Chile Day 1 and 2

Chile March 19th 2015 through March 29th 2015 Left from Auburn AL to Atlanta GA and flew Delta nonstop to the most Southern route Delta flies, Santiago, Chile. Looking at a map, Santiago is more south than the most southern tip South Africa. Left around 10pm and arrived in Chile the next morning around 9am. Flight was around 9 hours, but I couldn’t sleep well. Estimated 2-3 hour at most. However, arrived in Chile excited and ready to travel. Alice and Randy Smith pick up Aron (Alice’s graduate student) and me from the airport. We traveled West to Casablanca which has a vineyard called Casa del Bosque (house in the forest). This is an odd name, since most of the 80 km of Chile from Santiago to Casablanca is lacking of green vegetation. The landscape is large hilly, but brown with a small shrub occasionally scattered. The landscaped land of Casa del Bosque was verdant and lush for more than 250 acres. At Bosque we got a tour, a tasting, and lunch. The tour was average, the tasting was excellent, and the lunch was supremo! This might be the best food I will have in Chile and I feel conflicted that I got it on the first day. I had the filet mignong. [[Pictures?]] The current exchange rate is $1.00 u.s.d = $630 +/- 20 Chilean pesos. High end food is about the same cost as back home, cheap food is a little cheaper than back home. Afterwards we continued driving West toward Valparaiso. The city where the Smith’s are staying in is Vina del Mar (just north). We drove around Valparaiso for a little while. It is more hilly and congested than San Francisco but has the same feeling, so car driving causes a little anxiety. There are also a fair amount of “street people” and vagrant people. Afterward we drove into Vina del Mar. This city is more affluent, seemingly cleaner streets, and more nice/niche restaurants. We parked at our high-rise apartment which is a 5-minute walk from the beach. [[Picture]] I was exhausted from the previous night’s poor sleep, so I watched NCAA March Madness basketball (yes, my brackets are already in trouble) and relaxed until dinner. I don’t know about breakfast, but lunch is most common between 2-4 pm and dinner 9-11 pm. Around 8pm we walked to dinner. Upon leaving [[Night Picture]] we had to take an “Accentor” or a “venicular” because the incline/decline is so steep you can’t easily get out of the apartment. The venicular is like an elevator that goes up/down from the steep hillside to the fairly flat ocean front area. We walked about 10 blocks to an Italian restaurant (Don Vito e Zamboni). The food was C+/B- at best. The wait staff was good, however. We walked back through the city to our apartment then I showered and slept. Saturday, March 21st 2015 The apartment has a very open floor plan and huge windows that allow ambient light to illuminate the area brilliantly. If this apartment could be transported to Auburn, it is what I would want to live in. There is an outdoor patio that faces the Pacific Ocean (this is going to be difficult to import to Auburn). The mornings are cloudy like San Francisco but the fog burns off by noon. The major economic factor in the area is the Port of Valparaiso, as a result massive ships are commonly in the water in queue. The water is reportedly clean to swim in unless a recent navel accident has occurred, in which case, signs are posted. The cause of pause comes from the temperature of the water. The “Humboldt Current” flows from Antarctica along the coast of Chile and makes the water very cold even during summer. Randy and I made breakfast of eggs, sausage, and toast. I ate on the patio overlooking the ocean and overhearing a whistle coming from a kid’s team soccer practice. I haven’t walked over yet, but at least one of the three fields are in constant use. It’s like a London neighborhood mini-field. Looks to be mostly pickup games. The graduate student Aron said he’d like to walk over as well. So, I used the Google translator app to look up: “Es este un juego recoger” “is this a pick up game?”, “podemos jugar al futbol” “can we play soccer?” and “no somos muy Buenos” “we are not very good”. This is only true for me, Aron played through high school on a travel soccer team. The experience of not speaking anything other than English has made me want to take foreign language classes… yet again… Around 11am we met up with some friends of Alice’s from the local university and we headed north to Cachagua. The attraction, penguins in the wild. On the way we stopped at a roadside empanadas restaurant. Very cheap, very good. The area was very busy with surfers (all wearing wet suits), bicycles riders, runners and very fit looking people. After snacks, we continued northward. Once in Cachagua we walked along the ocean for half a mile until reaching a mini-island with lots of birds and penguins. This mini-island is protected so that you can’t go onto the island, but we brought binoculars and could see the birds fairly well. The town is mostly a vacation house city [XXX picture]. Local law prohibit the building of hotels and other tourist attractions. So, it’s underdeveloped and naturally beautiful. A second set of local university friends have a house on the beach and met us at a local restaurant. During lunch a guys was telling me that most locals think of the Pacific Ocean as West. The locals like to point at the ocean, and say, “the closest population is Australia”; however, while in Cachagua the land pokes out from the coastline so that you are not facing West. From this city, you are actually facing South. He said, watch this. He asked one of his Chilean what direction is the ocean, then said she was wrong. Then he told her what he just told me, and the friend face of disbelief and almost argued the point. Culturally, this Ocean/West thing is a big deal. Afterward we walked to and toured the vacation house. It was beautiful. They rent it and it sleep 10+. Contact me if you are interested. ☺ We left all the friends and started traveling northeast into the pisco country. Driving northeast, power generating windmills were common [XXX Picture] We are spending a night in Ovalle then traveling on to Piso Elqui. Special moment: Randy and Alice started barking when “Who let the dogs out” came on the radio.