Dec 20 - 22- Vina del Mar/ Valparaiso

Our first full day in Vina del Mar got off to a slow start, which we attributed to the harsh travel day before on the bus from Mendoza, but as time went on it proved to be more just our own rhythm than any external cause. We woke up to the Chilean breakfast, which consisted of instant coffee, crystallized fruit beverage, cake, and a sandwich consisting of a slice of ham between two slices of snow-white bread. A bowl of sugary cereal topped off this start to the day. As hardy a group of travelers as we are, we were not able to fuel ourselves for any sort of effort on this. Our hostess at the B&B, Ninfa, was very gracious and accommodating of our nutritional requirements and agreed to provision us with food more to our liking. We jumped on the bus and made our way to the Lider mall which, four days before Christmas in Chile, is quite an experience. Liz and Remy managed to do some secret shopping for the boys before we all headed to the grocery store. After a marathon shopping session, we all jumped into a collectivo taxi and headed for home. Remy continued to hone his barbecuing skills in the grill made of a converted concrete wash tub.

After this less mundane start to our touring experience in this area, we woke up on the 21st ready for some serious tourism. We were slightly bummed after having spent the day before doing exactly what we had come here to avoid and needed to get our traveling groove back on. We jumped on a couple of buses and rode 1 1/2 hours up the coast to the town of Horcon, which is billed as a cool hippie enclave left over from the 70's. It has always been a fishing village, too, which it remains to this day, but only the ghosts of hippies are left. We hung out eating seafood empanadas, accompanied by stray dogs and drunks, along the short malecon.

We explored the rocks and walked through the town, but there was nothing going on except for some group handing out large bags of candy to the kids as an example of pre-Christmas charity.

 We were not looking forward to the bus ride home, as it travels through a large chunk of the coast that has been sacrificed to large scale industrialization (ports and power plants), not that Chile has much but coastline. Our low expectations of the trip were lowered even further as we did a milk run through the squalid towns along the way, sometimes seeming to cover the same route twice. Then we got caught in a traffic jam north of town in which we were being caught and passed by street vendors looking to do some commerce with this captive audience. We arrived back at the B&B exhausted and with sore asses from the time spent sitting on the bus. Another BBQ and some good dark beer and wine was required to lift our spirits.

The weather the following day, the 22nd, proved to be very coastal, with a ground level fog that soaked everything and made for some very cool temperatures. We rode the Metro into Valparaiso as the sun was breaking through and spent the day climbing the hills, exploring the system of funiculars as well as the myriad of cool shops and restaurants. There is a lot of really cool street art around as well, which Hollis likes to record with his iPod and then digitally alter later.

This is a cool, if physically challenging, town to explore and we will surely be back to spend more time here. It is a city that was settled primarily by British, Genoese and Croatian maritimers during the time before the opening of the Panama Canal, so the various neighbourhoods show the influence of these cultures. It is funny to hear names like "O'Higgins" and "Brown" in Spanish, but the number of streets and plazas named after them show the importance that people from non-Spanish backgrounds have played here.

There is little to let one know that it is Christmas here except for the throngs of people. There are some Santa hats around and the occasional North American Christmas jingle being played, often in English, which just seems strange. It is nice not to have the holiday being thrust in one's face at every turn and makes us realize the extent to which we overdo it at home.

We discovered a cool cafe, Cafe Vinilo, where Liz was introduced to the pisco sour, one of those "iron fist in a velvet glove" types of drink, like the margarita. Guaranteed that if you are reading this blog, Liz will be making this drink for you after we return.

-Remy