Traci's Chile Journal

We Departed Appleton on Tuesday, mid-morning. We were planning on staying on Eric’s brother’s house in St. Paul, Minnesota since that is where our flight was departing from the next morning. Side note, our flight was supposed to leave the next evening but was changed to 6am in the morning with a 12 hour layover so things really were changed on us and now Eric had to teach the last online class of his session at his brother’s house, all went well with the class and everything at his bro’s house though. Ironically, his brother was in Chili the while we were there so the house was quiet for our stay, Eric’s class and early bedtime. Eric did find out that evening that he forgot his glasses so he was stuck with contacts (and he later got contact solution from a hotel) all vacation. He did find a contact case with an extra pair of contacts when we got to Chile so hopefully between the two pairs we’ll make it through

Going through security at 3:30 or 4 in the morning was great, in and out, although you would swear that Eric and I had never gone through security before ‘oh yeah, shoes and oh yeah..’  nothing for food was open at that time so we had to wait and we got the most mediocre (that’s being nice) pastries. Erics was soo greasy and my scone was not even cooked inside….don’t  mess with my scones. While we waited for our flight, I turned on my ghost communicating app. It seems there are many spirits in the airport. This Flight, which took us to Miami, went off without a hitch. Now was time to wait.

While we were in the Miami Airport at roughly 10 on the morning we knew we had until around 10 that night to wait..amazing. We walked, edited podcasts, got food, walked some more, edited more podcasts and ..then..our flight got delayed. At around 6 after all that time we waited, wasted time and them eric got and e-mail that it was delayed until 10 the next morning which is 12 hours after the original flight. Good side, we got to sleep in a real bed instead of on the airplane and the airline paid for that and gave us dinner vouchers so we ate before we left. There was also a flash flood in Miami so we got to drive through that on the way to our hotel and see everything soaked.

Today we made sure to make it to the airport at a good time as we knew it would be busy with security. We made it through security just fine, even though there was a dog working and I just wanted to pet it and love it.  We got on the plane and everything seemed fine then we sat there for quite a while. There was an issue with the food, apparently they were having troubles sealing it, then it took about 15 min to get it to the aircraft, we also had something break when they were pushing us back from the gate and that had to be checked out but apparently every time they asked for something they asked multiple times and waited, that is what stared to wear on me. In the End I was able to watch the entire movie of ‘Goodwill Hunting’ before leaving the gate..possibly because we never left the gate. We were asked to get off, it sounded like some people were getting anxious and we’d be getting back on shortly but it got delayed and delayed again. As of now we are supposed to take off at 10, which is 24 hours after our original flight.

I am now updating my journal in Chile so we did make it but not without more trouble. We wasted more time in the airport, went to the gate that the board in the airport said and it said we were delayed, we talked to multiple people, got different answers and were eventually told that the delayed flight was a different flight to Chile (apparently they just can’t get a flight to Chile) and all we needed to do was go back to our original gate where nothing was posted. We had seen a bunch of people still waiting but we couldn’t see waiting there for hours on end. I had talked to a girl wo was with a travel group who said they had all just met so they were using this time to sit and drink and get to know each other; I found that to be quite humorous. We had seen their group earlier and thought they looked like they were going to Patagonia (they were, I asked one of they girls,) and we thought it looked like they were going to have a blast. Finally we boarded the plane 24 hours after or original flight and they had to ‘top off the fuel’ but by that time the flight attendants were going to be over time so they had to change the flight plan to make it shorter for them I guess. In the end we lost a day of our trip but the guy that we rented our apartment from was great and moved our reservation to a day later (as of that time we only had one of our places lined up so it worked out). It was exhausting but it worked out. Also, sleeping on a plane is rough. Thankfully We were able to catch up when we finally got to Chile,

We arrived in Chile around 10, made it through customs easily. We saw my new friend from the travel group who somehow got through customs faster than us and she was happy to see we made it wasn’t fair she made it through before us and she laughed ‘I don’t make the rules’. These are the fun moments, who you meet and how to make light of the hard moments. When we got to the little apartment we rented the gentleman was going to give us a refund for the first night (so nice) but since we didn’t yet have our next place booked we asked if we could shift it a day later, which we were able to do. The host was really nice and showed us everything we needed and everything we didn’t need to see. We really wanted to take a shower and at some point we kept trying to hint that we were good and he could leave..about five times over but I think because he was nervous, nice and we were his first international renters he wanted to make sure he didn’t forget anything.
Finally we got to unpack, shower and take care of a few things before we explored Santiago. We walked down to Plaza de Armas but ran into some problems when we tried to get money out of an ATM. They were all in Spanish and it turns out that many of them do not work with international cards..was this going to be the worst trip ever? I suggested that we go back to our place and regroup and look up what other people do here. Eventually Eric figured out the best ATM’s for us to go to and the button we have to hit for international transactions. We got cash, a sim card for Eric’s phone and we were off to explore street art and we even purchased a beautiful painting from a gentleman painting in the park. In addition, we had a great Chilean dinner, beyond filling, and not airport food. We slept like rocks (on a rock) but I think we may be almost caught up on our sleep finally.

Today was our day to do some more exploring. We wanted to hit up a few parks so Eric had some on his list and we looked at the best ones to go to first in terms of closest and ones we’d want to see. The first stop was the zoo. We hadn’t been to a zoo in another country and this time it had been on my agenda before we came. This zoo was a blast, we saw a ton of animals we’d seen before but many we hadn’t. We also saw a monkey take poo from it’s but and fling it. We also saw a Jaguar that was making a ton of noise, we eventually came to the conclusion that the poor thing had a hairball that it had to get out. I can’t forget the little girls singing the song from ‘the lion king’ (in Spanish) while watching the meerkats. I think the zoo was more fun than either of us expected. On our way to ne next park we were walking past a pizza place that looked and smelled amazing so we stopped; the pizza was delicious. We continued on to our next park which seemed disappointing at first until we started walking back to our place and realized that the park kept going and actually turned into a beautiful park that tons of people hang out in. We wandered for a bit and eventually headed back to our place where we tried not to fall asleep too early. We got back off our butts around 7:30 to head back to the main plaza to see if anything was happening There wasn’t too much happening except for some people preaching and some guys in dresses putting on a show which was pretty funny. We stopped on the way home to get one of our token microwave dinners and just chilled for the rest of the night.

Today was another park day. First we walked through the park near our place to get to the main plaza. Nothing much was going on in the plaza but then we realize with it being Sunday nothing much probably would be going on. We looked for an open coffee place but found nothing since the only things that were open seemed to be corporations (mcdonalds kfc, etc and some lunch places) we decided to head back to our place to grab a drink and then call an uber to take us to one of the larger parks. This park (the name escapes me) did not disappoint. There were a ton of people lounging and enjoying the day as well as playing ball etc. We got fruitcicles and sat in the grass for a while near a couple who had a kitten that was beyond adorable. The park was surrounded by mountains and the palm trees sitting in the middle of the other trees didn’t seem to fit but looked so cool. The sights in this park really were painting worthy, as I think of it now, I hope I got enough pics for a painting.

Once we were done with this park we decided to try another park that was so different but super cool in its own way. The paths were more shaded and the park seemed to be less taken care of but it had more life. There were more vendors, Eric and I were finally able to find a bracelet to represent our Chile trip, and there were volley ball games and soccer games going on. My guess is that this park was quite the amazing park back in it’s day.

By that point we were getting hungry for some dinner so we decided to go to a sandwich place we saw earlier in the trip. This place did not disappoint, other than the fact that I would have had to had twice the stomach to fit it all in. If I translated right mine was suckling pig and eric had loin (prob beef or something like that). Messy but yummy. We decided to call it an early night and chill for the rest of the night since I was so exhausted, not taking my afternoon naps plus walking a ton has really been taking it out of me but I don’t regret it.

today we are heading to Valparaiso which we thought was a kinda vacation like place for Chilean people. Our first task was to get tickets for the bus, Eric was having troubles getting them on line last night so we headed to the bus terminal this morning and we successfully got tickets and got on the bus.

When we got to Valparaiso we didn’t have much trouble getting to where we were staying etc. but when we started to figure out what we were going to do for the day we saw warnings online that this area was becoming more and more unsafe. We were nervous venturing out but we are not dumb and we knew to keep our eyes open and stay in areas that we felt more comfortable in. We needed to get an outlet adaptor as we had to leave the last one at the last place we stayed, this was mission one and we accomplished it quite easily. Next we went to one of the squares, it wasn’t to exciting but it was a nice stop. We decided we were getting hungry and when I get hungry we need to take advantage of that because at this moment I need to put on weight, not to mention  hungry Traci is a crabby Traci. We found a place that made some great pizza and we put together our own pizza which reminded me of the first time we tried to make a pizza on Colombia, we had to translate everything; this time we only had to translate a few things. We then got our groceries (and made a stop for some cute earrings for me) and headed home for the night. We were both pretty exhausted so we pretty much chilled for the rest of the night, although, Eric did have some troubles since the sun was still up even though it was eight in the evening. I tried to tell him that he could relax and asked what he would do if he visited Alaska when it was full sun and I think he got my logic.

Today I could not get out of bed, I was tired and unmotivated. I could not figure out if my non-motivation came from not feeling comfortable in this place or if it was just because of how my bi-polar was swinging around. We were planning on going to a town with beaches today but we weren’t sure if it was better to do that or have a down day with the way my mood was. After some discussion we decided to meditate (something we are now going to do daily for multiple reasons, one being that Eric just read in a book about it’s benefits and I said I’d show him what I know, once meditating on it I said doing something was better that not doing something so lets to the beach town. After looking at the bus schedule we thought we were getting too late of a start for that so we decided to do an afternoon walking tour. Before the tour we had a little time to kill so we went to a coffee shop where I got some of my favorite south American hot chocolate (not as good as some, probably because it had a marshmallow sweetening it but still yummy). The best part was when Eric and I started to play Jenga and by our third game, I believe it was, we got so good that the weight staff were watching us. It got to a point where there were no moves left except moves that were certain to kill the tower, I had to take the risk and I almost got the block out but I killed it. Man was that a fun way to kill some time before our tour. The walking tour was exactly what we needed. We felt much better about the city after the tour. The city seems much larger and much friendlier after it. We now know that there is mostly on part of the city that is not great to go to. We did a walking tour in Porto, Portugal and this is our second and both were great so walking tours are recommended when traveling. As Eric puts, This Tour was great but you can’t put it into words. We did finally get to ride a funicular up and down a hill and those were super cool. We also learned of this amazing bike race that happens every year in Valpo called the Valporaiso downhill and we looked it up on you tube; this race is crazy awesome. I think I plan on watching whatever I can of it every year. After the tour we couldn’t  help but go to one of the cemeteries that were pointed out to us, it was closed but we at least checked it out from the outside, it looked pretty cool but the spirit activity was pretty low; not sure if it’s because we were outside of the cemetery or if it’s because there were people near us and the spirits were uncomfortable..we never have used our spirit app around other people other than our group. Since we were fully exhausted we headed back to our place where we made it back just before our legs finally gave out. Did I mention that Valparaiso is hill after hill? Hills are beautiful but also so much work. For dinner we had frozen burgers that Eric made, not bad, did the job. It was a relax sorta night as we were so tired and didn’t want to test out Valpo at night for safety.

We decided today we would catch a public bus to Concon (a beachy, sand dune filled place) and it went pretty well; it was easier to catch the bus there than on the way back because we were shown where the bus stop was in Valparaiso and had to figure it out in Concon. I will say, Concon did not disappoint, there were giant sand dunes along the water that we climbed and large rocks as you went closer to the water that Eric climbed easily as that’s what he spent his younger years doing. I held back a little at that point since I knew my limits and just took a few really good pics of him. Then we had to take the long trek back to the top of the dunes to get our bus and I was so exhausted and thirsty that I said let’s go around instead of over…that may not have been the best idea. It seemed to take forever but we found a little store where I could buy water (I forgot to look for con or sin gas- meaning sparkling or not and stupid me got sparkling but it worked). We eventually found the correct bus and started our trek back to Valparaiso. Who would’ve known that we’d be riding around a different country going from city to city on city busses. By the time we came back we were pretty hungry so we searched out a restaurant that Eric saw on our first day here, just as he thought he was starting to imagine it we found it, a wrap and bowl place. We went in and Eric asked if they had and English menu, naturally, they did not but the worker had a friend eating there who spoke English who helped us through our ordering process; this reminded me of our first time in Bogota when a sweet Colombian girl helped us order food in a bar. We both ordered super yummy vegetarian bowls thanks to the help of this very friendly girl and we were full. We went to the town square that we went to on the first day that we were here for a short bit and breathed in the yummy second-hand marijuana fumes from the two sitting near us and then headed back. I knew it was going to be nap time for me; my first nap since we’ve been on this trip, how exciting! I was going to tell Eric not to let me sleep to long so I would sleep at night but I thought that just went without saying; it turns out he got really into the lessons he was doing and let me sleep for over two hours, it felt great but it was probably longer that I should’ve slept. I didn’t eat much from our heated up empanada dinner as our late lunch kept me full but I did have some, they were spinach and pretty good, Eric finished them off. We spent the rest of the night hanging out because we didn’t feel comfortable with Valparaiso at night. I had a huge headache/migraine at bedtime and didn’t know if I could sleep (and of course the nap didn’t help), Eric fell asleep no problem. I actually fell asleep without many issues at all.

Today is Thanksgiving at home. Eric woke me up because apparently I have been tiring myself out on this trip and could sleep for days. We talked about how ironic it is that we give thanks even though we took everything from the Indians. Ironc huh? It’s our last day in Valparaiso so we’re just doing a few random things here.

This day turned out to be a really great day, nothing that we had to do or anywhere that we had to be but we found fun. We decided to go back to the panini café that we went to the other day where we sat and played jenga. Eric got some coffee drink, a frappe or something and I got my usual hot chocolate. The waiter remembered us from the other day and called us jenga pros because he was watching us play so well before. He asked if we wanted an extra stack of blocks which we did not turn down even though it made it quite tell to begin with. We had quite a few impressive games of jenga before we decided to check out the cemetery since it’d be open by that time. We took the walk to the cemetery which seemed like a shorter walk on this day. The cemetery was beautiful, it had a great view, we told the spirits that we’d be happy to be buried there and they were lucky for their burial spot to be there. Eric had read about a cat that lived there and we came upon one that looked like it had been through hell and back but s/he was sweet. We came upon another cat that climbed up in the tree so the cemetery is well taken care of by them (and the gentlemen that we saw working). Since it was still somewhat early we headed to the square that we went to on the first day (and a few times since) where we were surprised to see some music event going on. From what we could tell it was a music/art school putting on a performance and they were quite good. We still wanted to check out one last park that we hadn’t been to that was supposed to be larger and this one had vendors all over. Most of the vendors didn’t interest us but there was someone making burgers and we couldn’t resist. The burgers hit the spot, they were so yummy.  We headed back to the square one last time to see listen to and watch the music. While we did, we had a dog that became our friend, that is, until he heard a bunch of dogs playing and he needed to be a part of it. We headed back for the night, started to gather things together so it would be easier the next morning and chilled out for the rest of the night. Valpo is a place I will miss, it was full of emo people so it made me feel like I belonged and the city itself was just our style with all its hills and paintings.

Today was a travel day, I hate travel days. We had to pack up all of our things so we’d be ready for our evening flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We didn’t do much for our last day except walk to the park, get some breakfast and get a drink and play jenga one last time at our favorite place. I can’t forget,   at some point in the morning we decided to see if we could figure out the path that is taken for the bike race, the Valparaiso Downhill, we’re pretty sure we were way off after watching more clips of it on youtube; there was no way we’d figure it out without  map or something. We then took a bus from Valparaiso to Santiago and headed to the airport. While at the airport Eric had to fight with the company (online) that we bought our flights through because he paid for baggage and yet, for some reason, we were told that we had no baggage allowance so we had to pay again. Naturally, the issue did not get resolved; screw you  trips.com. Eric started to call them using the wifi calling in my phone but he quickly realized that it was almost time to board and we had to get to the correct gate (luckily nearby). By that time my annoyance level with everything was growing and it didn’t help having Eric stressed out so I tried to keep it to myself. Our airplane boarded late, naturally, and when we boarded the plane we were told they had to ‘track down some luggage’, part of me thought we would get to Argentina and have no bags but they were there. Customs took forever as the line was huge and they had very few people working. While we were in line I connected to wifi to make sure things were good with our place and I had a message wondering when we’d be there etc, I explained that the line was long so we’d be coming as soon as possible. This guy kept asking question after question like ‘did you pick up your bags yet’, no sir you do that after customs/immigration whatever you want to call it. Next we had the issue of getting out money for our stay since they only accepted cash, who carries enough cash to pay for a multi-night stay (and not the cheapest either).  Luckily we got some of the cash and got to our place, we mentioned that we only had a partial payment and would get the rest later (as we had already discussed)..what a pain that would prove to be…eventually we worked out a way to pay through paypal instead of trying to get all the cash.  Finally we got semi-unpacked, watched a show and went to bed. I just wanted to forget that the last bit of the day had happened since it was working on my bi-polar nerves so greatly.