Viña del Mar, Chile - Day 22 - 24

funicular in valporaiso
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Oh Vina (where is the button or short cut for the little n with the ~ on top?) its Vina...like el nino. anyway, Vina is such a lovely little town...more resort-y than i thought. it has a main pedestrian street with shops and restaurants (which we had MORE steak and MORE fried food).  I stayed at Hospedajes Mirta, which is really just someone's house running a B&B. it was on a hill so every time i go home i have to hike a bit...which isnt so bad cuz i actually do miss the hiking/treking part of my trip. I had my own room and my own tv - this was the first time i watched tv in i guess 3 weeks. in Chile they have the WB channel or some other channel that shows all the English shows like 2 and half Men, Gossip Girl (which is where i started to watch the show and got hooked immediately)...(oh oops i lied - i had a tv in my Cusco Amaru hotel but i was only in the room for few hours to drop off my bags, go out then came home to sleep for 1.5 hour then back out to the airport!) anyway, the room itself was ok...i didnt like that i stayed at someone's house and i didnt really meet anyone...which is why i like staying at hostels.

restaurant interior
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Vina del Mar is a scenic little town close to Valporaiso ("Valpo") and its just a bus ride away from Santiago. Buses run from Santiago every hour so its an easy ride over.  It has a nice beach at the southwest part of town. along the beach there was a market type of thing where u can buy expensive souvenirs (i say expensive because i just came from Bolivia at this point and everything was so much more expensive in Chile...plus i was having a hard time converting pesos into dollars!) there's a new shopping mall at the west end of the city...it was nice but we didnt do any shopping at all! in the same neighborhood, there are many good restaurants which we visited at least 2 of them - one was a German restaurant which we had dinner the first night. i had no idea what to order because the menu was in espanol. i was already  having issues with the language...on top of that it was describing German dishes...double whammy! but i was lucky that Gary speaks spanish AND german....so lucky, right? BTW, everywhere i went i meet ppl who speaks fluent spanish...so i didnt have to bust out my crappy spanish and just relied on these ppl hehe! anyway, on new  years eve day, we came back to this area and had sushi! it wasnt bad...i think i just wanted to taste other things and not just fried food...so i had sushi covered with avocado! :P

looking down from funicular
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Going to Valpo was super easy! u can either take the subway (which we did) or the bus which either way will cost about 300 pesos (u do the math! i'm over this chilean pesos conversion haha) I LOVE Valpo!! i love the super color houses on the hill, the many funiculars scattered all over the city (some funtional some not), the central parkette with tons of locals and tourists and just the general feeling of the place. But did not like the smelling of piss all over the place - seems like each alley smell worst than the next. We walked around the city center, took the Concepsion funicular up to the hills (300 pesos...it was worth it!) and found an area of colorful houses, cute cafes and the many graffitis all over town. As we walked up the hill on one part of the city, a little girl was sitting at her doorstep selling tattoos. i had no idea what she was doing so i walked right by her. But Gary read her little sign - it says tattoos for 200 pesos each. so i went back to find him being tattoo by a little girl (who is about 6 years old) using a Disney tattoo kit (its really just a device that is shape like a gun...u can insert a marker at the back and voila!) hahah it was the funniest thing! she has another kit that actually makes the tattoo stencil which has High School Music photos on the kit. u mean to tell me companies out there are making tattoo kits as kids toys?!?? c'mon!! whatever happened to doll houses, tea sets, barbies and other regular toys?!? too funny...

my friend getting inked by a little girl haha
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Valpo is famous for new year eve parties and fire works! At first i wanted to spend NYE in Santiago but was advised by many people to switch it to Valpo/Vina...so i did. But i heard soooo many stories of harassment (mostly foreign women being harrassed by locals and other drunked tourists haha), mugging (was advised to take photocopy of my IDs and not that much cash just in case). so we really didnt know where to party for NYE but i hear that some of the guys Gary knew are going to be drinking on the streets of Valpo...umm...not my idea of fun and i bet the washroom situation will be pretty bad. so i decided against the drunked party scene and opted for a quiet night in Vina. I saw the fireworks (pretty nice) and went home for an early night.

graffiti all over town
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I wish i knew what i knew now...i would've stayed in Valpo and visited Vina. but either way, i'm glad i went to both and saw what i saw. Now its back up to the north!! yeh 26 hour bus ride!!! not! :P