22nd November 2007
Today we woke up early, packed and got ready to leave Santiago for Vina, 2 hours south of Santiago. For some reason this morning was really hectic at the hostel. Many people were checking in and we were checking out. Graciela and her husband (can’t remember his name) were running around like headless chooks. They lost our sheet with all our hotels and quotes and deposits on it, so he was looking for this everywhere, she was trying to fit people into an overbooked hostel and have a shower and look after her little boy- the cutest thing in the world. No breakfast was put out (normally breakfast was out by 8 am and we were all sitting eating it) and we needed to leave and be at the bus station by 9. It wasn’t looking good. We paid and asked for a taxi. While we were waiting Graciela – on the last day in Santiago- decided to tell us it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea to wear such short shorts because and I quote ‘all the men are animals’... ‘all of the women can’t wear shorts because they are short and fat.’ She explained that there is a café that says coffee and legs because the men go to the cafes to look at the women’s legs when they cross them or sit down – apparently they loved our western culture and our legs. She warned us about a lot of things that we would see in the poorer places that we were going to. She knew a lot of things and her English was really good so Gemma could understand her. They were really lovely people at the ‘Santiago Hostel’- if anyone wants to go we recommend it. Its no glamorous but you will have a good time. Graciela’s advice would have been appreciated on the first day, versus when we were leaving, but we did notice as we were leaving that the women didn’t wear anything short and it really was just us.
While at breakfast we met these two girls from Rio who arrived that night. They were going to Vina for the day but coming back to Santiago. We exchanged email addresses because she loves Aus and of course we love Rio- despite having never been there before.
Finally we left Santiago and arrived in Vina. We went inside the bus terminal first to buy our tickets to Mendoza, Argentina as we were leaving Vina in two days. While organizing the tickets with the operator, a crazy homeless man came up to us and started talking crazy talk that no one understood. We all grabbed our stuff so quickly we were flashes of light. Our best efforts to ignore him didn’t really make him go away and the security guard was called to ‘escort’ him outside. After this little obstacle we left for the hotel checked in. We had to wait ten minutes for our room to finish being cleaned, and during the wait we met some Americans from Louisiana and Pennsylvania. I told them that we were Australians. They replied with ‘yeah there are so many European tourists here… I really want to go to Australia I love Europe.’ …. WHAT?!?!?! ‘oh no I said AUS TRA LI A! not Austria.’…. ‘oh yeah we know it its near New Zealand and Switzerland… great place, we really want to go there next.’ Well good luck finding the Aus and NZ next to Switzerland you idiots…. My god I love Americans they make the rest of the world so much smarter don’t they? After this hilarious conversation we changed into warm clothes, because despite being warm and at the beach it had a freezing wind factor which apparently made the temperature 12 degrees.
We took a walk around the city, and had some lunch at a pizza place called Pepe’s pizza. The pizzas were amazing; we wanted seconds of the largest slices of pizza you will ever see… we decided not to not gorge ourselves but to save some of our dignity. We took a walk around the city and ended up at some more markets with stalls of different things. We all bought jewelry for pretty cheap prices. We kept walking and saw some horse drawn carriages- which we couldn’t pass up. We decided to buy half an hour on them. We saw the casino, the town square and the museum… all which still had that French influence. It was at this point that Chrissy recognized the photos from Perez as the town that Kylie escaped to with her married Chilean lover….which made her feel really famous and special… don’t know why we tried to tell her she wasn’t kylie but she didn’t care. The carriage took us to the beach and past these amazing castles – these ones of German heritage and they were amazing… very ‘sound of music’ (doesn’t matter that it is actually Austrian- its all the same general region). The carriage driver had no teeth and ripped us off by only giving us 15 mins and saying we could stay on the beach and have fun – sleezy Chilean. We then walked along the beach and got some gelati- not as good as the gelati from Santiago but still pretty damn good gelati. Yes yes we are quite fat and timetable our day around eating. We wanted to see the castles close up, but unfortunately we missed the visiting hours so we just peered in and made up our own stories.
We walked around the city for a few more hours – trying to delude ourselves that we werent’ lost… finally we found this cool little café with happy hour cocktails – so we couldn’t pass them up and therefore chilled out for a few more hours me trying to talk Spanish to them and them hitting on us all woo good times…. We asked them where to go out in Vina and we went home to get changed and go…. All I can say is anti climax. The football was on, some big south American tournament so everyone was smoking and fixated on the game- no salsa, flamenco or dancing of any kind. We decided we would be more interested snuggled up in our hotel room watching television we were interested in. so that was our big debut… we planned to make it better the next time. However the English voices and Spanish subtitles was really good for helping me pick up how they would say certain things in Spanish and so all was not lost – in fact a lot of education was found.
22nd November 2007
Today was chilly again but we decided we would still stick to the plan of going to the beach. We got up around ten, so we went to the hotel restaurant to have b/fast because it was already included and then got the directions to go to the nicest beach by bus- after all we’re not millionaires. The bus ride was actually really long- close to an hour and once we got to the beach we realized why one- no one was on the beach and two why those who were walking along it had jumpers and long pants on – it was freezing. On the beach however it was really hot the sand and the sun because we were able to escape the freezing cold wind. We sun baked for a few hours – you are not allowed to swim in the water because it is pacific water and ice berg cold and also no life guards and something about if you go swimming no matter who you are you will die with the water rips and things… so funnily enough we didn’t go swimming. After a few hours of baking ourselves we decided to go shopping/ get something to eat. However we decided this, as per usual in siesta time so nothing was open. Eventually we found a seafood restaurant and realizing we weren’t actually hungry and that we just wanted to eat just got one salmon to share and three pisco sours- which is a Chilean ‘alcoholic beverage’. They were so nice we got another each. Finally when we left the restaurant, we went in search for a bottle shop to get some pisco sour. The lady in the store asked us if we wanted to drink it on the beach, and the three of us didn’t know what to say, of course that was our objective but in Australia if they ask you that they deny you sale… well here they give you glasses and ice so you CAN drink it on the beach. We spent the rest of the afternoon drunk on the beach watching the sunset. When it started to get cold again we decided to go back to our hotel room and go out…Dinner tonight was on Chrissy’s dad so we got dressed up all pretty to go out to a nice restaurant and have a good feed. However not that many places accepted visa so we ended up choosing the dodgiest Chinese restaurant buffet… the food was disgusting the wine was like vinegar and the cocktails were untouchable… all in al we had a good meal I think…. Ewe! The only good thing about this dinner was the eye candy… there were these four really hot guys, well three really hot guys and a dad at the table behind us. Chrissy and Gemma stared and told me their every move all night (I was sitting with my back to them and the other two were facing them). Eventually they left so we decided that because we were already drunk from today and again from dinner that we should go out however, again, the night life was less than amusing, and gemma was less than excited, so we ended up coming home freezing and watching more movies…. Which may have been more amusing in the first place anyway.
