Another weekend trip I wanted to make was to Mendoza Argentina. The highlight of this trip is not so much Mendoza itself although it has a pretty nice park, but the trip crossing the Andes. The trip interrupted only by the annoying, time consuming and strict inspections at the border shows you amazingly colored mountains. In summer there is little or no snow on the peaks, the more impressive it is when for a short moment you get a glimpse of the highest mountain outside the Himalaya with its thick snow and ice cap, the Aconcagua.

On one of the weekend trips I got to know Valparaiso and Vina del Mar about 2 hours from Santiago, seeing some immense vineyards along the way. Almost grown together these two cities couldn’t be more different. Valparaiso is one of the oldest cities, Vina del Mar one of the youngest. In Valparaiso you have many historic buildings; the city seems somewhat chaotic and poorer then its neighbor. It has a big port and the parliament has its seat there. Vina on the other hand is a modern somewhat artificial holiday complex with tons of hotels and restaurants. It was high summer and it was very hard to find a place for the night.
I think I have never seen a beach so crowded as this one and this despite the fact that there are signs everywhere telling you that swimming is prohibited. People don’t really care and do it anyway. The waves come in very strong but are of no good for surfing since they break in the last moment.
Although it’s nice to wander around in the city, the real reason in my opinion why somebody shouldn’t miss visiting the place is a little north to the city. If you like to walk and don’t mind doing so for a few hours then just take off from the center heading north along the coast. Passing some smaller Holiday complexes, it will take you to spectacular views and cliffs with birds and sea lions on an isolated rock out in the sea. If you like you can even have some desert adventures in the dunes that start to emerge.
Clearly the people in Chile like to travel as it was sometimes almost impossible to make your way through the crowds in the huge bus terminal on a summer weekend. I have never seen anything alike.

On one of my first trips exploring Santiago I ran into a huge street techno party (a la Streetparade). Other then that day it was the only time I heard that music. Compared to other Latin American countries you hear a lot of music in English, especially from the 80’s which I found kind of amusing.
Santiago is surrounded by mountains and although they have a very modern metro system, smog is still a problem. Fortunately Santiago has one of the biggest urban parks I encountered so far, El Parque Metropolitano. I liked going there to catch some fresh air and get away from my noisy neighborhood. There is another park where I spent time playing table tennis in the evenings. While I can’t recommend El Parque O’Higgins on the weekend, during the week it’s very nice. Besides that you can take local busses that bring you to the edge of the city where you can climb up one of the mountains.
On my journey I have come along so many variations of Spanish, but the way it is spoken in Chile certainly gave me the most trouble, they change the ending of the verbs in a very strange way that it is very hard to understand at first.
Chile has been the most expensive country I ran into here in South America. Ironically I found a very good valued place to stay. Depart San Francisco 415 is an Apart Hotel close to the center, although a bit noisy during my stay due to new buildings being built on the other side I can recommend it if you plan to stay for a while in Santiago. It has a gym that you can use, people are very friendly and downstairs you can even connect to the internet per WiFi and all to a very affordable price.

It’s been a while since I last updated my blog. In that time bittrail has had its first birthday (without a party though and even worse…, without presents).
I’ve been here in Santiago de Chile ever since my last entry, more then 3 months now. I had lots of work but it was nice to settle down and stay in the same spot for a while. I made weekend trips to places near Santiago. I spent a lot of time with my special friend Xim and her family. Often I got invited to go over to her house for dinner. So I got to experience first hand the life in Chile and the many traditional dishes. I want to thank her and her family for their hospitality, I enjoyed it a lot and it is part of the reason why I am traveling, to experience life and culture in other countries. After a while I even got to like the Chile salad dressing (pure lemon juice). Almost every dish here comes accompanied with very tasty bread, which I enjoyed a lot.