This Southern Cali City Slicker is off to Chile: January 2011

But when Sofia arrived at the train station to pick us up at midnight she had other things in mind! It was 2 days after Christmas and 3 of us girls decided to take the week we had off of work to explore another part of Chile. We flew into Santiago and took a 1.5 hour bus ride from there to Vina Del Mar. Sofia was a friend of Chelsea, one of the girls I went with, and had invited us to stay in her apartment.

She popped out of the car with a cigarette in her right hand and a smile that turned our tired expressions into an energy that we were saving for another day. She proceeded to say, in Spanish of course, “tell me you want to go out! “ We momentarily looked at each other stunned and then all looked at her and shook our heads yes eagerly.

Let’s not forget that it was midnight on a Monday night. But here in Chile the bars stay open until 5am, so what else do you do when you are in a foreign country but live like the people who live there! We returned to her house around 4:30 am and I finally went to sleep. Every night after that pretty much went the same.

My eyes opened with difficulty and my head slowly pounded the next morning, but once I had some toast and a lot of water I was ready to discover the city. Vina del Mar means winery by the sea. Because it’s only about 30 minutes away from one of Chile’s wine regions. The day was overcast but warm enough to slip on some shorts and pull over a Tshirt. The bathing suits and sunscreen were naively left behind like orphans. We headed to the beach and found a nice spot on the sand to sit. Sitting turned into deep hangover sleep. We awoke to a pack of stray dogs laying in front of us and the burning sun laughing at our carelessness. He was right to laugh for we had committed a crime of negligent sleeping.

As the fog cleared from our sleepy heads we made for the boardwalk that was lined with a ribbon of arts and craft merchants selling everything from jewelry that stains your fingers black to wallets made in god know where? But one of the best things I did that whole trip was walk over to the food stand and buy a churro. It wasn’t just any kind of Churro, it was the most devilishly delicious piece of warm dough stuffed with dulce de lechce and drenched in so much chocolate that when the lady took it out of the display case it dripped all over the glass. I was in chocolate churro heaven.

One of the days we visited the neighboring city called Valapario. It was less affluent than Vina, but what it lacked in wealth it made up for with its rich culture. Valapariso was the home to Pablo Neruda the famous poet and is the home to many Chileans. The multi-colored homes are coarsely painted on a steep hill that overlooks the sea. Valapariso was like reading a Dr, Suisse book. Like every page of the book, every street would have a new predicament. If not visible at the moment, suspicion whispered it once there. On each corner there was another art or music school or a cozy café to stop and have a reflective cup of coffee. The viewpoints casted views of immaculately polished houses alongside tarnished neighborhoods The blemished neighborhoods seemed to have survived a catastrophic earthquake the year earlier, but had not been rebuilt. I was able to see into the backside of a house. It provided me with a peephole to imagine how the family lived, how they gathered for meals, and how they cried when they suffered. It was a special place with so many stories to uncover and to create. Unfortunately we only had one day and all we read was the introduction.

If you told me that I would be trying to keep pace with a grandma running to catch a glimpse of the fireworks at 11:50 pm on New Years Eve, I would not have believed you. But it is true. Sofia had invited her family over for New Years Eve. We had decorated with balloons and streamers earlier that day. Sofia had gone out many times throughout the day, each time returning with another party favor for the evening. We were instructed to make an appetizer for the event and we chose to make good old fashion garlic bread. It was a hit by the way! It is common that during this holiday everyone who is able to spends New Years Eve with his or her family all the way until midnight and then if you are up for it you go out. But going out is by no means saved for the young. At 1am there were many older adults standing in line to get into bars. A stroke of guilt overcame me on this day because from the time I was able to I went to hangout with my friends and left my parental to fend for herself on New Years Eve. I mean it’s not just me; many Americans would rather hang out with their friends then celebrate it with immediate family. It is very strange and somewhat sad how family in the U.S. is so much more separated than in other cultures.

Anyways, as I ran behind Sofia’s grandma there was such an excitement in the air. It could have been all the people running in the same direction in the streets, it could have been that it was about to be a fresh new year of possibilities, or it could have just been the tequila sunrise I was holding in my left hand! Whatever it was, I made time pause for a quick second so I could take a mental note of the energy.

Happy New Year!

Why does staying up until the next morning feel like such an accomplishment? It’s a battle you fight with your mind and body I guess. We had 8am bragging rights and where quite proud of it. But would pay for our lack of sleep later. We rose at noon on New Years day to a fog of gloomy goodbyes. Our flight out of Santiago was at 6:20pm. So, we decided to have a quick lunch and then catch a taxi to the bus station to get on our 1.5 hour bus ride to Santiago. In a rush to find a taxi we ran out of Sofia’s apartment to the main street. Many cars passed, but no taxi’s! We started walking in the direction of the bus station hoping that one would pass. When none passed we surrendered to our fate of walking the rest of the way. Of course when we arrived all the buses that we needed where sold out. We were able to get tickets for the 4pm bus. That was really cutting it close, but what else could we do but hope that we would make it. We ran into the Santiago airport at 6pm sweating and distressed. Emily had bitten off all the nails on one hand. I went up to the LAN airlines lady handed her my flight number and she gave a look to another guy and he looked up and said, “Esta cerado” which means, it’s closed. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

We were put on standby for the next flight at 1:10am. That meant we had to entertain ourselves in the airport for 6 hours and we couldn’t go through security check since we were on standby. Somehow we found an all you can eat buffet. We decided to occupy a booth for as long as possible and that way whenever we got hungry we would have something to eat from the buffet! It was a great idea until 3 hours in they closed the buffet. Functioning on our reserve energy we decided to find a nice quiet place to sleep. It was quiet, it was dark, but it was on the ceramic floor. But that didn’t matter to 3 sleep deprived girls. We all collapsed onto our out stretched beach towels, now serving an imperative cause, and fell soundly asleep!