Chile Pt. 3

Limache

The fun continued with a trip to Limache to visit my cousin Claudio. He has a nice restaurant. I won't go into the details, but the food was tasty and the place was nice. Here's a picture of the place and the fam:



Limache is about 40 minutes inland from Vina, and we rode the nifty metro. The metro isn't very old, and if you want to use it, you have to buy a 2 dollar card and then put money on it. To get to Limache costs about 2 dollars. I didn't see much of the town, but this street was nifty because of the trees that have been groomed to form an arch over the whole street:


Also in at Claudio's restaurant, I took a picture of the Chilean National Tree- the Araucano. It is pretty nifty:

Valparaiso
After the Limache trip, there were several birthdays where I saw my cousins and their little kids. They are all pretty cute, and I have posted many of these pictures on my facebook, as I am sure most of the readers have noticed. In the midst of these festivities, Cabanillas came down and we went and checked out Valparaiso one morning. I have written about Valpariso a bit before, but a here are a few more pictures that I took for your viewing pleasure (and one of the spiffy new metro):







Salamanca/Los Vilos

After these festivities, I went to a place I'd never been before to visit my cousin Daniel. He works in a place about 5 hours north and inland of Vina, and it's not a very exciting place. I liked it, but I wouldn't want to spend more than a few days there. It was a very small town, out in the middle of nowhere, lots of cacti on the road in though. Daniel was a hospitable bloke, as usual, and when I left, he accompanied me all the way down to the coast to a place called, Los Vilos. There we had some great empanadas, which I will describe in a later blog, and saw the beach. You can see what I saw:






The last one is of us on the boat, and the second to last is the Plaza of Salamanca. I'd put more pictures up of Salamanca... but there really isn't much more to see. Los Vilos was a pleasant way to spend a few hours, and I'm sure it would be a blast in the height of summer.

La Serena/ Coquimbo

After Los Vilos, it was on to La Serena/ Coquimbo to visit the rest of Daniel's family. His son Danielito, was the one who walked around with me the most while I was there. The high points of the stay was first, the Japanese Garden. Secondly, the Fuerte de Coquimbo (fort). There was also a trip to the dock, where I saw the welfare sea lions up close and personal. One of them was quite a brute who barked at me and made threatening waddles, but luckily, I was out of reach. They are ugly suckers I'll give you that. Another cool thing that I saw was the Mosque of Coquimbo, which is an active site for the few Muslims around. It is elaborately constructed and the inside tiling was supposedly done by Moroccan artisans. I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the inside, so too bad, you'll have to make the trip yourself. Everything I saw was free except for the Japanese Garden, and it cost 2 dollars. After a few days here, it was the long haul back to Peru, and man it seemed to take FOREVER!!! I had time to reflect on how long I've been traveling. I figure that since January, I've spend over 170 hours on bus/car/train. I'm a fan of the travel, but I think it'll be nice to rest for a while. Here are some slide shows to demonstrate how fun the tail end of my trip proved to be.

My Time in Chile pt. 2

Trip to Vina Del Mar.
This was a long bus ride through the desert. I don’t really know how to explain 30 hours on a bus with nothing to see but sand and occasionally the ocean, but I can tell you it’s not as exciting as it sounds…
On the other hand, I would really like to spend a week or two in Iquique and Antofagasta. They are on the coast and they look like they have some interesting things to see. If nothing else, the largest Duty Free zone in South America is in Iquique, and you can stock up on booze and cologne for cheap. I suppose that this would be a huge draw for any Frenchies that happen into the Atacama. In any event, I made it to Santiago clinging to my sanity by a fingernail and bent nearly double underneath my absurdly heavy backpack. (I had my huge laptop in it; if you ever have a chance to buy a 17 inch laptop that weighs 7 pounds, think carefully about future travels.)
In Santiago, I was received by my good friend and former mission companion, Luis Cabanillas. He graciously agreed to meet me at the Santiago terminal at 5 am and keep me company until the first bus to VIna left at 8 am. Good guy, and he had plenty of interesting gossip to share.
I then got on the 2 hour last stretch to Vina. My Aunt lives on Calle Valparaiso in Vina Del Mar, which is the same street that the terminal is located on, about 8 blocks towards the ocean. Upon arrival, I was tired and so got in a taxi which ripped me off, but I didn’t mind much because I was ready to get there already. In a later post I am going to put up a lengthy description of all the foods I have tried in the last few months, with pictures, so I won’t get into lunch and all of that now.
My Tia Elba was the person who I saw most while I was in Chile, and with her I was able to see most of my cousins and uncles. With my Tia Elba, I went to Valparaiso the day after I arrived. There we had lunch and walked around doing some errands. It would seem like Chileans love their demonstrations, and while we were eating, a lot of students came running by being chased by riot police. I snapped a picture, but missed a truly photogenic moment when a cop in riot armor came past the window where I was seated dragging a guy in a headlock. I was too busy enjoying asado molido (*There will be an all food blog post soon, so never fear) to have my camera at the ready. Curse You Cuisine!, alas, I was able to snap this picture of the hubub after the fact:


After a few days of meandering around Vina, I had the interesting experience of leaving one afternoon and walking aimlessly until, without intending, I arrived at my dead Aunt Eliana's house. It was strange to fall into flashback mode as I rounded the corner. This was the house that I stayed in when I came to Chile for the first time. I felt like I could see a ghost of myself at 8 years old running around the corner in the sandals that my mother bought for my brother Jonathan and I. I remembered in the moment that I recognized the key cutting place on the corner so many bizarre little details. For instance, I recalled that the sandals that my mom bought left white triangle tan lines on my ankles due to the fasteners. Weird. In any event, this is what the place looks like:


Santiago

The first weekend in Chile, I went to Santiago to visit my friend from the mission Luis Cabanillas and also my Tio Chalo. Cabanillas (who I met in Tacna, and who hails from Trujillo) picked me up from the bus terminal and we immediately went to the center of Santiago to see the "tourist" stuff. I found it interesting, but in all honesty, I am coming to realize that I am not a big city guy. It was expensive getting around and took forever because the city is so large. More on that in a second. The things to see in the center are the Palacio de la Moneda, Plaza de Armas, and the Calle Ahumada:




I liked seeing the sights, but I was burdened by my 7 pound laptop and 2 days worth of clothes in my backpack. It was a beast to heave around. I also started to resent my beloved DSL's weight after several blocks. But oh well, that's the price of good pictures I suppose. Anywho, I had a swell time with Cabanillas and his family, and it happened to be his birthday. Oddly enough, I ate almost exclusively Peruvian food my entire 2 day stint in Santiago. The Saturday that we went to the center, we also went out to a dance club. Let me just say, this place was kind of ghetto. The ratio of guys to gals was way off (more dudes), and it was HOT!. Not good hot, no ventilation and I felt like I was breathing everyone else's sweat hot. It was still an ok time, but about 3am, I called it and we started the long trip back to Cabanillas's home. Along the way, I saw a drunken fight on the bus that ended with a guy getting stabbed several times by what looked like a box cutter. The stabber and his friend did quite a number on the other drunken fool before they jumped off the bus. Later, while awaiting the second bus that we had to take to get to where Cabanillas lived, he was propositioned by a hooker. I couldn't stop laughing, and his discomfort reached a apex (poor word choice?) when she made a grad at his family jewels. After his power block, she got miffed and left. I cannot express how funny this experience was, but it still makes me chuckle. For those readers who are perhaps thinking that Santiago is a crime ridden sty, I would like to point out that any big city at 4 am would probably not have it's best face on, and also that Cabanillas doesn't exactly live in the poshest part of town. In any event, we managed to drag ourselves out of bed after only a few short hours sleep in order to make church. I was impressed by the number of members, and surprised that in Cabanillas's ward, it would seem that 3 out of every four members are Peruvian. I believe that this is the part of Santiago where a lot of Peruvians live, so maybe in other areas, the ratio is less. Later that afternoon I went to visit my Tio Chalo and my Tia Consuelo (and for clarification, Tia Consuelo is actually my great aunt, so she is also Tio Chalo's aunt). We had a delightful chat and I was able to see his wife and youngest daughter.


And that was the second part of my Chile Trip, soon to come (hopefully in the next two days) will be the next part.

My Time in Chile pt. 1

I'm sure that you've all been very bummed out by the lack of recent posts, but I think you will forgive me when you understand that I have been traveling and taking lots of pictures for your viewing pleasure.
I am currently in Vina Del Mar with my Aunt Elba, and it was quite a trip to come down. I first went to Ilo, where it was HOT and I saw some people that I knew when I was a missionary there. That was good times. The most interesting part of that journey was the discovery of the new road to Ilo from Arequipa. Before, one had to go due South from Arequipa to Moquegua, and then to the coast, which took about 5 hours. Now, there is a road which goes strait to the coast (East) from Arequipa, hitting the ocean a little bit south of Mollendo at a place called Coca Chacra, and then it goes South hugging the coast. This trip takes only 3 and 1/2 hours, and instead of in a large bus, it is in a 10 passenger van. If you ever have to make this trip, buy the seat RIGHT BEHIND THE DRIVER. The ones in the middle are hard and uncomfortable, and there are leg room issues in other areas. The cost for this is 30 Soles and it's an interesting little trip.

Ilo was good times, I saw some of the Church members that I hadn't seen in a while, like these people:
The Sarmiento Family
And Hilda, Sheyley, and Bianca


I always enjoy seeing them, I get warm fuzzies.
After Ilo, I went down to Tacna. I forget what I have written about Tacna, but it now was a movie theatre, woot woot! The only thing to do in Tacna is buy stuff. There are clothes, electronics, and other such things. I then crossed over to Arica. This is not a very pleasurable experience, not because it's difficult, but because it becomes tedious with repetition. You have to get out of the car to leave Peru, get in, drive a few hundred yards, get out again, get in again. Basically just a hassle. But clearing that, I was able to recover the ticket that my aunt had bought on TUR Bus. It costs about 80 bucks to get from Arica to Santiago on the 1st floor, which is like first class. I recommend this because it is a 30 hour bus ride. There isn't much to comment about this particular ride, lots of desert, lots of time sitting. The one super plus to this trip is that there was a functioning electrical outlet by my seat and I had the foresight to purchase the necessary adapters and whatnot to enable me to use my laptop most of the trip.