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Published: July 21st 2010
After the Salar de Uyuni tour, Johaan and I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. There is not much to this small, adobe style town, but we welcomed the warm showers and the small streets. After spending a night here in order to re-group after being in the desert for 3 days, we boarded a 24 hr bus to Valparaiso, Chile. We decided to pay a little bit more for the seats that almost go completely flat and are much wider, and it was well worth it. Twenty-four hours later we arrived in the colorful and charming town of Valparaiso. This city on the bay reminding us a lot of San Francisco, and we actually later learned that it was known by many international sailors as “Little San Francisco”. All the houses are built right into the hillside, and are even equipped with ascensors, which are elevator type machines that take you up the hillside and into different neighborhoods. If you are from Santa Cruz and have eaten at Shadowbrook, than you know exactly the type of elevators I am talking about because they are the same ones. Valparaiso used to be the main port for ships travelling between the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but once the Panama Canal opened up, Valparaiso no longer served as the main port for international ships. However, even though it is not as heavily utilized as it used to be, Valparaiso still functions as a port for many ships and remains a vibrant center for Chilean culture.
Once we dropped are bags off at our hostal, Johaan and I went to explore this vibrant and colorful city. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t the prettiest, but it was still nice enough to walk around. We first headed to Plaza Sotomayor where all the naval monuments and buildings are located right on the edge of the harbor. The main monument pays tribute to the Navy and their victory over Bolivia in The War of the Pacific. This war resulted in Bolivia’s now land-locked state. In addition to this famous plaza, we made are way around the different streets and up the ascensors to different cerros, or neighborhoods, and admired all the old colonial building as well as the colorful houses. We also took time to try out the local food.
After watching Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations episode on Chile, we were excited to try the Completo and
the Chorillana. For lunch, Johaan and I sat down at a café by the sea and split a Completo. This monstrous hot dog consists of a 12” hot dog, topped with shredded pork, grilled onions, mayonnaise, and guacamole. What sounds like and looks like a disgusting, odd mess, was actually quite delicious. Not sure if I could eat another one, unless of course I had previously consumed several drinks, but it was good for the first time. After walking off the Completo and seeing more of this charming city, we were ready for dinner. We knew that we wanted to try the Chorillana, but we didn’t just want to sit down at one of the many fast food restaurants that served them. Rather, we were looking for more of a place that embraced the Chilean culture, and that, thanks to the recommendation in our Lonely Planet, was J Cruz Casino. Already turned off by the name, I was even more turned off by the location. This restaurant was at the end of a long alley, and I honestly thought that it was some kind of dive bar. When we entered the restaurant, I was pleasantly surprised!! Accompanying the graffiti and
nick-knacks all around the restaurant was a short, stout Chilean man playing live music. Johaan and I weren’t really sure if the Chorrillana was what we wanted, but we soon found out that we had no choice. The waitress quickly informed us that that was all they served and then asked us what kind of beers we wanted. Not too long after we were given a couple of Chilean beers, our Chorrillana arrived. It consisted of a bed of fries, grilled onions, a scrambled egg, and then chopped steak. Other versions of the Chorrillana have pork instead of steak, or a fried egg, instead of a scrambled one. Again, this concoction sounds atrocious, but once again, it was pretty amazing. If this is Chilean food, then I am very surprised that Chileans all don’t die of heart attacks at the age of 35 :D
As of that night, we were planning to stay another night in Valparaiso, but that morning we woke up to a very windy and rainy day. Unfortunately, we had dropped off our laundry the day before and wouldn’t be able to pick it up until 3:00 pm that afternoon. So to kill time, we just hung
out at our hostel, watched a world cup game, and grabbed a bite to eat. After we got our laundry, we were on a bus headed to Santiago.
We didn’t know what to expect in Santiago, because we had heard from other travelers that there wasn’t much to see there. Since we didn’t get there until the night, we decided to stay there for two nights and one day, and we were glad we did.
Johaan and I started our first day off with a trip up to San Cristobal. Cerro San Cristobal is a hill that rises 300m, or 985ft, above the city. After taking the funicular, an inclined railway, up to the top, there is a church, an amphitheater, a 72ft statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was donated by France in the 1920s, and of course amazing views of Santiago and the Andes surrounding the city. Unfortunately, Santiago does have a lot of smog because the Andes traps it in. After San Cristobal, we walked around the city until we had to go on our tour.
Earlier we had signed up for this free tour that one of the employees was doing at our hostel. The
Tasting the local drink... Terramoto!!
A Terramoto, or Earthquake in English, consists of pineapple ice cream, home made white wine, and a shot of fernet. A very delicious drink but very dangerous even after just onewhole tour was centralized around the idea of experiencing and seeing what Chileans do in their spare time and with little money. This was the type of thing that Johaan and I really love, because not only do you see the famous buildings and plazas of the city, but also you get to see what the locals do and where they go. First stop was Plaza de Armas to have some Café con Piernas, or Coffee with Legs. We had previously heard about this phenomenon, but never knew how far Chileans took this concept. Originally, Café con Piernas, was introduced to Santiago in the 1960s by an Argentinian man, but it was the infamous coffee shop, Baron Rojo, that took it up a notch in 1995 with the girls baring more than just legs. This tradition all started 50 years ago when Santiago was the main business hub where mostly men worked. The normal coffee bars weren’t getting that much business, and soon enough the owner of one called Haiti, came up with the idea to have lovely bar “maids” serve the coffee. This idea sure enough worked, and continues to attract most of the businessmen today. The traditional Café
con Piernas consists of a bar where one can go up to and give their order to a beautiful woman wearing a tight, very short dress and stilettos. The girls of course don’t make the coffee, they just serve it to you. Besides the more conservative coffee bars, there are many coffee bars like Baron Rojo, and this was one that we went to. Not knowing what to expect, I followed our tour guide, walked into a very dark building, and immediately thought I was in a strip club. The whole place is dark with neon lights coming from the ceiling and the girls were wearing nothing but thongs and tiny soccer jerseys, because there was a world cup game on, bearing their entire midriff and a lot of cleavage. The place was packed with businessmen in fancy suites and ties and they were all drinking coffee. There was a small stage that was lit up from underneath and a bar that surrounded it, and the girls would walk around the area serving coffee. Even after I received my coffee and stayed there for about 45 minutes to watch the second half of the world cup came, I was still
amazed by this concept and was trying to decide whether I agreed with it or not. I still don’t know what to think really haha, but I am definitely glad I experienced it!
After drinking our coffee, we headed to La Vega fruit and vegetable market and the Central Seafood Market to see where all the locals eat and shop for produce and seafood. Since Chile has such a long border on the sea, there were lots of different types of fresh seafood. We also were able to experiment with the local cheap eat and drink, sopapillas and terrimotos. A sopapilla is a disc of pumpkin dough that is then fried in oil. After it is cooked, there are several sauces that you can put on top. They cost $100 Chilean pesos, which is about $0.20 cents… not too bad for a quick and cheap eat. Last but not least is the Terrimoto. To try these local drinks, our guide took us one of the most famous cantinas in Santiago, La Piojera (meaning “where fleas live”). A former Chilean President first coined the name of this place in 1922 when the owner invited him into the bar. When he saw
that the bar was full of working-class men, he asked, “What is this place, a flea house?” and he quickly left claiming that he was taken to a place full of fleas. The famous Terrimoto consists of home made white wine and pineapple ice cream, all topped off with a shot of Fernet, a black licorice tasting alcohol. Which might taste disgusting if not stirred thoroughly, this drink was pretty tasty, and goes straight to your head. After one big glass full, I was ready for bed!
The next day, we were on another bus headed to Mendoza, Argentina. This 8-hour bus ride was probably the most beautiful bus ride I have ever been on. Since we had to cross the Andes in order to get to Argentina, we spent several hours switch backing up the snowy Andes Mountain. The border crossing was literally a tunnel that went through the Andes near the top. Since we had to get out to go through customs, we were able to play in the snow and take some pretty pictures. By far the best and prettiest border crossing I have experienced! After we got out stamps, we were on to Argentina!!!
Even though
our original plans, which were to go to a couple more towns more in the southern part of Chile, had to change because of the very cold weather conditions, I still loved my time in Chile and am very excited to do another trip to the south, but this time in their summer. I am currently writing this from Uruguay and am flying to Sao Paulo, Brazil, tomorrow, but will post my recent travels soon! Miss you all and we’ll be home in two weeks!
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gramma jo
non-member comment
Thanks for this,
I'm so happy that we are connected again. I've missed you two. Look forward to seeing you next month. Love, Grammy