Adventures in Valparaiso

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Valparaiso is a gritty port town, two hours on the bus west of Santiago. Lonely Planet, and someone I met in Buenos Aires really talked it up, so I was keen to check it out. On day three here, I got the bus over to Vina del Mar. It´s only 15 minutes away, and I love the sand and surf. It´s a reasonably long beach, somewhere between Narrabeen and Bondi in length, and, being a Sunday, it was totally packed. The beach culture is more similar to Bondi than Narrabeen unfortunately, a place where the young, rich and beautiful go to show off their new Lexuses and fake boobs.

One thing that was cool with no Australian counterpart was a bunch of 30 or 40 guys who had set up sacks of sand midway down the steepest part of the sand. They would then take it in turns to take a running jump and perform variations on the flip while flexing their abs for onlookers. Although this does take posing to a whole new level, I have to admit the athletic aspect of the performance was pretty impressive.

I had lost my towel in BA, so I went for a walk to find a shop to buy a new one. As per standard Chilean practice, there was only a massive Westfield-style shopping centre. As I was buying lunch, I got talking to a Chilean couple. His name was Luis, and he was a lively, balding bloke in his mid-thirties. She was much more reserved, named Angelica (pretty much the only female in South America whose name isn´t a variant of Mary). These were the first people I had met whose English was worse than my Spanish. I had lunch with them in the dodgy food court, and from what I could gather from their pointing and counting "Uno, Dos, Tres", they were offering to show me around the city in their car. They looked legit, so I agreed. I managed to communicate a few things in Spanish, I was 27 years old, born on December 3. I was travelling "El Mundo", with 3 months in South America. I had already been in Argentina. He worked "in business", which is as vague as a job description one can have, but I nodded like I understood. Luis and I both go to the gym, and he does boxing.

I got into their newish car, which was much better than the old Ford I sold before coming here. They drove me several kilometres behind Vina del Mar, to a lagoon. I told them my name was Michael, which took them a few seconds and me repeating myself a few times for them to get. Luis finally said "Ah, Michael Jackson!", and did a couple of steps of the moonwalk. We walked around the lagoon, and tried to answer more of their barely-comprehensible questions in my broken Spanish. I have one brother ("hermano", thanks Arrested Development!), who is a chef and is 25 years old. I was single ("solo"), and had no kids, at which they were horrified. Apparently, this is not acceptable in South America. She had two kids, and he had one. Seeing all the canoodling couples in the parks, beaches, the restaurant meals "para dos", and all the young mothers everywhere, I can well believe them that singles are like lepers over here. To all those girls out there who have been single on Valentine´s day, I now feel your pain. Despite their judgement of my social life, the three hours of spanish practice really were invaluable.

We went back to the beach next, and they bought me half a pineapple, partially hollowed out and with three flavours of Ice-cream. Rum & Raisin is now my new favourite of the creamy flavours, it went really well with the chocolate. Luis pointed out the little carved wooden statues being sold at the tourist stalls along the beach, you pick it up by the head and a carved wooden dick pops out. Immature, but funny at the moment nonetheless. I had a swim, despite the warnings of "muy freo". We said our goodbyes, and exchanged email addresses and I got Luis´s phone number. I promised to give them a call if I was ever back in Santiago. It doesn´t look like that´s going to happen now though, unfortunately.

On the way back, I decided I needed to find a gym. I walked past one that looked perfect. Called Bull´s Gym, it was the ultimate macho workout centre. There was no cardio machines or any of that sissy crap that Real Men don´t need. There was only weights, pulldown machines, and benches, all under the watchful eye of a cartoon bull with massive pecs and a huge pirate earring, doing the arm-flex pose. This wasn´t about "Fitness First", this was about lifting more weight than the guy next to you, eating three portions of Muscle Builder 5000 washed down with a case of beer, then going out to flex-pose in the distant background of the photos of strangers. One guy there stood with the kind of stillness that communicates authority. He looked like Sylvester Stallone, but with the height and gut of Danny DeVito, and with the kind of horrible leathery skin that several decades of over-tanning will give you. I got talking to an Indian guy who looked out of place, by virtue of not lifting nearly enough weight (doing 20 reps without breaking a sweat). I got him to spot me on the bench press, and I tried to explain to him about eight to tens.

When I got back to the hostel, I was sitting in the reception chair using the internet, when a familiar face walked in. I had forgotten his name, but I recognised him from Buenos Aires. We had spent a day together in a group who went with Jasper over to Hostel Clan. That was a really good hostel too, with a bit more of a party atmosphere. I think that day at Clan was the first time (and hopefully only time) I had ever had a beer before lunch. It was a little bit awkward for me, because he was there with his hot girlfriend Carmen, a half-columbian law student from Birmingham. I had seen him pick up an ugly woman in her 30s with a hare lip back in BA (Chris Cochrane, if someone you know reads this and passes it on, then I guess that´s karma). Overlooking this, we had a bit of a catch up chat, and watched another episode of Peep Show (check it out if you haven´t seen it), plus yet another formulaic Jason Statham movie. We went and got some Empanadas for dinner, but they were so bad I threw mine out. The English couple didn´t seem to mind them, perhaps they were edible by the standards of English food. We then had a beer with a guy doing the scaffolding for the Madonna concert. The beer taste still revolts me, so I managed maybe half a glass. For you travellers out there, being a roadie is yet another idea for a way to see the world and make money. Chris and Carmen told me they were heading up to San Pedro de Atacama, so I thought that seems like as good a place as any to go next, and is where I write this entry from. Stay tuned!

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