First off, I really like Chile. Santiago has a nice feel to it most of the time and there’s a lot to see here for the first time visitor. The Spanish is a bit hard to understand for a myriad of reasons: locals use slang or different words than what I’ve learned. They also seem to do that whole shorten the words thing that other Spanish speaking countries employ. For example, instead of saying “vamos [let’s go]”, I heard a guy say “vamo” which I interpreted to mean the same thing. I’m constantly asking people “que? [what?]” but I need to find a more polite or less dense way of letting them know I didn’t understand. I’ve heard “como [I think means how]” being used. Maybe that’s the right way to blend in verbally.
Before I recap on today’s semi-adventure (it involves ghosts or spirits so you’ll want to stay tuned), I want to take the time to personally thank my new friend Maria Paz (whom I met in Budapest) for giving me her sister Paulina’s contact info in case I had any questions when I was here. Poor Paulina, I had a lot of questions – like how to explain the chip on my credit card usually doesn’t work and they need to swipe [for reference: El chip esta mala. Quiero usar la banda]. Maria Paz is still in Budapest but thanks to her and Paulina, my time in Santiago was a bit easier. I love having a local help me out! And thanks to them, I ate a whole pizza for lunch at one of their favorite places: Olimpia.
Back to today’s adventure! I decided to walk to San Cristobal which is a hill that offers a vista view of the city. There’s also a sanctuary at the top with a rather large Virgin Mary statue. On the walk up, I came across many of the stray dogs that roam the city. This guy was just chilling in the middle of the deserted lane and I liked his style.
I saw many more dogs and one even limping that just broke my heart. I couldn’t help it and it was clearly not able to walk. Pobre puppy. Speaking of puppies, I talked to my Mom and she missed Lola so much that she’s abandoned San Diego to head back to Riverside to see Lola. I miss that dog so much too! When I reached the top, I was rewarded with amazing views of Santiago. Like this one:
Or this one:
And even this one (bet you’re now dying for the ghost/spirits/weird thing):
Ok, ok, fine. I didn’t feel anything weird necessarily but I somehow had the feeling I was trespassing as I climbed towards the Virgin Mary statue. But I wanted to see the views and I was dressed rather conservatively. But that was all I felt, just like I was intruding. When I came back to my hotel, I downloaded the pictures and saw this weird mist mass that appears to be moving horizontally. There is no apparent water source as I checked the pictures before and after it on my camera and it’s dry (ie, no sprinklers). If you zoom in pretty close, you can see what I’m talking about. Also, there’s a bright white spot in the upper left hand corner of the picture that I can’t explain. I sent it to my mom who is very experienced in photography to weigh in. Usually she’ll be able to explain it away with some fancy photography-speak but this time, all I got was “interesting” and “weird.” Mom must be distracted by Lola hanging on her after being abandoned for some days. Lola will stick to you like glue when you return and she’s missed you.
Tomorrow I take a bus for about an hour and half to Valparaiso and the desk clerk at the hotel told me which companies she uses. She also sold me a glass of wine so I was happy with her. Oh, and the hotel has totally gone out of their way to address my minor issues. Yesterday they called and wanted to know if I wanted today’s breakfast in my room. I told them I could go downstairs but they insisted it was no problem and would be Ok with whatever I preferred. Then, they called to ask me how I wanted my coffee (ie, cappuccino, latte, espresso, etc). I told them just a coffee with milk and they brought me a double espresso with milk. This morning I took the time to personally thank them for delivery to my room and for making the coffee really good. They were happy to hear because they were stressing on whether I’d like the coffee or not. I sound like I’m demanding but I’m really not. I’m just happy to be in hotels for the majority of the trip since South and Central America is really, really inexpensive. A mi me gusta cheap!
There She Goes... 