All you need is a thumb, an open mind, and a smile

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I finally saw the ocean again after 4 months.. 5 months of not seeing the pacific. growing up my whole life on the coast, i really take for granted the beauty of the sea.
so, my last update, i basically said how miserable i am. but in reality, i am just spoiled with too much good times on this adventure.
for the past two weekends, I have made my way to the coast.
two weekends ago, I took the one hour bus ride with a friend to viña del mar and spent the weekend exploring that city, enjoying the beach and sun and heading up the coast. viña del mar is a much better city. its beautiful, has interesting architecture and things to see. spent the night in a cute little beach town called renaca, about 7km north of viña. personally, i enjoyed this beach better becuase it was not as big and touristy. instead more mellow, not as many highrises and more land. made friends with some locals who, being sunday, invited us to their BBQ. The meat was good, the people were nice ( and cute) ( finally found cute boys in chile) but being chile, the accent was so hard to understand and the conversations were more or less the basic simple spanish. it was still fun and we had a great time.

then last weekend was an adventure. my ¨host brother¨dave, hes studying at the school and is from colorado, and i went hitch hiking from the coast. Comparing all the countries that i know, chile, is by far the best for hitch hiking. its the safest and the easiest. of course, i would never hitch by myself but here are my experiences: Brazil was sketchy. people did pull over, but judging their cars and the person had to pick and choose. it was rare for people to pull over, but when i did hitch ( in buzios and floripa) i met really nice warm welcoming brazillian ladies. in argentina, its not common. I hitched from the outskirts of BS AS to rosario.. which was hard. not a lot of people pulled over.. instead they would usually honk, point and stare, but not pull over.. so it took a lot of time and patience. but as usual, good old argentines, were so nice and open and helpful. in chile, its common. the most we had to wait was 25 minutes.. and that was trying to leave santiago. once we got out of the city, we waited less than 10 minutes. so, its harder to have a conversation, yes the accent and all, but also, its just harder. the people are not as open.

so we started saturday morning on ruta 78. went to san antonio ( took us two cars, first one by a nice old funny couple and the second by a truck driver). dave had his guitar and we met some locals with charrangos ( i think thats the name.. the mini guitar with 12 strings) and he played with them. then, they offered us food. after wondering around san antonio, nice port village, with very dirty water,but good fish, we hitched up the coast. got a ride to caratenga. old city with big waves. then we got a ride through small towns, with lots of meadows and trees and flowers, passed through el labo, isla negra ( with the house of pablo neruda) a small city. not much and everything is related to the poet. up to quisco and then up to arregalo ( cant remember the name exactly). the cities were all pretty much the same. on the coast. cute, small, tranquila. we spent the night in a hostel in quisco and enjoyed the beach there on sunday. then spent about 4.5 hours hitchiking back to santiago. it was a good fun weekend. saw the coast, lots of farms and villages, got to practice spanish and learn the viewpoints of chileans. as well for two days, with hostel and food only cost us about 10 mil each.. 20 dollars.

check back for pics.. i still have them on my cam so cant upload them yet.

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Photos

in the truck
one of our many drivers

locals
some friends we made along the way

beach
aftre hours of wondering, we settled on this nice quiet beach

more of the coast
we found great little hide outs and statues to for the protection of the sea for the fishermen

the way back...
the route on the way back home