Chile

So I spent this past week in Chile, and it was great to see it. Chile is a beautiful country and very obviously much more wealthy and modern than Argentina. Santiago is much cleaner as far as the trash in the street and the sidewalks are not full of dog crap like BA, but at the same time it lacks the culture and vibrancy that BA has. And the food does not compare at all! Overall, everything is more expensive in Chile. However, the wine is great and seeing the almost exact flag of Texas everywhere in Chile made me feel right at home.

I really enjoyed the coastal city of Viña del Mar. I got to try surfing for the first time in my life and I´ve always wanted to do it! I can´t believe it took me so long! It proved to be very difficult as I only stood up once on my board and was sore for a week afterwards. Then Rachel and I jumped on the horses on the beach at Con Con and it was total freedom. I´ve wanted to ride a horse on the beach where you can actually gallop and have the freedom to go exactly where you want... it was wonderful! good thing I do have experience riding because there is no instruction, no signing anything... you just get on the horse and go! there is no such thing as liability or lawsuits here I have to think... oh yeah, and it only cost $4 for half an hour... can´t beat that!!

Santiago is where I spent the rest of my week and it was a little too much time. There isn´t so much to see in Santiago, but it´s a nice place. Rachel and I went to tour the Concha y Toro winery, which was really fun but the tour didn´t teach me as much as I wanted to learn about the fermentation and bottling process. However, I´m already a Concha y Toro drinker of Frontera and so it was cool to go there and I didn´t know that the company is one of the top 10 wine companies in the world. Nice!

We also hit the zoo in Santiago, which was really good! I wanted to practice learning the animal names in Spanish... $4 entrace fee- can´t beat that either. I haven´t been to a zoo since I was 16 but I don´t remember being able to get very close to the animals. I have some fantastic pics of the elephants as they seemed to put on a show for us- they seem to be such lovey dovey animals, and also got pretty up close to the tigers! The zoo is set up on the side of a hill so it´s got multiple levels and the best part was it was all of a block away from the hostel we stayed in.

I give Chile a thumbs up! I will be back for skiing if I get the chance... the only thing that really sucked was paying the $131 entry fee and not knowing about it ahead of time. Also, if you come by bus, you don´t have to pay it, but I´m just not down with those 20 hour bus rides.

Chau for now...