Valparaiso to Coyhaique

We’ve had quite a week since my first post about Day 1. The next day in Valparaiso we drove north along the coast through the beach town of Viña del Mar and further north from there. We found a public beach to sit on and relaxed for a while. The wind was so intense though that it kept blowing sand on all over us and we decided to change locations. We thought we should hit up the popular beach spot in Viña…and popular was an understatement. Popular as in…couldn’t find a spot for our towel popular. After a hot dog topped with guacamole, tomato and mayo, (which is officially the first thing on my list of "Things Chileans Like" - everything is topped with guac, tomato and mayo) and some time in the sun we made our way back to the hostel for the night.

We met some British girls back at the hostel who, after having just graduated from college, were in the midst of an 11 month trip around the world. They were at the end of their 4 months in South America and it was nice to get some tips of places to go and talk to some other English speakers in general.

On our final day in Valparaiso, we decided we should walk the town and see as much of the touristy stuff as possible…and walk we did. The highlight was probably the walk through the public outdoor art gallery on Cerro Bellavista. Essentially it’s a neighborhood which has been decorated with murals of various styles by almost twenty different artists. It was an amazing neighborhood.

One last stop before leaving town…the fish market. Ummm…not at all like the many fish markets I see people visiting when they travel on TV…fresh fish on ice…flowers, veggies, people working diligently. No this was more of a smelly, fly infested, broken down cement building…so yes…we should eat here. A nice lady corralled us into her restaurant on the second floor and of course the menu had no pictures,

translations or even Spanish adjectives that we could decipher. So we ordered some Salmon and a seafood empanada…which contained just about every weird creature under the sea…and even for adventurous eaters like us…was well…SCARY.

Now it was time to leave Valparaiso and head to Santiago for the night. Thanks to Franco and company we got a beautiful room a cool little boutique hotel called the Hotel Orly right in a great neighborhood with bars and restaurants. Franco was in town on business for the day so he was able to come grab us and head to dinner that night before we all flew down to Patagonia together in the morning. We got no sleep that night in anticipation of our early departure. After four days of hectic sight seeing and poor attempts at mangled Spanish, and a two hour flight delay, we were finally off to our new home in Patagonia.

Franco dropped Kerri and me at our new accommodations for the next few days and it is a great little two bedroom cabin overlooking an absolutely spectacular view. Patagonia really is amazing. Just stepping off the plane, the air was different. Here are a couple of pictures from our cabin in Patagonia just outside the town of Coyhaique.

The stress of the preparation, travel and first week in a new country has definitely worn us out…that and the whole not eating dinner until 10pm thing. But we are just taking it easy and resting up before we leave on Tuesday for a 10 day trip out into Patagonia.First stop…Melimoyu, followed by a few days in Valle California.