Eric's Chile Journal

Day one of this trip has proven to be less than ideal, with continued delays with our flight we are now on day 2 of being in Miami waiting for the airline to figure out how to get a plane to chile.

Our first flight was cancelled until the following morning which sucked, but at least the airline got us a hotel and a free meal, we are now on day 2 and our flight was suppose to take of at 10AM which we did then proceeded to sit at the airport for the next 4 hours before the unloaded us from the plane. We are now sitting in the airport for the second day in a row and now our plane is scheduled to leave at 1035 tonight. I suspect and will not be suprised if they also cancel this flight which if following yesterdays schedule will probably happen in the next 2 hours.

There is one positive to the day while sitting on the airplane I watched a movie called Blackberry but the told the story of RIM and Blackberry and there demise. It was an outstanding movie and is the first flix in sometime that I feel is worthy in my eyes of owning. Unfortunately I think it is new and I will need to wait for it to become super cheap before I add it to my collection

So we finally arrived in Chile today, we were able to easily reach our apartment for the next 4 days, the gentleman that owned the place was very nice, but we were exhausted and he just wanted to to helpful. I think he eventually figured out were tired and just wanted to shower. he eventually did leave and our day started. Like every trip the first few hours are hard you are in a new place and need to figure out how things work. Something i had never seen before was her in chile the majority of ATM machines do not work for international cards, we walked around for at least 45 minutes trying to find a machine that worked so we could buy a sim card to put in the our phone. We eventually go a sim card and then returned to our apt to figure out where to find an atm that worked. I learned to use an international card there are some atms that do not work with international cards, but the key is the ones that do have a special option to process as a international card.

We then were able to obtain money and entered exploring mode. We discovered the town square which was gorgeous, in fact in many ways was much nicer than many of the town squares I have seen especially for a non tourist big city. We ended the night with at a very locals small restaurant, with true chiliean food.

Chilean food reminds me very similar to Peruvian food. We had way to much food,
i realized this right after we order it that based on the cost of the food it was going to be way to much. Needless to say i thought it was delicious and would happily return there.

On our way back from the restaurant we attempted to find a grocery store for snacks, drinks and breakfast foods. We ended in a grocery store that looked earily
like a walmart, when doing research we found that this was a chain of chilean grocery stores that were bought by walmart.

I have researched out some great looking
Parks/green spaces in town that we will be visiting tommorow. I am being destroyed right now by allergies which I hope gets better as the days progress

Finally a day of normalcy, with all of the problems resolved we were able to have to a good enjoyable day. To start the day I had done some research and found that some of the best parks in the town so we set out to journey to these parks. The first park we went to had a zoo attached to it, while I am not usually big into zoos this zoo was a town of fun, It had just about every animal imaginable and the park

it was a part off was a massive hill in the middle of town and the actual zoo was built on the side of the hill, so it was amazing to be hiking up a very steep hill with the homes of each animal built into the side of the hill. I am confident that it was a one of a kind experience and recommend it to anyone. To give you an idea of how enjoyable of a walk it was I believe we spent close to 3.5-4 hours there. We also tryed a rice drink when leaving the zoo a vendor was selling. I am not sure how to describe the flavor, almost like an apple flavored tea, with rice and it also have a
fruit in it. While not a home run drink it was unique and quite tasty.

After leaving the zoo we stumbled upon a small pizza joint (one of the must things we do in every country that we goto is stop at a pizza place) and this place seemed to have a lot of variety of pizzas so we figured we would give it a try. We went with a portugueeze pizza which was absolutely delicious. Traci just had a soda, but I went the extra mile to try one of there juices which was amazing and I was very happy because it a lot of south america there serve there juices warm but here it was cold thus making it 10X better. After lunch we finally headed to the first park, which turned out to be quite close to the apartment we were staying in, and we had walked past it quite a few times, but when walking through it you got to see how awesome of a park it was. There were main highways on either side of the park and the park was in the middle of the two roads and ran for miles. They had nice walking and bike trails running the entire distance as well an abundance of green space. Since it was on a weekend there were countless people sitting out in the park enjoying the day reading, talking, and just generally hanging out. This park was almost as cool as Simon Bolivar park in Bogota, the only downside that it was not nearly as big and
because of the roads on either side of the park it did hurt the atmosphere some. Overall it further showed me how much i love parks in this region of the world. We
also found a lemonade vendor the made lemonade with ginger and mint. It was
outstanding the only downside was the mint and ginger kinda killed the lemonade
taste a bit, but was easily one of the better drinks I have had in my life.

After the park it was getting late, since we had such a large lunch we decided to do a simple dinner in the apartment, but also wanted to get the feel for the main town square at night so we headed there, I think there town square is super beatiful, but unfortunately it lacked the food vendors and things that you find in a lot of town squares, there did seem to be a huge LGTBQ rally going on in the park, which I have not done the research to find out but would assume there is some big rally going on in santiago this weekend. Also I had not put this together til now but there was also a lot religious groups preaching the gospel in the town square which I would also assume was in protest of the LGTBQ rally.
We left town square picked up some simple pasta dinners we could make back at the room and called it a night. This day was pretty much exactly what i typically look for in a traveling trip

Today, we departed from Santiago and began our trek to Valpraiso. Everything went smoothly we got to the bus station and where to figure out our ticket without issue. We arrived to Valpraiso and my initial impression of the city was good. It looked like a wonderful large small south american town. We got to our apartment which for all purposes was everything we needed, but there was nothing great about it but. It was packed tight with furniture to the point that it is hard to move around, the outside area was fine, but because we are on the top of a hill and we are in a coastal town the breeze is bad and can be cold, overall the place is fine but it by no means knocks anything out of the park.

Then i started researching the town and to be honest I found this city simply by this seemed like where all the tours went from santiago, and since I do not like just taking tours to places and only spending a day there we opted instead to just come here.

Once I started researching the are, a lot of the internet made it seemed like we should just lock our insides and we were certainly going to be killed. The was disheartened and made the first day not very enjoyable. I decided though that through my research there were plenty of beach towns nearby so in worse case scenario we would just hop a bus to each of those towns and spend the day there.

Needless to say we did not lock ourselves in a room, we did go out and find adapters for outlets, something that was much needed, and we went and found the central plaza in own, once we were out in town, I became much more comfortable as it felt similar to everywhere else we have been and I assumed what I had read was way overblown. We ended up going and getting the groceries we needed for the duration of the trip and then found a nice pizzeria and had a chorizo avocado goat cheese pizza, which while good, did not trump the pizza we had in santiago.

After this duration the night was pretty much over and we headed back to wrap up the night. For what seemed could have been a disaster, I am very little bad to say about the first day

Today, we had some snafoos in our day but this day turned out be outstanding. We had planned to goto concon, which is a beach to with massive san dunes. When researching it appeared the buses stopped running after 2:00 so it appeared that we couldnt go. So instead i found a walking tour of the town that we could take instead and we planned to wake up early tommorow to head to cancon. Before the walking tour we went out to find the plaza that we would be meeting for the walking tour to make sure we would know were we were going. We found the place and found a coffeee and a panini place nearby. We stopped in shared a salmon panini traci had a hot chocolate and I had a latte. The food and coffee was fine, nothing to get excited about but at each table they had jenga and we started playing. We had some intense games of jenga to point that the waitors and waitresses were watching in suspense to see how they would turn.. One game got
to the point that it would be impossible for traci to pull a piece out without tipping it over. This proved to be one of those very memorable moments that will stick with me for a long time that was just kinda a dumb thing that we stumbled upon but makes great memories. One of those things that makes travel so special.

After that it was time for the walking tour which was exceptional, if you have never done a walking tour I recommend it as everyone I have done has been great. We got to ride the Funiculars which are essentially public elevators that take you top of the huge hills in towns, we saw amazing street art, a lot of the great architecture of the city. and saw some of the most amazing viewponts the city had to offer. This tour was able to successfully transform the city into a scary place (thanks internet) to a magnificent beautiful city. At one point in time on the tour we had a viewpoint that we could see the sand dunes of concon which looked amazing. The tour concluded down by the marina, and another plaza that we had yet to even find. The tour completely transformed the city, plus also made me super excited about our trip tommorow. The tour guide also informed me that the buses to concon run 24 hours a day so we dont need to worry about time constraints when we go tommorow.

While on the tour, the tour guide pointed out a very old graveyard on top of one of the hills so when we were done we took a hike to the top it to see if our haunting apps would get anything. Unfortunately not a lot of activity, so we headed down the hill, because of the steps both me and traci cannot barely walk at this point of time so a simple dinner and our night is wrapped up til tommorow.

So today was a short day, but an awesome day. As mentioned in the previous post we had planned on going to Concon, but it got pushed of til today, but we did indeed go today and the experience was incredible. Concon is a small rich coastal town, with massive san dunes along the coast line.

We awoke had no issues getting on the bus (which cost $1.25) and took the 45 minute drive to concon and literally dropped us off right next to the San Dunes. Looking at the pictures online I know these dunes where going to be super awesome, but with sand dunes in almost all instances pictures cannot full do them justice, The dunes were massive probably from the lowest point to the top was at least a mile hike. The only thing that didn;t make this an epic game changer was the fact that we had been to
hauchinici (Peru) which was 10X these dunes, but they did have the perk of being right along the coastline which meant you hiked to the top of the dunes and overlooked a beautiful coastline of the pacific ocean. It was not a beachy coastline but none the less was beautiful, We hiked down the the coast and there was a small little park that you could hike through the rocks down to the coastline, which was fun and cool. Had a little scare down there, there was a couple for what we thought was germany hiking at the same time and they had hiked down closer to the water, then a massive crashed in and we heard a scream. for a moment we though they might have been washed out to see but I hiked a little bit and saw them sitting on a rock.

We then hiked back into Concon, initially i had though maybe we should have stayed in a town like concon, but as we hiked through it i quickly changed my mind as a realized this was simply of coastal town with a but town of super expensive condos (think gulf shores) needless to say the dunes were an incrediable experience and well worth the travel to reach them. We caught the bus to get back to our apartment, and considered stopping a rennaco to check out the beaches but we could see them from the bus and it didnt seem like there was much to see so we simply headed back.

Once we got back to Valpraiso, I had seen a Mexican bowl restaurant that looked like it could be yummy. we stopped in there for lunch and despite the challenges of ordering, the food was magnificent, I think traci won the battle of making the better of the bowls (they were extremely customizable).. After lunch we headed over to plaza and hung out and took in the aroma of Weed.

After that we came to the apartment, I had worn traci down from all of sand hiking so she took a nap and I listened to a recent course, in that course they taught you how to do a personality profile so when traci woke up I made her to the profile with me so we could compare ourselves. Very much of the topic of traveling but needless to say very informative. We enjoyed the rest of the night hear at the apartment as we do not fully trust valpraiso after dark.

This was our final full day in Valpraiso. We did not a lot planned for this day, but as it turned out this day was filled with fun. We started the day by heading out and one of the first focuses was to go and walk through the graveyard that we were previously were unable to actually walk through. The graveyard was small but very unqiue and worth the visit.

After coming back from the graveyard we stopped for drinks and some Jenga at our favorite coffee spots. the waitor actually got us 2 sets of Jenga boards to see how we could do with a little more challenge in our Jenga game. It took us a little getting use to but were able to rock the Jenga game after a few tries.

After that we walked down to my favorite of the town squares and there was music school having a concert there. While you could definitely tell that many of the performers were definitely still learning this was an added fun aspect to the day.

One more thing I really wanted to visit on the trip was I did find a decent park in town that we had not visited. We went and found the park and I was shocked at how awesome it was and wished we would have discovered in on day 1. The park was packed with vendors, skateboarders and was one of my favorite areas of town. We ended up getting burgers covered in guac and numerous other sauces from one of the vendors in the park. We also got a kebab from another vendor that was absolutely delicious.

Once we had eaten it was getting late again so we headed back I was able to grab an ice cream cone and we stopped back in the town square again and watched the concert we had left to goto the park, they pretty quickly wrapped up the show and we left when they started what appeared to be giving rewards to everyone.

We headed back and wound down for the day. Overall this one of the simplest days on the trip, but it was also one of the favorite days for me, I really enjoy the markets and street food, and this was the best we had experienced on this trip.

Travel day, always one of my least favorite of any trip

We started the day and had a lot of time to kill before we needed to head back to get on our plan to head to argentina.

We decided to spend that time in Valpraiso see as this was by far our favorite place and we had a place to keep or bags. We started by heading back to the park/Market we had gone to the previous day, I was suprised as the park was just as vibran  and active during the day as it was when we went there the previous day even though it was much earlier in the day,

We found some food at a small restaurant that was very local and delicious. It was Fries, covered with meet and eggs, which might sound wierd but is a common dish in south america and is great.

After that we took a slightly different route back towards the condo which enabled to discover some new green spaces that were just nice to walk through and with additional vendors. Once we got back to the main square, we decided to try and trace down the track for the Valpo Downhill, this is a big street biking competition that we had learned about on our walking tour. Traci had become quite obsessed with watching videos of it on Youtube.

We spent maybe 30 minutes tracking down the route it could have gone til we got to a point where it was obvious it could have 50 directions and we had no idea which would be correct.

After that we had minimal time left before we needed to catch a bus so we stopped in for one more round of Jenga. The transport back to Santiago was not to difficult but the fun started once we got to the airport, We already had a late flight which of course was furhter delayed and then once in argentina customs was nightmare. We were both crabby and irrated by the time we finally got back to our place at 3:00Am.

Probably wont be much to report for tommorow as I expect this will also be quite a down day as well