Hotel Camino Del Alto Vina del Mar

I evo me, nakon 13-satnog leta sletjela u "hladni, zimski" santiago (svega 4 stupnja u 8 ujutro, poslije nekih 10). nakon sto sam se jucer u madridu skuhala na +40, izdrndala se u busu i metrou dok sam dosla do zracne luke, kupila kartu iz santiaga za buenos aires za 2. 7. jer me inace ne bi ni pustili u avion za santiago jer cu biti ovdje duze od 90 dana, dizala pare s razlicitih kartica jer sam vec presla limit, usla u avion (preznojavajuci se nakon ...

... while others were brown or full of green trees on the mountain sides.<br><br>The taxi van took five of us International Student Exchange Program students to our host families. The drive was about an hour and a half, and my stop was first. I got out of the van and was quickly greeted by my host mother, Margarita, her dog, Clifford, and my host father, Oscar. They welcomed me with a hug and kiss on the cheek (their way of greeting ...

... one of 6 stone head statues that are not on the island. The upstairs natural history portion had a ton of bugs on pins in shadow boxes (made me a little scared for the Amazon!) and an interesting display on how they used to make shrunken heads from their enemies in a region of northern Chile/Bolivia/Ecuador (this display was in Spanish only, but we are about to head to that region, so I hope it is only from the past!). We strolled through the main market ...

... them. We took a day trip to Cachagua (two hours north of here) where we walked on huge rocks along the shore and were staring at the huge blue waves that were so powerful. It was beautiful to sit and relax, lying on the rocks in the sun. There were also real penguins!!! I really can't stress enough how amazing it is to see all the houses arranged in no order along the huge hillsides next to this big ocean bay.

... reached Cruce, but where the heck could I take a microbus? The bus steward didn't know, but luckily my Spanish had returned after calming down, and a local was able to give me directions. I hopped onto the microbus, but realized I had no idea where to get off. Again, some locals helped point me in the right direction and told me where the Valpo bus stop was. But it turned out the stop was for a different bus company, and not Turbus, the company I ...

... we had finished eating it was well and truely dark and as we had no torch we thought it best to head back to the town where we continued to drink our many bottles of wine. I didn't even like red wine before we came to South America and now I seem to drink a lot of it. I'm sure that can't be good for you! On Boxing Day we decided to go for a long walk around the town, to try to work off all the food and wine from yesterday. We walked along the beach as far as we could and then ...

... by tons of little cafes and restaurants and lots of awesome graffiti work. The vibe of the area is absolutely bohemian feeling. Apparently a lot of Germans, Brits, and French have now settled here and made this area their home. In contrast to the rest of Chile we´ve seen, where there are tons of stray dogs, this is also the first area we´ve seen stray cats as well.. and consequently as a result of the two (not to mention numerous pigeons), there´s also all ...

... colors and Valpo is known for its hills, ascensors to get up them, one of three Pablo Neruda houses (communist? seriously?) and some crazy-good graffiti/murals. The reason I went was because our program's Chilean student/guide informed us of a free rock concert there with three guys I'd never heard of before. Basically, it was more than a good enough reason for me to go because I've been jonesing for some living Chilean music, so I left from Santiago the day after a ...

... we learned that we would be dropped off with our entire group which included 10 other people. Being as our hotel was the farthest and traffic was horrible we opted to take the metro which was two blocks away. We battled the rush hour metro crowd in full ski gear and made it back to our hotel in under 30 minutes. For dinner we went to a restaurant serving up traditional Chilean dishes which for us meant a large bowl of ...

... bit sad, but also somewhat excited to spend some more time there. I did a week of Spanish lessons at a small Spanish school in downtown Santiago. I signed up for group lessons because it was cheapest, but since it is somewhat of a transitional season, I lucked out and got private lessons at the same price. My professor was really good- by far, the best that I've had. Of course, it makes sense given that he has a Master's degree in linguistics ...