Hostelling International Valparaiso

... on. On wednesday ISA threw a Fiestas Patrias party with empanadas and traditional games out the wazoo. Afterwards Katie and I walked over to Puerto and took the Ascensor Artillería up into the cerro where we walked around a bit more. To continue with gringo festivities, a bunch of us met up in Valparaíso that night. It was actually one of the first nights that I went out with primarily gringos.... gringos ...

... times I feel like I'm doing a great job of expressing myself, while at others I feel like a complete huahua, the word for a Chilean baby.... I guess minus the being Chilean part. Either way, I'm doing my best and trying to challenge myself as much as possible. I can't wait until classes start and I'm no longer milling around Chile in a massive group of Americans.<br><br> I'm almost positive I've left a lot out, but here are some things that I find ...

My bus to Mendoza doesn´t leave until tonight so I walked into a cafe earlier today in hopes of finding some (always extremely milky over here) tea and a place to crack open my book. In passing another foreigner, I noticed an American bill floating to the ground in front of me (having fallen out of somewhere belonging to the person at the table in front of me) so I bent down to pick it up and hand it back ...

... freaking city on this side of SouthAmericaa, has a lot of steep hills. To deal with this, they built cable-pulled 'ascensors', basically single car, one stop cable cars where as one goes up its partner on a parallel track comes down. The main tourist spot is a hill called Cerro Conception, which is covered with B&amp;B's and restaurants and tourist shops, but still has a lot of character. The houses are painted ...

... will pass through Vina del Mar and Renaca before arriving in Concon. Vina and Renaca are the cleaner and trendier parts of coastal Chile, inhabited by majority of wealthier people with European descent (vs. indigenous). Yesterday we started off by going to the beach as Ricardo suggested. However, I didn´t realize Ricardo´s idea invovled a two hour continuous walk along the coastline from Concon to Renaca. Seriously! My feet were killing and I had some more tan lines to ...

... up from the coastline and which have a range of buildings from mansions to shacks in a completely sprawling layout &amp; many of which are either brightly painted or covered in murals/street art or just graffiti ... very cool &amp; very different. I stayed in a hostel up in one of the "cerros" ... was a decent enough place if perhaps a little overhyped in the guidebook, not too surprisingly as the author of the Chilean section apparently owns the hostel ! The ...

... Stadt sind Wände entweder besprüht oder bemalt...ich habe also 4 Tage hintereinander Uhralte Aufzüge ( manche sind alter als 100 Jahre) die Berge nach oben genommen um dann zu Fuss wieder runter zu laufen und mir die Gegend anzuschauen....sehr sehr cool.... Einen Tag haben wir dann ein Boot genommen und sind raus zum Flugzeugträger gefahren und wieder zurück in den Hafen....nicht wirklich das schönste was ich gemacht habe aber wat solls.....

... we'll complete the walking tour and hopefully get to know the town which is famous for being the most attractive in the whole of Chile. I'm not really seeing that at the moment but I'll keep my options open! <br><br>Tomorrow night we take that night bus (full cama stylee) to Pucon at 9pm and arrive early the next morning.<br><br><br>Hope all is well with you, lots of love, <br><br><br>Al &amp; Katie xx