Plaza de Armas y Paseo Ahumada, Santiago, Chile

This was the best video I could find about the "tourist track" in Santiago. The Paseo Ahumada is a pedestrian only walkway which was great for people watching, although I it is contrasted with the most abject poverty I've ever seen.

Of course, there are panhandlers/beggars or whatever you want to call them but I saw 2 men who were laying on the ground, shirtless and with their cups out for spare change. What was different about them though were both these men were hunchbacks.

Like hunchbacks so bad they couldn't stand up straight. This was something I never thought I'd see. I don't know anything about the Chilean medical system so I don't know if these men get free medical care and they are just begging for money for booze (this is one case where I can definitely see being an alcoholic) but it was very disturbing and sad.

And yes, I did give them money.

Santiago, Chile

I returned to Santiago by bus from Valparaiso. Santiago was actually a pretty cool city and I wish I had budgeted more time to visit. I only spent about 2 days there.

The subway is the extensive and very cheap and there are quite a few vegetarian restuarants. I've always heard people from Argentina are supposed to be so attractive but I thought the Chilean people were much better looking on the whole (and not a man bun in sight).

I rented an apartment which is definitely the way to go if you're going to be more than a few days. I recommend Inmoba Apartments which are located in the Providencia section of town. This was the area I liked best, although Barrio Bellavista was also great--this area is full of cafes, restaurants and bars. While I like travelling solo, I'm not a fan of eating by myself and as a female, I don't really want to chance going to a bar solo in a foreign country.

Which is why I like renting short term aparmtents. You pay the same or less as a hotel and you can buy your own food/wine. I love checking out grocery stores in different countries (did you know that in England they call eggplants aubergines? Learned it in a grocery store. Oh snap.)

Then I climbed to the top of Cerro Cristobal, which wasn't entirely intentional. I was wandering around and saw all these people heading up a walking path so I decided to follow. When I saw the zoo (it's at the bottom of the hill) I knew where I was but if I had known how high that freaking hill is, I probably wouldn't have attempted it.

It's a pretty gentle incline but it NEVER ends! You cant take a funicular (they have these in Valparaiso too) but I was too far in for that. There are benches along the way to take a break so it wasn't really too bad.

The day I went, there was some kind of religious festival going on (how many religious festivals can one person get caught in in Latin America?...I was hotel bound for 3 days once in Costa Rica because of Easter Week where everything shuts down. Did not know that before I booked the trip).

There is a church and HUGE statue of the Virgin Mary at the top of the hill. As well as refreshment stands selling this weird drink of peach juice with huge wheat kernels in it (mote con huesillo). I wasn't brave enough to try one.

The view from the top of the hill was definitely worth the trek although the smog kinda kills it.

Vina del Mar, Chile

Vina is a short subway ride from Valparaiso. You can catch the train at Estacion Puerto and you have to buy a subway card. The ride is only about 25 minutes and Vina is a world away from Valparaiso. Where Valpo is working class, Vina is the Chilean version of posh.

I exited at Estacion Vina which is near the Parque Quinta Vergara, a nice park with horse drawn carriages. I chose this exit because it was the closest to the Corporacion Museo de Arquelogio e Historia Francisco Fock (or the Fock Museum). The Fock Museum is quite small but focuses on the inhabitants of Easter Island (Isla Pascua) and actually has a Moai head outside. It was surrounded by a by a bunch of bushes and I had heard that people had vandalized it. WTF?

Anyway, it was a great little museum and it also featured a section on Shrunken Heads (not sure why) but very informative.

Vina is also famous for a Flower Clock (Reloj de Flores) but it wasn't that exciting to me.

Overall, I much prefer Valpo to Vina...it just seems more alive.

Valparaiso, Chile

The first time I ever heard of Valparaiso was Valparaiso, Indiana. I thought what a weird name---little did I know years later I would read some Isabel Allende novels.

After I read Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia by Isabella Allende, I fell in love with the idea of Valparasio. A port town built on a hill, full of adventure and excitement, longing and heartbreak.

The real Valparaiso lived up to it's expectations. I took a bus from Santiago (about an hour) and ended up at the downtown Valparaiso bus station. I stayed at the Da Vince Hotel which is located on Cerro Alegre.It's close to everything. And the owner was lovely....he actually gave me a hug after I left.

Be forewarned, to live Valparaiso is to have super strong calf muscles. They aren't joking when they say there are a lot of hills. I mean it's a workout just to get to the store. But it's so worth it.

I went to a couple vegetarian restaurants (who knew there would be so many?). I went to Bambu, where there was this super cute little kid in a Ramones T-shirt. And also went to Jardin del Profeta where they made the best pumpkin soup.

There was a lot of walking around since Valpo isn't high on museums (although the poet Pable Neruda had a house there). But it was just amazing walking all the hills. It really put San Francisco to shame.

This city reminded me of Guanajuato, Mexico.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanajuato,_Guanajuato

I hope one day to be able to go back. There was a fabulous walking path that encompassed the who port and it was amazing. This is one of the towns you dream of but I'm not so sure I'd like to live there, Did I mention how steep the hills were?? It made it difficult just to run to the local market.

Crossing the Andes by bus...

It's actually fairly easy to catch the bus from Mendoza to Santiago, Chile although I was a little apprehensive since we had to cross the Andes Mountains (aka the mountains where the Uruguayan soccer team crashed and had to eat each other, aka the movie Alive).

You leave Mendoza from the bus terminal (there are plenty of companies offering this trip and you can buy tickets the day of but get there before 10 a.m. because the buses only leave once a day in the morning).

The Argentinian part of the trip is a fairly gradual ascent and you pass by vineyards on the way up the mountains. I went in early November (the beginning of summer there) but I think they close the pass in their winter.

After about 3 hours, you get to the Los Libertadores border crossing. There are tons of cars, buses and trucks all waiting to cross the border (having grown up crossing the Detroit/Windsor crossing to Canada it was nothing new to me but a lot of people seemed bored/annoyed/in urgent need of a restroom.

You have to go through the exit visa line from Argentina, then go to the enter Chile line and then get everything searched and then they put everything back on the bus (BTW, the people who load your bags back on to the bus expect/demand a tip (una propina). They don't work for the bus companies so I guess this is free enterprise at it's purest.

It reminds me of Danielle's story about the guys in Brazil who, for a tip, watch your parked car and "guard" it against thieves. Yeah, right like they're going to risk getting jacked up from some car thieves for a $1-2 tip!

The Chilean side is much steeper and there were a few times I actively cringed but it wasn't as scary as I thought...a few hairpin turns and tipping to one side precariously....no worries.

You arrive in the downtown Santiago bus station which is a bit dodgy so definitely take a cab.

All in all, it was much preferable to flying (again with the Alive scenario) and I'm actually not sure if there are flights?

Mendoza, Argentina

Wine country!!! I thought I'd be right at home but I didn't enjoy Mendoza as much as I thought I would. On first glance, (taxi from the airport) I thought it looked like California...dusty, warm, dry. And I guess it is, what with all the vineyards and olive oil production, but something was still lacking.

Although I would love to give it another chance because I feel it could grow on you.

It's a sleepy town with not much else to do besides tour/bicycle the vineyards. I didn't see a building higher than two stories. A big change from BA.

I did a wine and olive oil tour. Also walked around alot. It is a nice city for walking and I stayed at two different hotels. Ibis Hotel when I first got there---great hotel but not near the city center and Argentino Hotel which is adjacent to the main plaza, Plaza Independencia. The plaza has a small museum, a nice fountain and tons of market stalls. I bought some fernet as a gift for a friend. For some reason, Argentinian people are obsessed with this drink. It tastes basically like Sambouca, which is iffy at the best of times.

The town is a little sleepy but I wouldn't mind going back and checking it out again. I went there in order to be able to take the bus to Santiago, Chile and avoid the $140 airport fee if I had flown into Chile. Plus I wanted to be able to say I had taken a bus across the Andes (aka the mountains where the Uruguayan soccer team crashed and had to eat the corpses to survive).

You can take a bus across these mountains very easily and very cheaply, although they weren't nearly as big as I thought they would be. In fact, I felt a little jipped. But it still was beautiful scenery and hairpin curves at points. You go through customs half-way and as is usual, you are expected to tip all the bag handlers. Travel time to Santiago is about 5 hours or so.

La Boca

One of the obligatory tourist stops in Buenos Aires is the area called La Boca (the mouth) which was the original port. This is the area of brightly colored tin sided houses you see in all the postcards and photos.

The area surrounding La Boca is completely dodgy but the main tourist street La Caminita is ok. I've read some reviews of this area where people were told they could walk there and were promtply mugged in the middle of the afternoon. Seriously, don't walk here. If you want to go the economical way, take the subway to the last blue line stop, Constitucion and take a cab the rest of the way. Even our cab driver warned us how sketchy the area is, but it is pretty.

Known as the birthplace of the tango, there are plenty of couples willing to demonstrate outside of restaurants and shops. If you take your picture with them you have to tip but little did Danielle and I know that even if you sat at the restaurant and didn't have anything to do with them, they will still expect tips. Although it was worth it watching the guy dancer having to pick up every overweight tourist and pose with them in his arms.

All the shops just sell tacky tourist crap and as you walk down the street, you will be accosted to come in to whatever restaurant you happen to be walking by. We decided on one which had a guy who was sporting the famous Argentinian man bun. See below.

Obviously that's not the real pic of the guy we saw but when I google imaged "man bun" I learned there's apparently a whole sub strata of women who dig this 'do. They should just go to Argentina...just about every guy down there is rocking the man bun.

I know it sounds like I didn't like La Boca, but it is pretty and I had a good time. Will I ever go back? No. But it's a place you should definitely see if you're in town.