reluctant traveller

Valparaiso is an interesting coastal town with many colourful buildings. There's a small port but I am not sure how much business it brings in, I think most of the business is from tourism but it's not enough. The town looks like it was abandoned and has been decaying for many years now.

We stayed at Hostel Caracol which was recommended by folks at Andes Hostel. The hostel is up on a hill, a bit difficult to get to but is this beautiful house/bungalow turned into a hostel with a sweet patio, kitchen and living room.

Pablo Neruda's house was only up the street but I forgot to visit it. We didn't visit anything specific but explored the interesting neighborhoods. Cerro has the colorful buildings, some interesting graffiti and local artists selling their goods.

Plenty of uphill walking but much easier when not at 3000m. The lifts/acensories are kinda cute but not really required. We also visited the port and the area around there.

Also made a half day trip to Vina del mar which is about 15m (by bus) north of Valparaiso. It is a much more modern town with the beach. Valparaiso itself doesn't have a beach - only a port.

The 24 hour bus ride (Tur Bus $80) from San Pedro to Santiago seemed to last forever. The bus took the Panamerican which is a single lane highway through the desert. The desert is so dry you dont see a single plant on the ground or a cloud in the sky. We passed through a few coastal cities which made me think Chile was one big California - packed between the mountains and the ocean with people for some reason reminding me of Californians. I dont know if it was something I ate or the journey itself but I was pretty sick (nausea) by the end of it and for a day after.

We reached Santiago on 13th morning around 9 AM (bus 1.5 hr late) and took a taxi (10000 pesos) to the Andes hostel. Thankfully the hostel was great (very clean and nice space in a great part of town) and I just slept for the rest of the day. Hostel a bit modern (=less cozy) for my liking but comfortable and nice people. Large group (=20) of Americans here for a 2 week orientation as part of their teach english in chile program. So kinda crowded with folks on their laptops : ) but all nice.

Santiago seems like a regular cosmo city... nothing specifically to see/do in the city but seems like a nice city in hang out in. Decent public transport, taxis not cheap and tons of pharmacies for some reason. Been taking it easy and not doing very much. Saw sweeney todd yesterday (finally!) with a couple of people from the hostel.. was fantastic but rather crazy ending. Sugar coated popcorn is very popular here.

Santiago highlights (for me)
- bella vista and anothe nearby neighborhood ... lot of neat graffiti
- fish market... ooh stank... but huge fish market with restaurants in it
- the metro... huge stations
- banco de chile building... most beautiful (and hugest) bank building i have ever been in
- the pizza and snack place near the hostel... awesomest chilli sauce
- watching sweeny todd in cine hoyts
- hostel drama : )

Ready to leave for Valparaiso tomorrow. About an hour from here and supposedly very beautiful. It´s about 15 min from the coast. Was a little bored today. Prolly my first bored day on this trip. Prolly should have gotten out more but was very hot in the afternoon and not feeling like much at night.

The Uyuni trip ended around 10 AM this (11th) morning. Everybody else was making the 8 hour journey straight back to Uyuni while Chinni and I took the transfer bus to San Pedro (2 hours away).

San Pedro is exploding with tourists (Chileans and non chileans), no taxis or public transport (its too tiny for anything) but looked like renting bikes was very popular here, everything is expensive with not enough nice places to stay and the food all italian or french or something stupid like that. Super hot during the day and didnt look like any place here had air conditioning or fans... so everybodys out sitting under a tree on the street or in their hostel patios. The whole place has this mud and hay village feel to it. I think the guide books describe it as Spanish-India. bah. Atacama means desert in Spanish and San Pedro is one of the driest deserts in the world (according to a Chilean kid i went sandboarding with). I think most tourists come here to check out the weird and beautiful desert landscape but we got plenty over the last couple of days. Plus I didnt like anything about San Pedro. So we got tickets to Santiago leaving the next morning (expensive at $80).

But we did take a sandboarding trip ($30 ish) this evening which was really fun. You can just rent a sandboard instead if you have done it before. I was being my lazy self and went only a few times (walking up the sand dune before boarding down was too much effort) and fell down all times. I had more fun just sitting on it and going down. But Chinni was at it like a pro within a few times. But just being up there on a dune with very crazy wind was fun enough for me.

Tomorrow we board the bus to Santiago which really Santiago a whole day later. I dont think I have ever been on a bus that long and am curious to see how it goes.

p.s. chilean currency is weid. they dont have a concept of 100 smaller parts (like cents) making the basic unit. so all the currency is in large denominations. So food is 3000 pesos and room is 32000 pesos etc. i´ll prolly be out of the country before i get a feel for it. 1 USD=460 chilean pesos