Hostal Portobello Valparaiso

Being so tired from dancing the night away at the wedding, we were just ready to make the trek back to Atlanta. But not before taking advantage of $36 USD massages at the hotel. Let's just say you get what you pay for...

We met up with Kimberlyn, Cristian, and their parents for a delicious lunch at No Me Olvides in Olmue before driving back to their cute place in Curauma. We said good bye and they put us on a bus to Santiago with instructions about ...

I have to confess that as we drove into Valparaiso it wasn't looking quite like the pics I'd seen but once we'd arrived at our hostel - in a street of multicoloured Terrace houses filled with flowers, I was in love. Wandering around the streets on our Hill it just got better. There seems to be a fairly big frenchFrench influence - cos there's heaps of french restuarants serving ...

... I could do that every night... even if flying beer drenched my hair every time Chile scored a goal.
On Thursday I went with Evelyn to the apartment of a Spanish guy named Carlos. It was actually awesome because there were Spaniards galore, Chileans, some French girls, and a few American girls. We sat around and conversed and spoke different languages, and then headed out to a dance place called, La Sala. It was a really chill night, which was nice ...

... Mauri (cerca de La Sebastiana, una de las casas de Pablo Neruda). El primer grupo se llama "La Bandalismo" y es un grupo del norte grande que toca musica folclorico. Todos bailabamos harto y cuando tocaron "Mambo de Machaguay" (de los Jaivas) todos gritabamos "MAMBO!!". Fue una noche perfecta.

13 de agosto:

Theora Nico y and I wanted to go see Quilipayśn, but we all got sidetrack by different things and Theora decided not to come ...

... a 30 minute drive). Another group of exchange students (around 10 of them) met up with us there. They had just arrived in Chile last week. About 35 of us students and a couple coordinators went with a few tour guides on the horse ride! When I first got on my horse, it wouldn't move at all. I kept kicking it, and one of the tour guides finally got it to get moving. My horse didn't remain stubborn for long. Once everyone was ...

... There were also stray dogs lying around everywhere, even in the gutters, making cars & buses swerve to avoid them. Another thing about South America is that there are very few public loos & those that there are charge an entrance fee & also charge for paper. The poor in Valparaiso have found a way round this - they pee in the hedges. Valparaiso bay is surrounded by small hills (cerros) which are where the posh(er) residential ...

... today, and there weren't any hostel staff around. An American guy called Jeremy was leaving at the same time, so I walked/bussed to the bus station with him. The bus ride back to Santiago was next to a woman who had been born in Chile, but adopted by a Swedish family. She had just come back for the first time in 30 years to meet her family. This time I was able to see the scenery on the trip. There were fruit trees and ...

... saving more pesos and ham-and-cheese heartache. Once again, this is hardly necessary in Asia, where a decent meal in a small eatery not only costs about a buck, not only tastes good, but has even got vegetables. Remember them? Of course if you want to bang the local bimbos (bimbas?), then a hostel's not the place for that. That's probably another reason traveling women are attracted to hostels in free-for-all Asia, where everybody's ...

{please select "view all photos" or "view as slideshow" above, or click on any photo to see the full album} Independence Day: Celebrating the freedom To roast a whole sheep Last week was Fiestas Patrias here in Chile, an almost week long celebration of September 18, 1810 when Chile declared independence from Spain (it's like our July 4th). We arrived in Valparaiso ...