Beach Days...Viña and Valpo
Viña del Mar and Valpariso...middle Chile
16.03.2008
After Pucon we got a long overnight bus to Santaigo, and left immediately on a bus to Vina del Mar so we could spend a few days at the beach.
Vina is beautiful!! Its a lot like Rio de Janeiro but with a much calmer vibe (and way less thong bathing suits, thank god). This is the first time weve seen people down here working out and being physically active via like bikes and running and stuff which was strange. The beaches are clean, the waves are huge and the sun was perfect! We took a bus to Valpariso which was 20 minutes away and is a little bigger city..and much dumpier (sorry). We had several people tell us to watch our bags when walking around so we felt a little nervous and didn´t stay out after dark or carry much of value on our person. We are staying in a nicer section of Valpariso with a woman and her 2 kids .They rent out their extra room to backpackers and she works in the restaurant downstairs. So last night after getting cleaned up we spent some time with her two young girls learning some Spanish! The little girl is 11 and is studying English in school so its sorta like we are teaching each other. Being a tutor and someone who wants to teach kids, it was a lot of fun for me! Also, its been real hard to learn spanish here bc Chile is notoriously like one of the worst places to learn spanish bc they speak mush...so hard to hear. So talking to kids who speak slow and annunciate is really helping!
Chile is so much more expensive that Argentina so it´s been a bit frustrating. We are getting anxious to get into Bolivia and Peru because they are so much cheaper. The long distance busses cost about the same, some are even cheaper than in Arg, but everything else is absurd. To get a burger, fries and a drink in Arg was usually like $4 US (in the non touristy areas, not like Bariloche) and in Chile its been like $8 or $9. I know that doesn´t seem like a lot at home but here it certainly is. Im starting to really wonder what minimum wage is here (if they even have it) and how much cost of living is. The people here don´t seem abnormally wealthy or poor so I am very curious! Another thing we´ve observed that we´ve talked about is the incredibly amounts of PDA here. Its outrageous. For someone who doesn´t like seeing that at home, this is like toture here! There are couples making out all over the place...on the beach, on the bus, in the park, in the mall. Its starting to be really funny because instead of like cooking or going on a walk or playing a sport, they just go to the beach and french haha. And weve also noticed that short hair is totally a western thing for women. We have seen MAYBE 3 girls with short hair in both Argentina and Chile. ALL the girls have real long hair...none shorter than their shoulders. So needless to say, Sam and I, who are both sporting real short hair now, totally stick out! Not to mention the fact that we are pasty and dont speak spanish and obviously not south american haha.
Posted by katr17fish 12:29 Archived in Chile
