decent soccer pitch, though it was made entirely of dirt.
As the sun set and the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped, we started to make our way down the hill back towards town. The roads on Valparaiso's hills are a bit disorganized and confusing, so we had to follow the taxi routes to figure out how to navigate ourselves back down to sea level. We even picked up a four-legged buddy on our way, the first of many furry companions to join us on our travels. He looked quite dashing in his scarf as he guided us down the hill and through part of the town below.
We relaxed at the hostel for a bit before cleaning ourselves up and going out to dinner at a fantastic tapas place just up the road from us. As we sat on the couch by the fireplace, surrounded by paintings and art, we felt as if we were dining in someone's home. The restaurant looked like a converted house and the atmosphere was warm and cozy, like we were over at a friend's place for dinner. Once again, we indulged in the two-for-one reserve bottle deal and took the second bottle immediately back to our private balcony. Donning the matching wool hats we had purchased from a street vendor only a few hours prior, we tested the self-timer function on Becca's new camera with a faux-honeymoon photo shoot. Given the increasing level of intoxication, it took a few iterations of fumbling with camera settings and comically-blurred photos before we shot some winners.
With a couple bottles of wine in us and midnight approaching, we decided it was time to head out for a taste of the Valparaiso nightlife (it being Friday night). Lonely Planet directed us to a neighborhood club called Mascara, which was conveniently located at the bottom of the hill from our hostel. Half of the club's space was a bar where, not surprisingly, couples and small groups of friends sat at small tables sharing liters of cheap beer. However, the other half (where we spent the entire night) was a dancefloor with a large video screen and another small bar. The DJ played mostly English-language 80s songs, a few recent American pop songs, and then lots of 80s B-sides by the end of our time there. Every song was accompanied by the music video being played on the screen, even for the more obscure 80s tracks that we had never heard before. Even when the DJ played three Devo songs in a row, the videos were up on the screen, and somehow most of the locals seemed to know all the lyrics. Clearly Chile loves the 80s.
A few cultural observations are in order here. For starters, we noticed a few pockets of gay couples and groups of gay friends. Coming from San Francisco, this wasn't a big deal to us, but it was interesting to note which places were more accepting than others in a more conservative country. Also, at about 2:30, the video screen retracted into the ceiling so a drag queen could perform a one-song lip-synching show. While writing this blog entry, I glanced at the Wikivoyage article for Valparaiso, which mentions that Mascara "caters to an artsy and gay/lesbian crowd". Now I know why our tour guide (the next day) chuckled when we told him we had gone to Mascara the night before.
The other really fascinating observation was the difference in the partying culture. The bar by the dancefloor was so dead and unused that when we went to get drinks, we found the bartender reading a book by herself. Compare this to American partying culture, where you need to fight through a crowd and then wait at the bar for a while to get drinks. Once again, we observed Chileans having fun and socializing with their friends without needing alcohol. Not surprisingly, the party-goers we saw didn't get tired nearly as early; by the time we left the club around 4:00, it was still crowded and more people were still arriving. In fact, as we were leaving, we saw a few guys in their 50s roll up to the dancefloor with beers in hand.
Cue Hangover Day Number Two.
After sleeping in past the morning walking tour, we sauntered over to El Desayunador, a restaurant just up the street from our hostel that specializes in "permanent breakfast", which is exactly what we needed when we resurfaced at 1:00 in the afternoon. After a much-needed leisurely brunch of eggs, fruit, coffee, and breads, we barely made the start of the 3:00 walking tour. We met our tour guide Israel, he laughed at our Mascara outing, we all talked lovingly about Filipe, and then it was time to wander the streets of Valparaiso for a few hours.
Just like the Santiago walking tour, the Valparaiso walking tour was English-language, free (except for tipping the guide), and very interesting and informative. Israel was no Filipe, but he held his own quite well. We walked along the hills, side streets, and staircases of Valpo (as it's known to locals), taking note of the unique architecture, wall art, and graffiti everywhere. Santiago may be the capital of Chile, but Valpo is arguably the cultural capital. It was also peculiar to see vegan-related graffiti in quite a few places (literally the word "VEGAN" spray painted on walls); Israel told us that veganism and vegetarianism are popular among the city's many university students. The tour also took us on a couple of the city's funiculars, which transport people up and down the very steep portions of some of the hills.
After the tour, Becca and I walked back to The Brighton (a hotel and cafe) for some early evening coffee and dessert and a spectacular view from the hotel's patio. It was a very pleasant and peaceful way to relax before kicking off Saturday night activities. As we were sitting and chatting and taking photos, one of the hotel cats magically appeared and jumped into Becca's lap, kneading her for a bit before settling in for a nap. Peaceful times all around.
We went back to the hostel for some more downtime before getting ready to hit the town. Our evening downtime periods were a nice way to relax in between daytime and nighttime activities. Becca would often research hostels or restaurants on her iPad while I would touch up photos on my phone and post them to Facebook (mainly to let family and friends know that we were still alive). Occasionally a power nap would be called for as well.
After hitting up an Italian spot on our street (and more two-for-one wine), we made our way to the club district of Valpo, which has nightlife venues for pretty much every taste. A lot of the popular spots were swarming and overflowing with university students, so we walked right past those two blocks of shitshowery. After taking a lap around the neighborhood, we settled on El Huevo, a five-story behemoth that is more reminiscent of a military complex than a nightclub. Each floor has a different physical layout and different entertainment; on our way to the rooftop, we saw/heard a rock show, reggaeton, and pop/dance. We spent a while on the roof with our half-liters of Cristal enjoying the view and the people-watching. On our way back down, we stumbled upon a live show by Yoan Amor & Team Impacto, a Latin pop singer (who is possibly part of a larger boy band). It was the usual screaming girl audience you'd expect and Yoan basically made out with one of the girls in the front row during the show. I'm happy to write that off as a pretty standard PDA for Chile, even it involves a pop star.
We left El Huevo and walked around some more, fully expecting to turn it in for the evening, when I heard house music and saw flashing lights coming from a third-story window in an otherwise nondescript, government-looking building. From the street, it almost seemed like a house party, but was a bit too organized and professional, so we guessed it was a club of some kind. We circled the block and found an entrance on the other side of the building with a staircase leading up to who-knows-what, so we decided to check it out. As we reached the top, we realized we had found the club (Bar Tertulia). After paying the cover, we walked into a space that didn't natively feel like a bar or club, but nevertheless had been turned into one. Just as the outside of the building felt anomalous, the inside felt like an old government building or mansion, but outfitted with lights, a bar, a DJ setup, and a dancefloor.
Once again, I was struck by the cultural differences between Chile and America with respect to drinking and partying. The bar was empty, barely anyone was drinking, yet the dancefloor was crowded with lots of people having a legitimately good (and seemingly sober) time. (During all of our nightlife outings in Valpo, we saw only one person who was visibly intoxicated.) And I really couldn't blame them as this was some of the best house music I've ever heard in a live set. XV (the DJs playing that night) were having a lot of fun themselves and carrying on a bit as they played, which led to a great atmosphere all around.
Around 4:30 or so we decided that heading back was the responsible course of action, especially considering we had a very early bus to catch. After about three hours of sleep, it was time to get our stuff together and make our way to the bus depot for a six-hour ride to La Serena. We left Valparaiso very tired, but very happy and legitimately surprised at how much we fell in love with the city in only 48 hours. Lots of people have asked me what my favorite part of the trip was, which is an impossible question to answer, so I often say that the most unexpected and surprising time was our weekend in Valparaiso.
Stay tuned for our adventures from week two in Chile!
Full photo album: Chile
A short while later, we arrived at our hostel (H Rado Hostel) in Barrio Bellavista, a neighborhood reminiscent of the Mission in San Francisco with its nice restaurants, dive bars, and youngsters. The hostel was certainly on the swankier side with its large wall murals of American icons, a large, sunny common area on the top floor, and a huge roof deck. I'd say it very much epitomizes the idea of a "boutique hostel" and our stay there was very pleasant, especially considering we had a private room with a private bathroom.
After dropping off our stuff and cleaning up a bit, we wandered the neighborhood in search of noms. Much like San Francisco neighborhoods, downtown Santiago neighborhoods are very walkable and you get a great feel of the city and the people simply by walking around. We stumbled upon Patio Bellavista, which Lonely Planet describes as "upmarket eateries and posh souvenir shops ranged around a huge courtyard". That's a pretty accurate description and the area does feel a bit different than the rest of Bellavista, but we still found it to be a pleasant part of the neighborhood. If nothing else, it's a nice respite from the hordes of college students drinking shitty beer and eating hot dogs.
After taking a lap to survey all the options, we settled on a jack-of-all-cuisines restaurant (MosaiCafé) that had some balcony seating with a nice view of Cerro San Cristóbal. Luckily our waiter spoke English and was able to make some suggestions for food, as I was having some trouble finding a good veggie dish (a not uncommon problem in South America). My first meal in Chile was a hot stone bowl filled with veggies and molten cheese, which is as delicious as it sounds. As would become our custom over the course of the trip, Becca and I split a bottle of Chilean red wine at dinner. We thought it apropos to treat ourselves to a very nice Carménère, a grape that was originally French, then thought to have gone extinct, then rediscovered in Chile, and is now decidedly Chilean.
Once we finished dinner, we wandered the neighborhood for a bit, noticing the popularity of the small tables on the sidewalks in front of the bars. Even with the relatively cool weather, most people opted to sit outside (which we noticed in almost all the cities we visited). The bar scene in Bellavista mostly entails sitting at an outside table with a small group of friends and conversing over drinks. And by "drinks", I mean "cheap beer". The rule of thumb for drinking in Bellavista is to order cheap beer by the liter, be it Escudo or Cristal (yes, spelled exactly like the expensive champagne). For the sake of doing as the Romans do, we stopped into one of the bars and split a bottle of Cristal ourselves. Our entertainment for the evening was the video jukebox in the bar, which was monopolized by a couple locals who evidently love 80s metal music videos. After getting our fill of Chilean light lager and Guns N' Roses, we turned in for the evening.
The next morning, we grabbed breakfast at the hostel and then went for a stroll to get a feel for some of the surrounding neighborhoods. We walked through several of the parks next to the Mapocho River, worked our way south through Barrio Providencia, then walked west and ended up in the downtown shopping district around lunchtime. Clearly Chileans enjoy shoe shopping, because I've never seen so many shoe stores in one place before (even Becca thought the same). We stopped at a hole-in-the-wall Peruvian place for lunch, which delighted us with bread and (really good!) sauces, a heaping mound of veggie noodles, raspberry juice, and a TV that played only Spanish-language club bangers.
After lunch, we walked to the Plaza de Armas (the main square of any respectable Latin American city) to partake in one of Santiago's free walking tours, which are offered every day of the week (multiple times a day). They are completely free (other than your tip for the tour guide), are in English, last anywhere from three to four hours, and offer some thorough historical and cultural insights into the more popular parts of the city. Our tour guide was Filipe, who became an inside joke for the rest of the trip because of his unusual, yet delightful personality. He maintained a constantly serious countenance, yet was very pleasant; he was animated and almost theatrical, but in a very controlled and subtle way. (We found out later from his walking tour colleagues in Valparaiso that Filipe is an actor, which explained everything.) The tour was very entertaining and informative and really helped us familiarize ourselves with some of the neighborhoods and some local places we should visit. Filipe insisted on a brief stop in Barrio Lastarria, where we had enough time to sit outside and enjoy some pisco sours.
That night, we went to a more traditional Chilean restaurant in Bellavista (Galindo) that Filipe had recommended on the tour. The food was certainly good (I had the porotos granados, which is a bean and pumpkin stew), but the critically important discovery at this meal was drink-related. As we were ordering, our waitress brought us a separate wine menu and tried to offer an explanation in Spanish (and her limited English), but the language barrier was a bit too high for us to fully understand her. We picked a bottle (Chilean red, of course) and had a quiet, enjoyable meal. As we were settling the bill, she came back to the table with another bottle of wine in a plastic bag. As I looked confusingly over the bill and tried to explain to her that we didn't order another bottle, she was able to cobble together enough English to explain:
"Two bottles. One for the restaurant, one for the home."It turns out that every year for the last twelve years, Chile has organized a rather large-scale promotion whereby participating restaurants and bars (in certain parts of the country) offer a two-for-one deal on reserve bottles of Chilean wine. The first bottle you have with your meal and the second bottle is to be taken home (and cannot be opened in the restaurant). All told, you get two bottles of delicious Chilean wine at a restaurant for about $20.
Game. Changer.
Cue the Kenny Loggins, because we're heading into the fucking danger zone.
It was around this point (my memory is fuzzy from consuming massive amounts of wine) that Becca and I made a pact to have at least one bottle of wine (between the two of us) every day for the entire trip. Special consideration was given to any restaurant that proudly displayed the reserve wine menu in their window. Sometimes we'd have the second bottle that same night, sometimes we'd take it on the road with us, and sometimes we'd donate it to a particularly nice employee at the hostel we were staying at. In any case, I feel pretty confident that we thoroughly tasted every red wine on that menu.
After dinner, we dropped the wine off at the hostel and went to a small bar (Cuatro & Diez) a couple blocks away. Semi-swanky, candlelit, with live music, it was a great spot to enjoy some cocktails. I tried a Piscola (pisco and cola), a somewhat common local drink, though I wasn't a huge fan (pisco sours are much better). After a couple drinks, we went back to the hostel and took the aforementioned second bottle of wine up to the massive roof patio (did I mention this was a boutique hostel?) to enjoy the skyline and the sounds of the city.
Fast forward six hours to a healthy hangover at 8:00 in the morning. We grabbed breakfast and then hiked up Cerro San Cristóbal, which was a really nice way to work off the lingering effects of the previous evening. From the top of the hill, you get a breath-taking view of... well, mostly smog. I'm told that after a rainfall, the smog is gone temporarily and the view is spectacular. Nevertheless, we still appreciated the beauty of the view of a sprawling city with the Andes in the background. We enjoyed some quiet meditation time before descending back to Bellavista.
For lunch, we went to the fish market so that Becca could try some seafood soup (another Filipe recommendation). After fighting our way through the gauntlet of outgoing (read: annoying) restaurant hosts, we settled on a small, unassuming spot that was mostly filled with locals eating lunch by themselves. After explaining to our waitress that I was vegetarian, she responded simply with "Ensalada." and reached for my menu. I resigned myself to eating bread, sauce, and rabbit food (Becca's term for my salad that looked like a plate of condiments) while Becca enjoyed her cauldron of seafood.
After fighting through the restaurant gauntlet on the way out, we walked over to Cerro Santa Lucía, a small hill in the middle of the city with facades, stairways, patios, fountains, and really great views. We walked around the grounds for a while, snapping photos and enjoying the weather, until it was nap o'clock. With lack of sleep, a food coma, and sunny weather all conspiring against us, we laid down on the grass (amongst the usual collection of Chilean teenage couples) and checked out for a while.
That evening, we hit up a nice Italian spot in Lastarria for dinner, then wandered around Bellavista for a bit before settling on a karaoke bar. Surprisingly, a good amount of the music was English-language and a few of the singers really killed it.
The next morning, we checked out and took the Metro (Santiago's light rail) to the bus depot. Another commuter (who spoke English) offered his help when he saw a couple gringos unfamiliar with how the Metro system worked. (It was one of many acts of kindness we encountered during our trip.) Once at the bus depot, we hopped on a coach to Valparaiso, a nearby coastal city that we had heard a lot about while in Santiago. This was probably the first point at which our itinerary diverged from our pre-trip plans and, unbeknownst to us at the time, would eventually lead to a completely different trip than we had initially imagined.
Valparaiso
We arrived in Valparaiso in the early afternoon and took a shuttle to our hostel (Hostal-Cafe Nomades), located on Cerro Alegre, one of the forty-two hills in the city. The term "hostel" is a bit misleading here, as this place felt a lot more like a B&B. Like the city itself, the entire hostel was colorful, cultural, and artistic; the walls were covered with murals and paintings done by the property owner, who is also a local artist. Our private space on the top floor had two rooms, two beds, a private bathroom, and a private balcony.
Once we dropped off our things, we walked back down the hill to the main square, where we intended to take the free walking tour put on by the same company that coordinates the walking tour we took in Santiago. We stopped at a restaurant on the plaza to sit outside underneath the bright yellow umbrellas and have an afternoon cappuccino. What started as a simple coffee break turned into a full-blown meal once we saw the pizzas on the menu and realized how famished we were. Just as in Santiago, the walking tours are offered multiple times a day, so we decided to pass for the time being. Slowly but surely, we were acclimating to the Chilean lifestyle: having very leisurely meals and blocking off multiple hours in the late afternoon to just relax.
After lunch, we started our own walking tour, wandering through various parts of the city that we knew weren't going to be covered by the "official" walking tour. We walked through a few plazas and shopping districts until we found ourselves by a church at the base of one of the city's hills. So we started walking up. And up. And up. And up. Every time we thought we were getting close to the peak, we would round a corner and see that there was still more to go. There weren't many people out and about since the hills are mostly residential, but we did run into a few friendly locals. Taxis whizzed by us constantly, mostly to bring people home from work. There's no way buses could navigate those hills safely, so unless you want to spend an hour or so walking up a steep hill to get home, you're going to take a taxi. We saw scores of colorful and uniquely designed houses, rundown cars, stray dogs, beautiful views of the city below, and even a halfway-decent soccer pitch, though it was made entirely of dirt.
As the sun set and the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped, we started to make our way down the hill back towards town. The roads on Valparaiso's hills are a bit disorganized and confusing, so we had to follow the taxi routes to figure out how to navigate ourselves back down to sea level. We even picked up a four-legged buddy on our way, the first of many furry companions to join us on our travels. He looked quite dashing in his scarf as he guided us down the hill and through part of the town below.
We relaxed at the hostel for a bit before cleaning ourselves up and going out to dinner at a fantastic tapas place just up the road from us. As we sat on the couch by the fireplace, surrounded by paintings and art, we felt as if we were dining in someone's home. The restaurant looked like a converted house and the atmosphere was warm and cozy, like we were over at a friend's place for dinner. Once again, we indulged in the two-for-one reserve bottle deal and took the second bottle immediately back to our private balcony. Donning the matching wool hats we had purchased from a street vendor only a few hours prior, we tested the self-timer function on Becca's new camera with a faux-honeymoon photo shoot. Given the increasing level of intoxication, it took a few iterations of fumbling with camera settings and comically-blurred photos before we shot some winners.
With a couple bottles of wine in us and midnight approaching, we decided it was time to head out for a taste of the Valparaiso nightlife (it being Friday night). Lonely Planet directed us to a neighborhood club called Mascara, which was conveniently located at the bottom of the hill from our hostel. Half of the club's space was a bar where, not surprisingly, couples and small groups of friends sat at small tables sharing liters of cheap beer. However, the other half (where we spent the entire night) was a dancefloor with a large video screen and another small bar. The DJ played mostly English-language 80s songs, a few recent American pop songs, and then lots of 80s B-sides by the end of our time there. Every song was accompanied by the music video being played on the screen, even for the more obscure 80s tracks that we had never heard before. Even when the DJ played three Devo songs in a row, the videos were up on the screen, and somehow most of the locals seemed to know all the lyrics. Clearly Chile loves the 80s.
A few cultural observations are in order here. For starters, we noticed a few pockets of gay couples and groups of gay friends. Coming from San Francisco, this wasn't a big deal to us, but it was interesting to note which places were more accepting than others in a more conservative country. Also, at about 2:30, the video screen retracted into the ceiling so a drag queen could perform a one-song lip-synching show. While writing this blog entry, I glanced at the Wikivoyage article for Valparaiso, which mentions that Mascara "caters to an artsy and gay/lesbian crowd". Now I know why our tour guide (the next day) chuckled when we told him we had gone to Mascara the night before.
The other really fascinating observation was the difference in the partying culture. The bar by the dancefloor was so dead and unused that when we went to get drinks, we found the bartender reading a book by herself. Compare this to American partying culture, where you need to fight through a crowd and then wait at the bar for a while to get drinks. Once again, we observed Chileans having fun and socializing with their friends without needing alcohol. Not surprisingly, the party-goers we saw didn't get tired nearly as early; by the time we left the club around 4:00, it was still crowded and more people were still arriving. In fact, as we were leaving, we saw a few guys in their 50s roll up to the dancefloor with beers in hand.
Cue Hangover Day Number Two.
After sleeping in past the morning walking tour, we sauntered over to El Desayunador, a restaurant just up the street from our hostel that specializes in "permanent breakfast", which is exactly what we needed when we resurfaced at 1:00 in the afternoon. After a much-needed leisurely brunch of eggs, fruit, coffee, and breads, we barely made the start of the 3:00 walking tour. We met our tour guide Israel, he laughed at our Mascara outing, we all talked lovingly about Filipe, and then it was time to wander the streets of Valparaiso for a few hours.
Just like the Santiago walking tour, the Valparaiso walking tour was English-language, free (except for tipping the guide), and very interesting and informative. Israel was no Filipe, but he held his own quite well. We walked along the hills, side streets, and staircases of Valpo (as it's known to locals), taking note of the unique architecture, wall art, and graffiti everywhere. Santiago may be the capital of Chile, but Valpo is arguably the cultural capital. It was also peculiar to see vegan-related graffiti in quite a few places (literally the word "VEGAN" spray painted on walls); Israel told us that veganism and vegetarianism are popular among the city's many university students. The tour also took us on a couple of the city's funiculars, which transport people up and down the very steep portions of some of the hills.
After the tour, Becca and I walked back to The Brighton (a hotel and cafe) for some early evening coffee and dessert and a spectacular view from the hotel's patio. It was a very pleasant and peaceful way to relax before kicking off Saturday night activities. As we were sitting and chatting and taking photos, one of the hotel cats magically appeared and jumped into Becca's lap, kneading her for a bit before settling in for a nap. Peaceful times all around.
We went back to the hostel for some more downtime before getting ready to hit the town. Our evening downtime periods were a nice way to relax in between daytime and nighttime activities. Becca would often research hostels or restaurants on her iPad while I would touch up photos on my phone and post them to Facebook (mainly to let family and friends know that we were still alive). Occasionally a power nap would be called for as well.
After hitting up an Italian spot on our street (and more two-for-one wine), we made our way to the club district of Valpo, which has nightlife venues for pretty much every taste. A lot of the popular spots were swarming and overflowing with university students, so we walked right past those two blocks of shitshowery. After taking a lap around the neighborhood, we settled on El Huevo, a five-story behemoth that is more reminiscent of a military complex than a nightclub. Each floor has a different physical layout and different entertainment; on our way to the rooftop, we saw/heard a rock show, reggaeton, and pop/dance. We spent a while on the roof with our half-liters of Cristal enjoying the view and the people-watching. On our way back down, we stumbled upon a live show by Yoan Amor & Team Impacto, a Latin pop singer (who is possibly part of a larger boy band). It was the usual screaming girl audience you'd expect and Yoan basically made out with one of the girls in the front row during the show. I'm happy to write that off as a pretty standard PDA for Chile, even it involves a pop star.
We left El Huevo and walked around some more, fully expecting to turn it in for the evening, when I heard house music and saw flashing lights coming from a third-story window in an otherwise nondescript, government-looking building. From the street, it almost seemed like a house party, but was a bit too organized and professional, so we guessed it was a club of some kind. We circled the block and found an entrance on the other side of the building with a staircase leading up to who-knows-what, so we decided to check it out. As we reached the top, we realized we had found the club (Bar Tertulia). After paying the cover, we walked into a space that didn't natively feel like a bar or club, but nevertheless had been turned into one. Just as the outside of the building felt anomalous, the inside felt like an old government building or mansion, but outfitted with lights, a bar, a DJ setup, and a dancefloor.
Once again, I was struck by the cultural differences between Chile and America with respect to drinking and partying. The bar was empty, barely anyone was drinking, yet the dancefloor was crowded with lots of people having a legitimately good (and seemingly sober) time. (During all of our nightlife outings in Valpo, we saw only one person who was visibly intoxicated.) And I really couldn't blame them as this was some of the best house music I've ever heard in a live set. XV (the DJs playing that night) were having a lot of fun themselves and carrying on a bit as they played, which led to a great atmosphere all around.
Around 4:30 or so we decided that heading back was the responsible course of action, especially considering we had a very early bus to catch. After about three hours of sleep, it was time to get our stuff together and make our way to the bus depot for a six-hour ride to La Serena. We left Valparaiso very tired, but very happy and legitimately surprised at how much we fell in love with the city in only 48 hours. Lots of people have asked me what my favorite part of the trip was, which is an impossible question to answer, so I often say that the most unexpected and surprising time was our weekend in Valparaiso.
Stay tuned for our adventures from week two in Chile!
Full photo album: Chile
