November 16-19, 2018: You NEED to go to Chile!!

This extended weekend trip was the trip of a lifetime! I am so grateful for such an unforgettable experience!

Let me start by saying that Cassie and I winged this trip 101%. It all began one night when we met some Chileans in the club and decided in that moment: Let's go to Chile. Ya can't make this stuff up, folks. Well actually, you can, but then you'd be lying.

We left for the airport Thursday night around 7:00pm and had a lovely 2 hours to spend sitting there before our flight. I decided to do some abs and these people were looking at me like they'd never seen someone do exercise in the airport before. Ok it's not the gym but get over it, it's not that weird.

We met a guy who works in film production while waiting for our flight and told him we are freegans and asked him how we can become famous but it all sounded like too much work so I guess I'll remain unfamous for now.

Our flight took off directly into a thunderstorm and extreme turbulence lasted for about 21 minutes. Not that I was counting or anything. To our right was a guy named Bryan from Chile and he was precious as ever. He looked about 18 years old but turns out he is 28. We exchanged numbers in hopes of potentially meeting up in Santiago. It never ended up happening cuz of bad timing, but we might see him in Buenos Aires in the future!

Looking good after a hellish flight at midnight.

We landed at a ripe 12:48am, spent a less than pleasant amount of time in the migraciones line, but finally took a transfer to Joaquin's apartment and were in bed by 3:00am. Well, let me clarify. I was in my caterpillar sleeping bag by 3:00am. I also need to explain 2 more things. Joaquin is somebody that Cassie met in Argentina and he let us stay with him FOR FREE and we totally winged getting to his apartment but somehow still did it without getting lost and despite having zero Chilean pesos. We are finessers.

I couldn't believe they had Mobikes in Chile!! Claire and I ride them all the time at Davidson... this was the first great sign that it was bout to be a lit trip.

When we woke up, we made breakfast with the food that Joaquin had so generously bought for us and then we set off to explore Santiago. He suggested we go to Bellavista, which is a really cute barrio with lots to see and do. And it was adorable! I must add, however, that we had to pass through an area where tear gas had been fired the night before in a fight between the police and the mapuches. We obviously didn't know about this so when we got off the subway we were coughing and noses were running and eyes were watering intensely. Felt apocalyptic to be honest. But we #survived.

Bellavista had tons of cool graffiti and artwork everywhere and there was a street fair going on. We tried to go to Pablo Neruda's house (Cassie is obsessed with him) but it was so expensive and the woman was hella rude to us so we walked outta there... but we saw the outside of it which was neat!

We stopped for lunch at a place called Casa del sol and accidentally ordered the special of the day but it was AMAZING, vegetarian (almost vegan minus some cheese), and super cheap. We also finessed some #freegan food because this guy left his bread and salsa behind and I asked if we could have it and the rest is history.

The meal was like one of those meals where they keep bringing you different courses and it felt so fancy and everything was delicious. Best meal I ever accidentally ordered.

Speaking of accidents, we also managed to accidentally hike up a mountain. I know what you're thinking... wtf?? Let me explain. We walked to this cute area where the national zoo was - but Cassie and I both agree that zoos are pretty messed up places - so we walked past the entrance and up a little hill. Please note how sassy Cassie looks in these photos. #werkit

Before we knew it, we were already pretty high up and realized that we were on the path to a top of a mountain, San Cristobal. Once you've started going up, you really can't quit. So we decided we'll try to go to the top.

The path afforded cool views of the city of Santiago the entire time, which, by the way, has 6 millions inhabitants!! We paused on the way up at a little kiosk because we were famished and dehydrated. The classic Chilean drink is called mote and it's essentially a peach drink with the peach core floating in it and a ton of wheat, which I swear was corn but is supposedly not, packed at the bottom. Sounds gross, I know. But it was heavenly.

(That is a peeled peach not a brain.)

We finally got to a lookout point and the view was incredible. It was nice to see mountains because there are none by Buenos Aires and they are so extensive and massive in Santiago.

We walked back down the mountain with some dude from Holland and he informed us that we, in fact, actually did not reach the summit. Sure thought we did though. In his words, "I'm not gonna say you missed the best part, but ya did." Oh well, what we saw was by far good enough anyway!

We decided to walk home to Joaquin's from Bellavista... bold choice... and it was a long walk but allowed us to see some more parts of Santiago. At one point we were passing through a block packed with restaurants and some lady approached us yelling, "Beer beer beer beer beer!!!" LOL cuz she thought we didn't understand Spanish. Thanks girl but we do not want your beer beer beer beer.

We were dead when we finally got back so we just showered and rested for the next 2 hours. Joaquin finally got home just before 9:00pm and that was actually our first time seeing him since arriving. We all ate dinner together and getting to know Joaquin was amazing. He is so intelligent, knowledgable, kind, funny, and generous. We ate puré de castañas (chestnut puree) for dessert and I honestly have no idea what that is but it was SOOOOOOO FRICKING GOOD. We slept well that night to say the least.

On Saturday November 17, we decided to go to Valparaíso, another big city in Chile right on the coast about 1.5 hours west of Santiago. First we went on a run and got lost, then ate breakfast with Joaquin like a cute little family, and then got on the subway to get to the bus terminal. Here is another aspect of our trip that we absolutely winged. We figured it out and purchased tickets to go to Viña del Mar. This is the city next to Valparaíso so we figured we will start there and work our way south to Valpo.

We were so hungry when we got off the bus we looked for food right away. We settled on a Mexican place and ordered vegetarian quesadillas and enchiladas. They were DELICIOUS. The serving size was also massive so that ended up being our lunch and dinner. Saving money like it's our job. #finesse

We truly had no idea where we were but decided to just walk west until we reached the ocean and that worked. This was Cassie's first time seeing the Pacific Ocean! It was so beautiful and such a glorious day. Sadly we were wearing pants (and we only brought our phones and money with us) so we were roasting but we were grateful we wore them when it dropped 20 degrees at night.

I can't even begin to explain the beauty of Viña del Mar. Everything is just so beautiful and imagining actually living there seems like paradise.

A group of female dancers happened to be performing right where we were so we enjoyed watching them for a bit before we continued exploring.

We continued walking along the coast in the direction of Valparaíso and decided to stop along the way and actually touch the ocean, lol. Well this was an interesting decision. We ended up getting SOAKED because we weren't really paying attention and a bigger-than-usual wave rolled in and entirely soaked our shoes and socks, up to our mid shins, and filled our shoes with sand. So I guess we didn't touch the ocean... it touched us.

We walked barefoot like the wild women that we are for about a mile and then decided we should probably stop and try to dry our socks / shoes and also purchase water because we hadn't drank any since 11:00am...

We sat in some grass right near the coast and did just that for about 30 minutes before continuing on our way. We finally reached Valpo around 7:00pm after walking nearly 5 miles and found a cafe to charge our phones in... and eat ice cream of course.

Valparaíso was also beautiful and it was honestly breathtaking to see all the incredible houses up in the hills. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before. Cassie and I sat in a park and ate our leftovers for dinner and then we had 1.5 hours to kill and we were freezing. We decided to see how much time we could spend in a supermarket and the police were definitely very skeptical of us because they kept sending a guard past whatever section we were in every 5 minutes. To be fair we were just standing in the supermarket doing nothing which I supposed is sketchy, but they never yelled at us or anything. Around 9:00pm, we walked towards the plaza where we planned to meet our friends that we met in the club that one night.

On the way, we ran into 2 girls in our program which was a coincidence and also passed by a reggae band performing. We stopped to listen for a while and then continued to the meeting place. The last photo below is of a house high on top of a hill with lights along the roof and walls and it was so cool in person but here is a below average quality photo I took of it.

Our friend, Rodrigo, arrived with his friend who introduced himself as "Juuuuuaaaaan Pablo" and we headed towards the party. They were celebrating Juuuuuaaaaan Pablo's return from Spain / also celebrating life. The party was in their friend Ignacio's house and it was AMAZING. He lives in a house on the hills and being there just felt surreal. Living in Valpo seems incredible. The house was kind of antique and had such cool decorations. We all gathered in "the room" as it is called, which was covered in posters, flags from around the world, and lit by 2 insane disco balls.

Above you can see above "the room," one of the hallways of the house, the living room, and in the bottom middle picture is the room we ended up staying in. That's right, we finessed that, too. Cassie and I came to Valpo with absolutely no idea where we would stay for the night (one plan was to go out all night and avoid having to pay to stay anywhere) but Ignacio so graciously offered his bunk bed to Cassie and I and we gladly accepted. The night was SO much fun and Cassie and I both agreed that Chileans tend to be a bit nicer than Argentines. Everyone was so kind and it was an all around fun and unforgettable time.

The view from Ignacio's roof.

In the morning, we cleaned up a little bit and then Ignacio let us out and we thanked him a ton for letting us stay there. We proceeded to explore Valpo but were both very tired and wearing the same clothes as last night and sort of just wanted to get back to Joaquin's and clean off. We tried to fight our fatigue and climb Cerro Alegre, one of the most famous hills in Valpo known for its art, twists and turns, nooks and crannies, but we were so tired we only made it about 200 meters up... not even high enough to get a view of the ocean. Regardless, what we did see was beautiful. Here are all the pics we took from that brief hike.

These photos really don't do it justice though. Literally every single building and wall is painted in some unique way and it is just amazing to look at. I wonder if it ever gets old for the people who actually live there.

On our walk to the bus terminal, we continued to pass many beautiful sights and MANY stray dogs. They're like everywhere there. We stopped to buy 2 bananas each for breakfast and then later bought a dessert that I don't even know how to describe from a lady selling them at a Sunday market. It had powdered sugar on top and it got ALL over me, as you'll see in the photo below.

We took the bus back and then ate some lunch once we were home. We waited a bit for Joaquin to get home and then we spent the day touring the city with him as our guide. He was so gracious to devote his day to showing us around!

He showed us a lot of important government buildings and told us the history behind them, too. He is unbelievably knowledgable about Chilean history!!

He took us to the location of the actual fort from which the mapuches defended themselves against the Spaniards in the 1540s. Pretty dope!! It was like a mini hike to the top and the view was gorgeous. We couldn't keep our eyes open because it was so sunny so that is why Cassie's eyes are closed lol. Swipe through these pics below to see more of the fort area and the view from the top / along the way!

We took a break after a few hours to eat some frozen yogurt which Joaquin generously treated us to. I got the plantain flavor and it was neither the best nor the worst frozen yogurt I've ever tried... interesting for sure.

Our last stop on the "tour" was a massive park that Joaquin told us is very popular on the weekends for the middle class. When he played fútbol in college, he had his games here. We were so impressed with the size of the park and for some odd reason there were literally like 10 different stations of people playing around in those big inflatable balls. People kept slamming into each other trying to knock one another down, it was pretty funny.

We stopped to watch a dance crew for a bit and then headed out. We saw the outside of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (it was closed) which has to do with the period during which Pinochet tortured thousands of people. I wish we could've seen the inside but we learned quite a bit just from Joaquin telling us all that he knew.

When we got back to his apartment, Cassie and I sneakily left to buy him a thank you gift - a 6 pack of Coors Light to be exact - and then I went on a brief run. We all ate dinner together after and then Joaquin finessed a charcuterie board of cheese and olives and Cassie and I went OFF on that plate. Best olives and cheese I ever did eat in my life.

We headed to sleep immediately after because our flight was at 7:15am and we would have to leave around 4:30am to get to the airport. Lucky us, the transfer system could only do 3:00am pickup so we rose at the beautiful hour of 2:44am, ate some yogurt in darkness and silence, and then headed out around 3:15am. We got to our gate at 4:15am and I passed out on the ground of the airport. Here is evidence:

I also managed to fall asleep on the flight. I did not, however, fall asleep while waiting in the customs line for 1 HOUR AND 40 MINUTES. That was far from pleasant. A lovely welcome home, truly.

When we finally made it out of the airport, we called an Uber which was shocking cheap (let's gooooo) and I managed to fall deeply asleep during that 45 minute car ride.

When I got home, I ate some dulce de leche... it had been too long without my baby... and then got in bed.

I slept from about 12:30pm to 5:30pm and I'm pretty sure my circadian rhythms have no idea what is going on anymore. Hopefully I can reset that tonight... I'm sure I'll have no problem falling asleep.

I went for a run around 7:00pm and more people than ever before were at Rosedal Park. Today is a holiday in Argentina so I think that's why. It looked like everyone was picnicking and waiting for fireworks or something, although there were none. I showered when I got home, read my book for a bit, and then ate dinner with Clarisa and filled her in on everything. She too said she enjoyed her weekend so it seems we were balling all around this fine weekend.

This trip to Chile was nothing less than perfect. I am so grateful to be able to have experienced life in another big South American city and to see the different ways of life and cool geography. This trip confirmed that Buenos Aires is the best place I could have chosen to study abroad because although my trip was perfect, I think Buenos Aires is the perfect fit for me. Plus it's easy to idealize a place when you're just passing through and not actually living there. I am so grateful to Joaquin and Ignacio for hosting us and so proud of Cassie and I for winging everything and finessing our hearts out.

I hope you all can go to Chile at some point in your life - it is absolutely worth it.

Song Recommendation of the Day: "La noche eterna" by Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado

P.S. - Please enjoy these semi-creepy street performers we saw.