Chile

Mendoza to Valparaiso

The last time I was in South America I couldn’t believe how amazing the long distance bus service was. The first long distance bus I took was something like 20hrs from Buenos Aires to Mendoza and I thought it was a pretty great experience at the time because I had a Cama Suite and my seat folded into a full bed at a cost of around $80CAD or so. Beat that Greyhound! Now I know i’ve gotten older. This time around after 2 overnight bus journeys at around 10hrs each, I have to admit I wasn’t much looking forward to another 8 hour bus trip. That said, the journey from Mendoza, Argentina into Chile can best be described as breathtaking because you pass right over the spine of South America. The vast Andes mountains. About an hour out of Mendoza we started to make the ascent. For the next couple hours we continued to climb and the landscape changes quickly from lush vineyards to barren rock. There are a couple small towns and vacation spots along the way but for the most part the landscape is just jagged peaks, meandering rivers and winding roads full of Argentinos on thier way to vacation spots in Chile. After hours of climbing and hundreds of photos we arrived at a toll booth at the foot of a seemingly impassable mountain peak. Ahead of us lay a tunnel with a single lane in either direction heading straight into the mountainside. Somewhere in the 2+ minutes in the tunnel we made the border crossing into Chilean territory.

A short distance and a small drop in altitude we arrived at Los Libertadores border crossing thousands of meters above sea level. Los Libertadores is an experience in itself. There’s honestly nothing there besides the customs buildings and a line of trucks that stretches for a few kilometers. But mother nature makes this place spectacular. The snowcapped peaks surrounding you and the brisk wind make this place a special way to cross into a new country. Fortunately for us there’s a special building just to handle bus passengers crossing the border so there was no need to wait in the line of trucks or join the huge group of Argentinos in their cars waiting to cross the boder. Thankfully for that. Even with our expedited crossing, our 1hr stop at the border involved quite a bit of waiting in lines. First we waited in line while the 3 busses ahead of us were processed. Then we waited in a line to exit Argentina and offocially enter Chile. Next it’s across the building to another line to grab our bags and have them checked for any illegal or agricultural items before we mount back up on our trusty Andesmar bus to start our descent into the fertile agricultural lands of Chile. Now in Chile we were treated to another fascinating human feat of engineering. Down a steep mountain slope the Chileans put in a series of dozens of swtichbacks to essentially make a ladder for cars to descend hundreds of meters at what seems like a 45 degree angle. It’s a bit of a white knuckle experience in the large double decker bus but we survived and were quickly following a beautiful, lush river valley heading into the Chilean heartland. Around 30min from the border we were treated to a new experience we hadn’t seen in either Uruguay or Argentina. Our bus stopped to pick up a local person selling baked goods and drinks. As the bus continues on the person walked up and down the bus selling their wares. Once they finished the bus pulls over again and drops the person off in the middle of nowhere. It’s a really creative way to get some lunch and i’m sure the bus driver makes a cut of the profits too. Around this point the Andes are behind us and I finally secumbed to the effects of 1hr of drunken sleep from the night before.

Valparaiso

We arrived in Valparaiso after a 8+2 hour bus trip. Something I love about South America and i’m not entirely sure why. Nobody is in a huge hurry and it’s not always important that schedules are rigourusly followed. Busses mostly leave on time but it’s tough to trust the quoted arrival time on the ticket. One piece of advice, never cut things too closely. Give hours between bus bookings, get public transport to airports early etc.. I’ve learned this the medium way. We haven’t missed a bus or flight, but we’ve been awfully close. Anywho I digress, back to Valpo. We get off the bus at the main bus terminal in Valpo. One of the busiest bus terminals i’ve seen. It’s not a huge place but there is a TON of activity. I wish i’d taken a couple of photos just to show the craziness but that’s a first class ticket to a stolen cell phone so I kept it in my pocket. This time I took my own bags off the bus so I didn’t feel compelled to give anyone the “cumpulsory” service charge i’d gotten used to in Argentina.

Next logical step after 10hrs on a bus. Donde esta el bano? Here’s a another new thing about Chile. Public bathrooms exist all over the place but they are all privately run and cost money. Amanda quickly went in search of a bathroom and came back quickly in need of 200 pesos (around $0.40) to get into the bathroom. A free bathroom is something I think we totally take for granted back home and honestly, it’s not such a bad thing to pay to use a bathroom that’s clean and well stocked with supplies. For the most part the public bathrooms were quite clean and a pay for use system seems to keep grafitti off the walls etc.. but there were a couple times Amanda paid up to around 500 pesos ($1 CAD) to use a bathroom that was pretty disgusting as well. It’s a mixed bag I suppose.

From here we started our trek with our overly heavy bags to Hostel Tunquelen. Only 3 blocks away so it was easy right. Well here’s an important thing to know about Valpo. Valpo is city of spectacular views. The only way to achieve these views and frankly to grow the city is to buid up the steep cerros (hills) bordering the sea. Even though our hostel was only three blocks from the bus terminal, one of these blocks unfortunately consisted of 120 stairs only to arrive at the gate of the hostel where we proceeded up another 60+ stairs to reach our room. Carrying a combined weight of 35kg up stairs sucks. On the much more positive side though, Hostel Tunquelen was a really fantastic place. It’s entirely run by a family who converted what seems like an old house or possibly hotel into a hostel. The owners only spoke Spanish and were incredibly friendly and patient with me and my broken Spanish. Google translate helped facilitate many great conversations between us. The cocina (kitchen) at the hostel was well equipped with many of the things we needed and it’s in a nice outside space where it’s not too hot and stuffy to cook and eat. Also fantastic about the hostel was the rooftop terrace with georgeous views of the city. A great place to sit and have a meal. Our room was good here too. Nice views of the city from our room, a decent bed and a private bathroom. All around we definitely enjoyed our 4 nights stay here.

Once we settled in it was time to adventure out for dinner. Trusty Tripadvisor had a suggestion for a pizza place a short distance away. We walked around 15min or so, past a bunch of bars with music pumping to find our little pizza restaurant closed. Sad face… A bit of a walk back down the hill towards the sea and we found ourselves another restaurant serving pizzas. All around a good meal with half a pizza to take home for leftovers. Next learning lesson about Chile, although not as much of a shock as in Argentina. Restaurants are costly. I think a pizza with a couple cokes (in glass bottles!) ran us around $40 CAD. More expensive than back in Canada methinks. That was about it for the day. Called it quits around midnight. Not bad on 1 hour of “sleep” and a short nap on the bus.

Day 2 in Valparaiso was a much less action packed day. The goals of the day were to get grocery shopping done, figure out where the Scotiabank was and wander around to check the place out. Sometimes you have to aim your sights lower. We found a cool little restaurant a couple blocks away from the hostel, pulled up to the bar and ordered up our first of many Completos Italianos. We decided to get the completos grandes for our first try. So what is a completo? Basically a completo is a hot dog on steroids. We watched as the cook made up our completos. Take a basic foot long hot dog, add a cup of freshly chopped up tomatoes before putting in the wieners, yes that’s plural for a reason, top it all off with fresh guacamole, more tomatoes, cheese and a mayonaise sauce. It’s an incredibly filling little slice of hot dog heaven. I’ll never have a normal hot dog again without longing for a completo.

Now with our bellies full it was time to find the grocery store called Lider. Up to now our grocery shopping experience was constrained to fairly small supermercados with fairly limited selections. Lider was something entirely different. It looked like walking into a Walmart. There was everything at Lider. We ended up spending 1.5hrs wandering around checking out all the comforts of home we hadn’t seen in the past 6+ weeks. Simple things like bbq sauce, sweet thai chili sauces, different types of cheeses etc.. Every supermercado is a new adventure and we sure took time to check this one out. A few interesting things we learned at Lider:

  1. Milk in Chile isn’t kept refridgerated in the store and instead of the bags of milk like Argentina and Uruguay the milk is in 1L cartons. Took us a while to find milk because we didn’t think to look in the regular isles next to the Tuna.
  2. Chile has different types of cheese we didn’t recognize. A few of the main cheeses we learned about:
    • Queso Gauda - First off, not gouda. Gauda is a commercialy produced white, rubbery, meltable cheese meant for everyday use. It doesn’t taste at all like gouda. It doesn’t really have a lot of taste at all actually.
    • Queso Manticoso - After trying gauda and not being particularly impressed we tried out some manticoso. Turns out manticoso is quite good. It’s a creamy cheese something similar to havarti. Delicious to enjoy with cheese and crackers, by itself or melted on things. Yum
    • Queso de Cabra (Goat cheese) - Chileans love goat cheese and are pretty creative with how they use it. There is lots of great goat cheese produced in Chile
    • Imported cheeses - Yes! Chile imports cheese such as American cheddar. It’s only average cheddar but like many of the other things, it’s actually possible to buy in Chile
  3. Chile has a really great labelling system for foods that aren’t so great for you. There’s a bit of a double learning point to this. First off, many of these bad for us foods such as candy, chips etc.. aren’t really available in Uruguay and Argentina and even when they are it’s very expensive. In Chile it’s still a touch on the expensive side but won’t break the bank. Secondly, the mandatory labelling system has these little stop signs with a warnings such as “Alto en sodio” (high in sodium), “Alto en sucres” (high in sugar) etc.. Some sauces, chips, candy have 3 or more stop signs on them. This really gets you thinking when you’re grocery shopping. Should I really buy this bag of chips or that sweet sauce? It’s all sugar and sodium after all. Way to go on this initiative Chile!
  4. Lider is pronounced “leader” and actually means leader. Lider is actually a sub brand of Walmart. This is why it looks just like Walmart. Walmart bought out Lider back in 2009.
  5. We found manzanas fujis (apples) from Lake Chelan, Washington in Lider. It’s the opposite season here in Chile so the freshest apples were shipped all the way from Washington. Odd to see it from the other side of the world.

All in we did a pretty good size grocery shop and the cost wasn’t too bad. Maybe 20% cheaper than in Argentina which was a relief.

Lastly on the days adventure plan, time to find the Scotiabank and explore the city. We walked along the main waterfront all the way to Plaza Sotomayor and Muelle Prat. Bought a few souviners, took lots of pictures and just enjoyed being by the sea again. Valpo is a really picturesque city with the mountains, colourful houses, ascensors and the seaside. It was a wonderful afternoon taking it all in, topped off with a couple hours sitting by the ocean to watch a fabulous sunset over the cerros.

After sunset it was time to go home and cook a fantastic dinner with all our groceries we’d bought. While cooking dinner we met a couple fellow guests at the hostel. Coco and Christof. French globetrotters who have seemingly been almost everywhere. On a hiatius from living in Brazil, their plans were to travel southward in Chile after a week or so in Valpo. Coco and Chris told us about this central fish & veggie market we’d somehow missed only 2 blocks from the bus station. Allegedly everything is as fresh as can be and super cheap. We’ll test this out come tomorrow.

Day 3

Off to the market with Coco and Chris.