Night Life in Santiago and Valparaiso

So apparently when I don`t post on here for a while, Matt starts insulting my pop culture preferences. Unbelievable that in this day and age some people can`t appreciate the song writing genius that is Green Day`s Billie Joe Armstrong. In any case, we went out for our Mexican dinner last night, which was definitely Mexican done Chilean-style. The food was decent (and about half the price of the Peruvian place), but not really all that great. Matt ordered cheese dip to find that it was cheese in a bowl that looked much like the inside of a grilled cheese sandwhich. You needed a knife to cut chunks away from it. If Shaq or a small horse was prone to gastrointestinal problems, one order of this cheese dip could replace a week`s worth of Immodium. We had a good time messing around with our waiter who spoke English pretty well and after dinner we went out for an expensive (again, damnit) night on the town.

We managed to cab our way to a strip of bars that were more diverse than a college promotional brochure. These places ranged from extremely touristy (Bedrock: a Flinstones themed restaurant/salsa bar) to extremely seedy (the Green Bull, a definite dive bar, complete with bathroom coke heads). Not to scare the parents here but we ducked into the seedy bar to check out the live band that was playing. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of these guys. They were old and pretty normal looking, except for the singer looked like an overweight, extra tan Steven Tyler. Next to him on stage he had a table full of drinks that he would wink at girls and hand out. This band so much enjoyed the stylings of Queen that they played We Are the Champions not once, but twice before we left. It was an interesting place to say the least. We ducked our heads into a couple more places before settling into a Karioke bar. The ladies we were with gave us a most stirring rendition of the Bee Gee`s classic, `Stayin Alive` and our friend Sam did his best country dance version of recently departed MJ`s `Billie Jean`. This along with Chilean`s singing Pearl Jam made for another interesting experience. The night ended with Groundhog Day back at the hotel until the wee hours of the morning. You can`t fake love Bill Murray and God bless that little groundhog for helping you see that.

We woke up bright and early this morning to the delicious breakfast here at the hotel. We`re enjoying it much more than the breakfast that awaited us each morning in La Serena: Bread, slimy ham, and cheese. Here there`s a pretty good spread: eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, cereals, and yogurt. We hopped on the bus with hopes of napping for the two hour ride to the coast and Valparaiso. However, our dreams were spoiled by the most gregarious man I`ve ever met in my life, our tour guide. This guy talked into the bus microphone for the entire trip. My favorite thing that he did was have conversations with people in the front of the bus with the microphone still at his mouth. Two hellish hours later we pulled into Valparaiso, which is quite a sight to behold. The city is right on the sea and there`s not really any flat land at all, rather there are just houses built literally on top of houses built on top of houses for as far as you can see. It`s a pretty neat city though, with quite a bit of character. There`s a fairly young population in the city with quite a few different universities. We took a quick city tour with our tour guide, who miraculously could still talk after four hours nonstop. We stopped off at Pablo Neruda`s house, which was a pretty cool spot even though I know very little of his work. We also got to check out some cool graffiti throughout the city. Next we drove through neighboring La Vina del Mar, which looks a lot like Beverly Hills. I can only imagine these places are swimming with tourists in the summer. We stopped off for lunch right on the coast and climbed around some tidal rocks before jumping the bus back to Santiago.

Overall, this city is pretty cool. It`s absolutely enormous. Six million people live here, making up about 40% of Chile`s population. Tonight we`re going to take it easy and hit the sack early gearing up for a long day of skiing tomorrow. I`m very excited for the ski trip, but not very excited for the 36 hour bus ride to Peru that will follow it. The group leaves the day after tomorrow and the real adventure begins!

Dave