Valparaiso, Chile

It´s been an eventful few days here. Valparaiso is a very artsy, colorful seaside town on a hillside that´s full of cafes, murals and endless winding streets. It's famous for being home to the Nobel Prize winning poet, Pablo Neruda.










Cute old lady cutting her bushes with scissors..... Our hostel was at the end of this row:




Pascale and her fancy new tights:



We decided to walk up to Neruda's house our first day in town and happened on a quiet neighborhood. Pascale paused to take a picture of a pretty blue house so I waited up the block for her. As soon as I turned my back, a teenage boy came out of a side street and ran into her from behind. He snatched her camera right out of her hand as she was taking the picture and took off running up an alley of stairs a block high. Pascale chased after him yelling but when he got to the top, he disappeared down one of the winding streets. It's really easy to hide in these neighborhoods.

People came out to help, and one local woman, Nury, even took us to the police department. The police said someone had already called in a report, but they didn't find the little thief. (Apparently, this happens to toursits all the time here. Teenage boys don't get punished if they are under 16 yoa so they are very bold and prey on tourists.)

Outside the police station with Nury:


After all that was over, Pascale dusted herself off and went on like a champion. Nury came with us to tour Neruda's house and even talked them into discounting our admission because of how we had been treated in their city. She was actually really funny. She pretended to be our tour guide at the house, ¨And this is where Neruda came when he wanted to be inspired to write...¨so she could lead us to his garden to pick figs from his tree. They were delish! We ate them for lunch.






Here we are in Neruda's house. He had some amazing views of the city and the sea from his bedroom:









Nury told us about a farmers market in nearby Viña del Mar so we went the next day:


We even tried some cactus pears. Everyone stopped to warn us gringas about the thorns in the pear's skin, but we still ended up with a few splinters in our fingers. We learned to only eat the center--it tastes like a melon with seeds.


After eating all that fresh fruit, we stopped to buy some chicken for dinner. Unfortunately, we lost our appetites.... and reminisced about our days as vegetarians.






Sorry to be so graphic, but we want to be honest with you. It's not all glaciers and sunsets out here.





Since we're on the subject of telling you how it is, this is how we buy milk now.... in bags or boxes, warm on a shelf:



This is our dorm room that sleeps 10 and costs about $12 per night. (You can see Amy's bed on the right with the sleeping bag.) We shared a thin wall with the owner's bedroom so he lulled us to sleep every night, snoring like a grizzly bear ;)



Another funny thing is toilet paper. You´re lucky to get any in public bathrooms. This nice lady stands outside the bathroom in a major department store and rolls little bundles of toilet paper that you have to purchase for about 25 cents:



Today we went to Pablo Neruda's other house in Isla Negra, about 90 minutes outside Valparaiso by bus. This man was an artist and derived meaning from all his favorite things in life and displayed them in his house. He put seashells in the floors to massage his feet, and collected everything from colored glass to African tribal masks, butterflies and beetles. He wrote only in green ink because it he said it was the color of hope and life. It was fascinating and inspiring, a beautiful home.

He built this house to resemble a ship and even made a writing desk out of driftwood that turned out to be from the deck of a ship. He lived here with his third wife and died here in 1973 at the age of 69. It is said to be his favorite of his three homes.

The graves of Neruda and his wife, Matilde, are in the foreground with the house behind us:

His living room with his collection of ship figureheads from around the world:



Another bedroom with breathtaking views of the ocean:


The tuxedo he wore to accept his Nobel Prize:



He really liked mosaics and glass bottles:

More ocean views from the front of the house at sunset:


We were very excited to get some beach time in Valparaiso. We came prepared with spray tans, pedicures and sunscreen, but it didn't happen. It's winter here and though it was pretty sunny, it wasn't quite beach weather. However, we saw some gorgeous views of the coast and ate some great seafood, even a crab empanada.

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Bus Pics

We spend 12-19 hours at a time on buses so we find ways to pass the time. Usually, we sleep, listen to our ipods, talk about life on the road, write in our journals or even try to read the newspaper in Spanish. But once in awhile if we're really lucky, the bus passes by something, and we frantically dig out our cameras....

Storm cloud at Sunset (bus ride from Bariloche to Mendoza, AR):










Playing Bus Bingo (We thought Pascale won so she went down to claim her prize, but someone had beat her to it. She was super upset.):

Puente del Inca & Penitentes, Argentina

If Los Antiguos was smaller than a breadbox, then these towns are smaller than a thimble--put together. They are less like towns and more like a few scattered hostels, outdoor markets and restaurants alongside the highway to Chile.

Puente del Inca:

Penitentes (4 miles down the road):



When we got there, it was a windy evening and felt like we had landed in an eery ghost town with half the places shut down because it's low tourist season. There was only a handful of people around, and it took us a little while to find them after our bus dropped us off in front of the gas station.

We finally located our hostel, and we were its only guests. Miriam was inside awaiting our arrival:

It was sort of nice to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere, surrounded by huge mountains on every side and under a night sky scattered with the brightest stars.

Pascale crossing the highway to go back to our hostel:


So what brings us here? The tallest mountain in South America: Aconcagua. Its name is an indigenous ¨Quechua¨word, which means ¨Stone Guardian.¨ At an altitude of nearly 7000 meters (23,000 feet), it is the highest mountain outside the Himalayas. (Aconcagua is the one in the middle with the snow.)

We know what you're thinking: it doesn't look like it's the tallest mountain around. In Aconcagua's defense, it is far away here and surrounded by other VERY tall mountains.

Can you see Pascale in this picture?



Another reason we made this stop: Puente del Inca boasts these colorful thermal springs and bridge. Pascale noted their resemblance to squash.



Notice the abandoned church in the background:



We had seen everything in about a day and again headed out just before the rain and clouds came in. We were lucky enough to find this nice little sherpa to carry our things to the bus stop (gas station)....



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