Wierd museum exhibitions and a luxurious bus trip

  Valparaiso, Chile
Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Dinner last night was at one of the many cafes near to 'La Casa Roja', where I was staying. I grabbed an 'un completo' (long hamburger bun with fresh salsa, beef, sour cream, cheese, tomato sauce and mustard) and jugo de naranja (orange juice), which cost 2100 pesos (about $6). I went to have a nap when got back to the hostel, but ended up sleeping for hours. This was lucky because most of the people in the hostel were out partying, making lots of noise walking past our room. It was noisy from about midnight till 4am, then got noisy again at 6am when people were leaving for the airport!

La Casa Roja fom the roadside

I bought breakfast of a toasted bun and scrambled eggs from the hostel and sat in their courtyard to eat it.

Breakfast in the courtyard at La Casa Roja

After breakfast I checked out, but put my bags into the storage room at the hostel. Yesterday I'd met a couple of Canadian girls and had decided to go to some museums with them. We headed first to a exhibition about Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego. Although some of Frida's paintings are quite intense, it was nothing compared to the next museum. The Museum of Modern Art had an exhibition by Jan Fabre, and there many of his works were made out of parts of the human body. He'd also stuffed dead cats and dogs and put them in a party scene. It wass very wierd.

Santiago seemed a much bigger city today. There are many walking streets and a lot of people on all of them. There were many street vendors selling mainly cold drinks and ice creams, as it was very hot. Apparently today was 32C, and yesterday was 34C.

Lunch with Courtney and Kayla, my Canadian friends

Lunch was at a small and busy cafe. We had menu del dia (Dish of the day) as there waas no other option. We had the vegetarian version of it which was bread with salsa, soup (not sure what was in it), a huge plate of lots of different fresh vegetables and watermelon to finish.

I think it'll be one of the last salads I have in South America, because Chile is pretty safe but I wouldn't trust something like that in Peru or Bolivia.We visited a fruit store on the way back to the hostel and I got some delicious plums and cherries.

My friend from the bus

We grabbed our bags from the hostel, caught the metro to the bus station at Pajaritos, and got the bus to Valparaiso. The bus ride was about 1.5 hours and I was sitting next to a lovely lady from Santiago. Luckily she could speak english because my spanish is still pretty bad, but I'm getting by. The bus ride was great - on time and tons of leg room.

At the bus station at Valparaiso I jumped in a taxi and headed to my new home - Patiperro hostel. Its really cute here. I've only just arrived, so I need to go and make some new friends to hang out with for the next couple of days.

Patiperro Hostel - the red house on the right.