After a beyond relaxing day at the hot springs, and another great evening with some people from Hostel Lao (including a potential future business partner), I was headed back to Santiago once again. With the end of my vacation on the horizon, I was content to just relax and take a 10:30am bus to make the 7 hour journey to Santiago, or at least I thought it would take that amount of time! The bus ride was timely and everything went smoothly on the Argentina side, and I was enjoying my first class "Cama Ejecutivo" seat, listening to other passengers and reading my book. Once we got to the border, I was surprised to find that we had to undergo a tedious process, with a long line for exit papers, a similar line for entry to Chile (and a little weird scary moment when the woman took my passport to the back for some unknown reason), and then a very thorough agricultural checkpoint with a ton of questions and xray scanning, and even fruit sniffing dogs! Like an hour and a half later, we drove about a half kilometer from the top of the mountain pass, only to stop again since they were rebuilding one lane of the two lane switchback highway. We would drive for 10 or 15 minutes, and wait again for a half hour, drive again, wait again, all while they showed "Wild Hogs" and "Ghost Rider" just to extend the torturous feelings of angst and boredom. I broke out a bottle of wine and passed it around in first class, only to be scolded by the bus guy and instead had to hide my bottle and drink it to myself, since only a few others got a chance to fill their cups! To top it off, a crash had ocurred at the bottom of the hill, so our bus had to wait on the road for an extra 2 and a half hours! Enough about that.
Once in Santiago, I was able to meet up with my Chilean expat friend Isabel for some pisco sours and call it a night, which was all very easy because through my past experiences in Santiago, I was smart enough to find a great hostel right by the metro station for the Bellas Artes neighborhood. Andes Hostel was a huge place and by the next day I had made friends with two of my dorm roommates, Smita (from London) and Paulo (from Sao Paolo Brazil), and we made plans to cook some food that evening, with Smita cooking some chicken curry using the spices she had brought along from the UK! In the meantime, I set off on a search for clothing and work boots that would actually fit me, as I knew very well that the clothes I had on me would not be suitable for wine work. After miles of walking and a million department stores and malls and shoe stores, I came back with two pairs of pants that actually fit me, and a jacket. It seemed that my search for waterproof boots would last forever, since my feet were much larger than any of the inventory of chilean shoe stores. The day was not a total loss since I had found a few things, so I was happy to call it quits and get ready for the dinner. After a long time preparing dinner and drinking wine in the kitchen, a group of us sat down to dine at around midnight, and had a grand old time together and talking about our plans and experiences.
The next day, Smita and I went to the bus station since she was planning to go to mendoza and I had to look into finding a way to reach Casablanca or even make it to Matetic on the tourist bus. I helped Smita to find the right place for a bus and to translate a little bit for her, and I made a few inquiries about making it to Matetic, but made little progress there and figured I would just figure it out later. We stopped at a few stores to find waterproof boots, and again my efforts were in vain - I was offered some aqua socks and some very extreme construction boots that were actually too big!! I was done shopping and Smita and I had to head back to the hostel because we had left our friend paulo waiting for us there! Once we got back we met up with paulo and also another hostel friend named Kristin, a bartender from Manhattan. The four of us were hungry and thirsty, so we set out for some churrascos and pisco sours at the first appealing restaurant. After lunch, things got interesting!
After some more walking and map deciphering, we made it to "La Piojera," the quintessential Santiago bar where the specialty is the "Terremoto." A terremoto is a drink that consists of a half liter of white wine, a shot of fernet, and a scoop of pineapple ice cream on top, and the result is a pretty unappetizing drink with quite a kick to it. A terremoto, which translates to earthquake in spanish, goes for only $4 at the piojera, and an aftershock (replica) is only $2! The bar was full of people and we were an instant hit!! We clearly represented the tourist melting pot, with an Indian from the UK, a spanish speaker from Brazil, an energetic manhattan, and a very tall guy from california! Many people offered us drinks and we took a million photos, including some great polaroids and some picutres of us eating hard boiled eggs and posing with numerous locals. We were having a ball and during the course of our conversations (and after plenty of drinks), we had someone read the fine print on Smita's bus ticket, and he told us that we had 30 minutes to qualify for a refund! We had decided that Smita and Paulo and I would all go together to Valparaiso, if if if we could make it in time to exchange the ticket. We ran the whole way, from the bar to the metro station, and then through the bus station, and made it to the ticket counter with 30 seconds left on the clock! Que suerte!
After a long day, Smita and I had to make some last minute changes in hostel reservations and we went out for dinner in Bellavista, where we come across an awesome drum circle next to Pablo Neruda's old house, and called it a night. We were looking forward to our journey together to my favorite city in Chile - -Valparaiso! Stay tuned for another delayed version of what transpired!
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