CHILE!!

In reality this trip was Sept. 3-6th, but seeing that I have completely failed with my blogging duties I am barely getting around to doing this now. This trip was amazing! I literally fell in love with the country of Chile on my trip here. We only had a weekend, so see all we could of Chile and I would say we did great!
Santiago- Day 1
The first day of our travel consisted of flying into Chile in the morning, and before we landed we flew over the Andes mountains which were full of snow, so the view was beautiful. After arriving we went straight to the hostel, taking the subte and a bus- but in order to take these amazing modes of transportation we first had to exchange our money for Chilean pesos. This seems like an easy task but we had not looked up the conversion rate of Argentine pesos to Chilean pesos, nor the conversion rate of a Chilean peso to the US dollar before coming on this trip, and so when we traded in 100 Argentine pesos ($25 USD) and got back about 10,000 Chilean pesos that looked like monopoly play money, we were very confused. We eventually got the coversion, so we were all good. We got to the hostel, put our stuff down, and literally left right away to explore the city of Santiago. Before coming to Santiago, I had looked online of things to do there and everyone seemed to really put it down, so I was a bit skeptical at this point. Our day turned out to be amazing. Our first adventure was to get to the top of this mountain where the Virgen Mary statue was that had an amazing view of the city called the Cerro San Cristobal. To get to the top we took a cable car and when you get to the top you can see all of the city! It's crazy! This place is also an outside church, where weekly mass i held. At the top near the Virgen Mary statue there are candles where vigils are held and a million or more notes to the Virgen. A very tranquil, beautiful place where we spent a lot of time. After getting down from the mountain, we just started walking around the city. The one thing I really liked about the city of Santiago is that it has a lot of open space (plazas), where people from all around the city congregate. Like the day we were visiting, there were men playing chess under a gazebo and it just really seemed that although it is such a big city there is still a really big sense of community. We basically did Santiago in one day- which is absolutely and completely crazy- but it can be achieved as is proven by me and my friends. On our walk we came across this castle, yes a real castle, that has about 3 different levels where you can climb to and each floor has a better view of the city. Imagine a nature wonderland and that is what this castle was. We also passed by Chile's white house and other plazas. After our feet about dying, we returned back to the hostel and got ready for dinner. On our travels, we had also gotten a flyer saying that there was going to be a concert in one of the plazas in preparation for the country's bicentennial celebration-which was the following week. We ended up going to this and it was huge. Tons of people were there and it was a choir concert. It was really nice to see a lot of the community come out and be together!

Valparaiso y Vina del Mar- Day 2
We got up early only knowing that we had to go to the bus station in order to catch a bus to Valparaiso, not know what time the buses left or what we were going to do once we actually got to Valparaiso. We ended up being able to take a bus that left about 20 minutes after we bought our tickets and the bus ride was about 2 hours. Once we got there, we got off only having a free map we had been given from a nagging salesperson trying to sell a tour in Valpo. This actually came through and we walked through one of the main avenues which is lined with palm trees- yes I felt like I was back home in San Diego! Our next destination became making it to Pablo Neruda's home (famous Chilean writer), who has a home in Valparaiso. His house is nestled in the hills of the city, and we decided to trek up about a 45 degree incline for most of it. We finally made it and his house was beautiful and there was a beautiful view of the city and beach! The houses were all differently colored and I definitely felt as though I was in South America. It was absolutely gorgeous! After checking out his house and taking the tour, we were on a mission to make it to the beach. I must also note that the weather was spectacular, the sun was blazing, and this was the first time since being on this trip that I was able to wear a tank top, without even thinking about putting on a jacket- pure bliss! Before we went to the beach we stopped at the Reloj de flores (flower clock), which is a famous landmark here, and the beach ended up being right next to it! We layed on the beach for about 3 hours and just took in the sun, which has now resulted in an odd tan on my legs, seeing that I rolled up my jeans, but since my legs have still been confined to clothing, the tan line has yet to leave. Such a beautiful day, we cruised back home and went to dinner at this amazing restaurant that was really close to our hostel.

Random places- Day 3
Our third day started off very stange, when our hostel didn't have internet and we were scheduled to do a tour with this group that was going to take us a mine, some wetlands, and an old whalery, but we hadn't looked up where we were supposed to meet them and figured we would just do it in the morning. We had already gotten up to be ready at 8 am, so we decided to take to the streets and see if we could remember where we were supposed to meet. Coming back to the hostel, feeling saddened and like failures, we see this guy who had come in a van go into our hostel. Apparently they had remember that we were staying in this hostel, and since we had not showed up they ended up coming to our hostel to pick us up. It was great! We hurried up and hopped in the van and started on our adventure for the day. Our first stop was a quartz mine and we got a tour from the owner. We learned about how the different colors represent different things and got a piece of pink quartz which is supposed to bring love and peace to you. Next stop was to a secluded beach town near Valparaiso. This is where we got to check out an old whalery- where they used to kill whales in large numbers. It's crazy that a place like this even exists! We also had some fish in a restaurant, as the town is known for its fish, but knowing how picky I am and my scared-ness (word?-who knows? ) to eat fish, made me chicken out and eat a burger. Yes I know a lame move. But I did try some of the fish and it was delicious- because it didn't taste like fish! We continued to check out this beach and then made our way to our last stop which was to some wetlands. This last beach was pure bliss and absolutely one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. In the background, there were grassy hills, the beach was almost untouched and sprinkled with large rocks jutting out of the ocean. So beautiful. From here we explored this little oasis and went to about 3 different spots of this and had to trek through some forest along the way too. This concluded the trip and we headed back home to BA the next morning!