Argentina has now passed Greece in the B.P.C. (Babe Per Capita) index. I’ve never been one for sappy love stories, or believed in love at first sight, but I’m pretty sure that I fell in love at first sight at least 32 times yesterday — and that was just walking to dinner! Between the beach during the day and the bars at night it’s simply astonishing how many good looking girls there are here! I could show you photos, but it just wouldn’t do it justice. You really have to see them for yourself in person, in all their full three-dimensional glory.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go practice my Spanish pickup lines.
Authored by: Jason on January 30, 2009.
Filed under: Argentina,South America,Travel | No Comments »
Chile is giving us the cold shoulder [/lame joke] so we are outta here. Starting with a drive along the shoulder of the freeway at 8:30am to Santiago from Valparaiso to catch a 12:30pm flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Once arriving in BA, it´s all aboard a bus for a 45 minute bus ride from the main airport to another airport which coincidentally just happens to be about 45 minutes away! And then we wait…
…and wait…
…and eat while waiting…
…and wait…
…and compute while waiting…
…and wait…
…and wait to wait while waiting..
We waited for 5 hours for a delayed flight from Buenos Aires to Mar Del Plata. The plane was about the size of a torpedo, so I can´t imagine why it took so long to get here. There were about 2 dozen passengers, 1 flight attendant, and 3 cookies for us all to share as our in-flight snack.
Once we landed we took a cab to our new digs.
And I thought the hostel in Pucón was bad. That place was like the Taj Mahal! This hole in MDP was the worst hostel/hotel I’ve ever seen in my life. Straight out of a movie. Wooden panelling lobby with an overweight man behind the desk smoking like a chimeny. A homeless guy with filthy feet sleeping on the couch in the lobby. Giant 5 pound lead ingets attached to the room key to prevent you from stealing it. As if I’d ever want to come back here. Beds that were concave, a TV about to fall on the bed (maybe that explains the concaveness), dirty towels, constantly running water in the bathroom/shower, broken night stands. At least there weren’t any cockroaches! I’ll give them that!
Luckily my cousin Diana and her husband Gabe have a nice vacation apartment that they are letting us borrow for a few days. So we´ll tough it out in this non-roach infested roach motel and then live in luxury at the apartment. Thanks Gabe & Diana! You saved us!
Authored by: Jason on January 29, 2009.
Filed under: Argentina,South America,Travel | No Comments »
There isn’t a whole lot to do in the city of Valparaíso, but it is a great city for photography. I sort of wish I had more time to walk around on foot to take more photos, but I was spoiled (and a tad bit lazy) having access to a car.
Some might think of it as ugly graffiti that is just defacing public buildings, but I quite enjoy looking at all of it. From the colorful posters and stencil art…
…the the full on murals…
…to the hand drawn chalk drawings expressing dietary suggestions…
…and you can’t have street art without stickers on street signs.
One street vendor even re-created a Happy Tree Friends cartoon character and framed it to sell.
I tell ya they’ve got it all here. I definately want to come back again when I have more time to take it slower and take more photos.
Authored by: Jason on January 28, 2009.
Filed under: Chile,South America,Travel | 1 Comment »
After a well deserved rest from a long 11+ hour drive, we rolled out of the hostel this afternoon to explore our new habitat in Valparaíso. It was too dark to see much of anything when we arrived, so we took this opportunity to orient ourselves to our new surroundings.
I keep noticing a lot of similarities between California and Chile. Valparaíso reminded me a bit of San Francisco with it’s various different neighborhoods and it’s extremely hilly topography…
…with old houses…
…of various pastel colors lining the streets.
They also have a busy harbor on the Pacific ocean…
…and even electric powered buses that follow the power lines hanging overhead. That’s so SF!
A couple hills over from our hostel was the Naval and Maritime museum that we perused to kill some time…
…and kill some encroaching enemy warships.
We lost a few good soldiers in the battle, so we paid our respects at the cemetery a few hills away.
And then it was full speed ahead…
…back up another hill…
…via one of the many rickety funiculars the city has so that we could find some food.
On the way back to the hostel we got stuck behind this bus with UTAH license plates!
Now I REALLY feel like I’m back in California! What the heck is this thing doing here!?
Authored by: Jason on January 27, 2009.
Filed under: Chile,South America,Travel | 1 Comment »
We had planed on checking out some hot springs after yesterdays grueling hike, but due to unforeseen circumstances (a.k.a. BBQ meat, corn and beer (the beer was not barbecued)) we never made it. So instead of taking a nice long relaxing soak in a hot tub of water, we are going to take a nice long drive in a Nissan. Allllll the way back up highway 5. Past Santiago, to the city of Valparaíso. That same drive (and then some) that we split into two days, we will now tackle in one day!
We were sent on our way with a farewell escort…
…and then herded along in the right direction by some wild sheep…
…who as it turns out were not quite sure of the right direction themselves.
So, we went the other direction, and left them to figure out how to get back into their field.
About 10 hours later, we had made it back to Santiago and were now headed west on the 68 freeway to Valparaíso, only to be stung by a traffic jam. Moments after exiting the toll booth, we were stopped dead in our tracks by bumper to bumper traffic. And we were making such good timing too! Google Maps had clocked the entire trip at around 16 hours, and we were so close after having only been on the road for 10. So we sat, and we waited. Sat, and waited. Sat, and waiting. Sat, and waited for the clean up crew to remove a large vehicle that had crashed into the side of the wall in a tunnel through a mountian. Finally after we got out of now smog-filled tunnel, we made it to Valparaíso in about 40 minutes with only a few drops of gas left in the tank and a few drops of room left in the bladder. After driving in circles for a good 20 minutes trying to find the hostel, we finally threw our map out the window and followed our instinct. Ahh good ol instinct comes through again. At least we now have a working toilet and a shower! Totally worth the drive.
Authored by: Jason on January 26, 2009.
Filed under: Chile,South America,Travel | No Comments »
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