3 cities, 3 atmospheres: Rengo, Santiago and Valparaiso

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I hitchhiked from Puerto Varas to Santiago (more than 1000kms) and I was quite lucky as after 2 short rides, I got a ride with a truck and they were going to Rengo, which was a town 100kms South of Santiago. The 2 guys in the truck were very nice, I had a good laugh with them all the journey up to Rengo. It was good as it was more 10 hours! The truck driver was very funny and I will always remember his sentence “the most important in life are trucks, motos and women”. As in Argentina, Chilean men love women!!! This was thus very funny each time, we were stopping at a toll and that the person in the cabin was a woman 😉 It’s difficult to explain it but this guy was a real showman.

During our journey, Sebastian –the young guy driving with us- told me that it was the wine festival today and tomorrow in his city Rengo. Well, I thought, “why not stay in Rengo for a few hours to enjoy the wine festival there?” It was indeed once again life which was leading me there, so let’s enjoy it :D We arrived late in Rengo, so at first I decided to sleep in my tent in Sebastian’s garden as he offered me but then at his house, he offered me a room for me alone! It was like a dream for me! In the evening, there was only some local music and shows but it wasn’t possible enough to taste wine at 10.30pm, so I decided that I would go back tomorrow morning to taste wine before leaving to Santiago.

In the next morning, I thus went to the main square early and I could taste some different wines there. It’s funny to see the difference of a wine tasting in Chile and in France: there wasn’t any pot for me to spit the wine I was tasting and they were serving me big glasses of wine even though it was only 10am!! The fact is here in Chile, people don’t come there to taste wine but to get wasted, so they didn’t understand that I only wanted to taste. Out of the 4 different glasses of wine I drank, I liked 2 of them, which were the 2 sweet ones –red and white-. The other 2 weren’t good at all, so to the astonishment of the people at the booth, I didn’t drink the whole glass of those wines.

After that wine tasting morning, I went to Santiago. I arrived there in the afternoon and met with Susann, who was a girl I met in Buenos Aires, while we were both staying at the same host of Couchsurfing. She was now hosting me in her flat in the very center of Santiago. Together, we went for a walk in the center. I especially liked Santa Lucia hill, Parque Forestal, the Bellavista street art and small market and the view over the city from San Cristobal hill. In the evening, we went with her boyfriend to have dinner in the city in Bellavista district, we had a really nice time there chatting a lot about everything. On that night, I ate fish for the first time in a very long time –I couldn’t even remember when was the last time I ate fish…-.

On my second day, I could taste the real Chilean life thanks to Ignacio –the friend I met on the road in Argentina and who is from Santiago-. He indeed invited me for asado-bbq in South America-. This is a typical thing to do in family for the weekend: to meet up and eat asado. I was really happy to be able to join them on that day, we had a really good time enjoying good meat, lots of salads –Ignacio, his sister and her family are vegetarian- and good wine. Everything to spend a good time 😊 Ignacio then took me to the city center, where we saw a old district around Paris and Londres street, where I entered the very nice San Fransisco church. You have to know that in Chile old means some centuries ago as the capital was only founded in the XVIIIs-XIXs century. We then went to my favorite district in Santiago: Lastarria. There, we saw quickly an open air concert of Cumbia –I love this style of music!!- and we went for a drink in the political bar of “The Clinic”. It’s a really nice bar with different rooms and it shows satiric posters about politics.

The next day Ignacio took me to Valparaiso –he lived there for a while, so he knows the city well and his best friend is leaving there-. I loved that city. If there is only one city to visit in Chile, it’s definitely Valparaiso with its street arts everywhere, its several hills with nice views and its good nightlife. I could thus get a small taste of the nightlife in Valparaiso on that day but as it was a Monday, it wasn’t as lively as on a weekend day. What I liked in Valparaiso is that -except in the very center, where it is dirty- you can wander everywhere and be surprised by the beauty of the place! What is convenient is that there are “elevators” in different parts of the city to take you quickly up the hills without climbing up there. Valparaiso is indeed a city built on the hills and that’s why most of the streets aren’t flat. For those who like spending time at the beach, you can go to Vina del Mar, which is the city next to Valparaiso and where there is the beach but be advised that it’s more expensive to eat and sleep there.

At the moment, I am writing this blog, there had been a huge fire destroying a lot of this amazing city and I felt awful knowing this: thousands of houses had been destroyed by this fire… Such events are such a shame, especially when it’s so big and in such amazing places…

After spending some days in the cities, it was time for me to go to the North of Chile in the desert. You can read about his awesome place in my other post!!!

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Photos

Valparaiso's very steep streets!
Diego's house

Comments

[enhui]

sounds good
seems to me a totally different culture, i might get scared when passing by the street, but another side, i see the amazing things and like their difference.

[Frenchgirlroundtheworld]

Safe
Hi Enhui, Chile is a relatively safe place. You have to be careful in Santiago and Valparaiso, as they are bigger cities but it's the same everywhere. And I absolutely loved Valpariso, you just visit it, if once you are in Chile :)