After my late night at the hostel hearing of people's travel adventures, I planned to go on a free city tour the next day at 3pm. I could not believe it when I woke up at 2pm and realized I was very likely going to miss the tour. I jumped out of bed, showered quickly, possibly only oiled visible body parts (hands, legs etc) and sped off. I was extremely hungry, but because of foolishly waking up late, I had no time to eat and had to go for a 3 hour walking tour on an empty stomach.
The tour was great in that they told us a lot about modern Valparaiso - artsy town, large port, UNESCO World Heritage site etc, but the tour was severely lacking in historical information. I love history and learning about different countries' past. I was hoping to hear about dreaded former dictator Augusto Pinochet. I wanted to hear about the Chicago boys - a group of US educated Chilean economists who in the 70s and 80s were responsible for free market policies that are lauded for the positive economic impact in Chile. Unfortunately we didn't get to hear about any such things.
The tour was useful though in many ways - I got to see a lot of Valparaiso in a short time. We went to a place that sells 60 types of empanadas. I stuffed my face given how hungry I was. We used a few of the town elevators - really ancient but interesting elevators. We went to the port, walked up and down crazy hills. I felt energized. When I got to my hostel I actually walked up the hill. It was exerting, but not too bad given altitude was not an issue. If this had been a hill in Bolivia, I would probably have given up the ghost after 5 minutes.
I got to the hostel and sat on the balcony with my hostel mates watching the sun set. We decided we were going out that night. I always do stupid things like that when I have an early morning bus/plane/train. It's some sort of self sabotage thing. We had dinner and drinks at the hostel then went out to party. We walked around in circles for an hour or so, finally gave up on finding the specific club we were looking for and just went into the first bar we saw. We found a place that sold "Terremotos."
"Terremotos" require a paragraph of their own. It is Chile's national drink and translated to "earthquake" mostly because of what it looks like, but it is might also be a forewarning for what your tummy will feel like after drinking this. It is served either in a half liter or liter cup and is sweet white wine with pineapple icecream. It is actually quite sweet, which is why I would say it is dangerous - so sweet that you don't realize how much you have had.
As we drank our terremotos we told horror stories. I'm not quite sure why.
I really struggled in the morning to wake up by 6am to catch my morning bus to Mendoza in Argentina.
Aaaaaaaah Argentina! I will enjoy telling you about my time there in my future blog entries.
