Chilean Fun in the Sun

What's up everyone?? I hope everyone back in the States fall season is going great! Spring here South America is quite a joy so far. The students at Belgrano just finished midterms and now time to start school again! Booooooo...is too true. However, I would like to share my adventure to the west side. Not of the Buenos Aires or my Barrio but further! I'm talking about this amazing trip I took with some of my friends to another country called Chileeeeeeeeeee! Well, actually it's spelled Chile but I enjoy the emphasis :D.

This trip all started with first buying at ticket to Chile. Luckily, the infamous Alina, scoped out some sites and found a great one! We all planned to leave Thursday night Sept 29th, but Alina also happen to purchase the last cheapest seat from the website for that day (great job Alina haha). Everyone else including myself, thankfully, were able to get the first flight out Friday morning which was leaving at 7:15 am...(I'm in my room thinking this is the first flight yes! But that means I would need to leave my apartment earlier than 7... LET'S DO IT! haha) Next we needed to find a Hostel to stay at in Santiago. After, looking at few sites and looking over some reviews as well as prices we ended up settling with Atacama Hostel.

1. Flight - Check
2. Hostel - Check
3. All systems GOOOOO!

So, Thursday finally arrived and Alina & Scott both were leaving that night. Everyone else that being Erin, Patrick and myself were going to leave Friday morning. Since, Erin and I live fairly close to each other we decided to try to meet in the morning to take a taxi together to Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. I woke up at 4 am............. (terrible, I know) then went to Erin's house to pick her up then we headed to the airport. The amazing thing about flying to Chile is you MUST fly over the Andes Mountains!

It was just so incredible to see and say "oh yeah, we just flew over the Andes no big deal" haha. It is quite a sight for soars eyes like ours. Finally arriving in Santiago, we hit the ground running! We took a taxi to where we thought our hostel was... Román Diaz 31...well, yeah it doesn't exist. So we sat there in the taxi wonder what went wrong and God must be/is always looking out because a few minutes after we get to the street Patrick spots Alina and Scott walking toward us! Erin, Patrick and I sat our backpacks in the lockers and then went out to explore Santiago. There are many great things about this city: surrounded by the mountains...but not just regular mountains but the FREAKIN ANDESSSSSS, metro system and cleanest is amazing (in comparison to BA which is really stank), and the Chilean peso bills go all the way to 20,000 (yes, we were all speaking in thousands or hundred 500 pesos equaled 1 US dollar so you can do the math; all I can say is that is was funny and thinking oh I don't need more then 9 thousand right now hahahahaha.)

Any way, we continued day by walking toward a meeting point in the city for a free tour (we are all about free-ness). On the way, we stumbled upon this awesome place called Cerro Santa Lucia and stayed there for a while then continued our meeting point. We finally made it to Plaza de Armas which is Santiago's main square and where the city was founded by a Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdiva. In that same plaza one can find street artist, chess matches, and just everyone relaxing around. Also in Chile there are many protest for free public education and they can get pretty violate but we didn't let that thought stop us for enjoying this place!

Now, in Chile, we wanted to try Chilean typical foods like Churrasco which is a beef sandwich from a street stand with avocado, tomatoes, and mayo (Soooo good). Then we had tried Moto con Huesillo which is cooked dried peaches and stewed wheat served as a drink (It was pretty good). On our tour, our guide, told us and showed us something that only happens in Chile : Cafe with legs or Cafe con Piernas. This were basically a tinted window coffee shop where you (usually men go there) can get served coffee from basically a stripper...this all started from a cafe owner who wanted to get more business hahah. Yeah, it worked... also if your lucky the manager of the shop will lock the door and "Happy Minute" begins. In regards to drinks: our tour guide (none of us can remember his name) told us we had to try Pisco Sour and Terremoto which is Pipeño (a type of wine) with pineapple ice-cream served in a one-liter glass.

The next day we started bright and early yet again because we were going to go to the coast! I was super excited about this because first I've never been to Chile and also I've never been to the Pacific Ocean at all. So, I can say now that water is icy cold but from the coast it's mighty fine :D. We rode the metro then took a bus to Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and Reñaca! The bus ride was about a hour and a half then from there we decided to chose a tour company to take us around.

In Valparaíso, we got a chance to one of the house of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in Cerro Florida called La Sebastiana. He has two others called La Chascona and la casa de Isla Negra. These three houses all have a ship shape which is pretty cool. We got a great view from his house and then went down to see the naval shipyard which was really cool too.

In Viña del Mar, we got to see something really just mind blowing. We got to see one of the statues from Easter Island!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I, seriously, was like I can't believe I get to see this in person. The statues are called moai craved by Rapa Nui and only 3 have been take from the actually island. One is where we were in Viña del Mar and the two others are in London and New York. Also went to the Parque Quinta Vergara which has tree planted there from all over the world. Then to see the Estadio Sausalito. And we ended our trip there with going to beach, watching the sunset and having fun in the water!

In Reñaca, we saw some of the buildings built by different nations like France and Germany. Then we got to seen a HUGE rock mount with sea lions just chillin hahaha. We also had lunch at a restaurant close to the coast which had great seafood but not so great dessert.

Once we had returned to Santiago, we made it right in time to be able to take the metro home and not a taxi (YAYA us!). Then we went out late that night for dinner and was looking to try the Terremoto drink. We found a great place called A Punto Rojo! Patrick and I had a steak with these awesome amazingly cooked rice with cheese and mushrooms! It was so goooooood we meaning Alina hahah ordered just a plate of that rice! Sunday morning we were off back to east side...not like the Jefferson's but to Buenos Aires hahaha. In addition, we got on an earlier flight that went straight to BA luckily us!An amazing experience yet again with friends and a trip to Chile was T-O-T-A-L-L-Y worth it!
p.s. The Chilean flag closely resembles the Texas flag! It definitely warmed my Texan heart :^)