Richard’s Reckless Travels

So this journey is finally coming to an end. It´s kind of weird how time really just flew by. After a while of travelling, time just kind of jumps into cruise control and flies by quicker than anything I´ve ever experienced before. Everytime I´ve gone to a hostel I´ve chatted up a group of people and end up passing my whole day galavanting around the city with them. Yesterday the German girl I hung out with at the beach the previous day left (I think I´m meeting her in Santiago today before my flight leaves) left, and I bought my bus ticket for Santiago so I´m not pressed for time when my flight finally rolls around.

Upon returning I watched the Arsenal v. Blackburn game with these British guys (never seen so much televised soccer in my life – it´s awesome). A guy I met in Santiago showed up at the hostel (Issei Nakaya – a 28 year old freelance boxing journalist from Japan). We went with James, a former Australian lawyer (got tired of his job and quit), as well as Johannes, a 21 year old uni student in Germany, to Mercado del Puerto which is supposed to be the best place in the city to get fish.

The weather for the day, which had initially been overcast and disappointing, suddenly immediately changed to blue skies and bloody sunny during our walk to the restaurant. The restaurant is in the part of Valpo that is really falling apart, and that adds to the experience. That experienced is further enhanced by the band that plays in the restaurant, the paper-thin 2nd floor we sat on, along with the makeshift homemade staircase that goes up to the 2nd floor. Menu of the day – 1800 pesos. Sounds good. Following some difficulties while being lost in translation (cebolla = onion), we got our amazing fish (scales, tail, and spinal cord included!) along with some potatoes and some onion and tomato sidedish – ensalada chilleno.

Issei, who has enough trouble with English (in light of him having lived in Brooklyn for 5 years), let alone Spanish, ordered a 1.6 litre water. Upon receiving the bill he discovered that his water cost 2000 pesos (a little more than 5 dollars, and 200 pesos more than the meal itself). He then proceeded to flip out in English, Japanese, and Spanish all at the same time, and did his best to argue the ludicrous price he was to pay. He did so, albeit unsuccessfully.

We returned home where I took a siesta (which was shortened due to the vicious bedbugs, or whatever the hell has been crawling in my bed the last 3 days, biting me) and Johannes, Issei, and I headed to Concepcion (the rich part of Valpo) that night. We were famished (moriamos de hambre!), so we stopped at an empanada place that can be described as no more than a tiny rectangular room, a glass jewelry case (which had an upside down 40 inch flat screen tv in it), a leather sofa behind the case (which was being used as the ¨counter¨), and an oven. Amazing empanadas though, and only 690 pesos (470ish = $1). Concepcion was not too impressive as it looked mostly like the rest of the city minus the grime. We then returned back to the hostel where we made pasta (hey, gotta save money), which might have been the best pasta I´ve ever made (bolognesa sauce).

Speaking of money – the first 2 days in Chile I spent 70,000 pesos. In the last 8 days, I´ve spent 48,000 pesos.  During these 8 days, I´ve been in Santiago, Punta Arenas (bottom of Chile 3500 km away), Valpo (150 km north of Santiago), and Vina del Mar (5 km from Valpo). Lot of distance, little money. So I accidentally became quite a penurious lad. This leaves me with 22,000 pesos to spend in the next 15 hours – I´m not bringing this monopoly money home with me.

72 bites (I counted), 3 days, and not enough pesos later, I´m leaving Valpo.

Then Chile for the States tonight at 10:40 PM