My weekends in Europe

So, although is a long-overdue entry, I still want to briefly post about my travels to Valdivia, Chile and Mendoza, Argentina. Two weekends in a row, Ashley and I packed our nice big backpacks and jumped on busses to various parts of South America. Because really, when else in your life are you going to say “13 hours by bus? That’s not bad!” and then head to random South American towns for the weekend. Yeah.

So that’s what we did. Wednesday night, several weeks ago, we hopped a bus at 8:00 at night (sadly, missing our Pilates class, but sacrifices are made for the sake of travel) and arrived the next morning at 9 in Valdivia. Valdivia is a “city” in Chile that has the feel of a homey New England town. Which we didn’t realize until we got there. All we really knew was that a lot of Germans had settled there and that, as a result, there was a lot of good kuchen (a desert). Cool, we were headed to Switzerland for the weekend. (Which I say having never been anywhere near Switzerland or the continent on which it is located.)

Valdivia is where three rivers meet, and is surrounded by the volcano region. Mountains, water, and it’s only 20 minutes from the beach – it’s gorgeous. There were actually people rowing on the rivers too, as in crew. It was so familiar and happy. So the first day we did the normal tourist thing – take a boat tour of the rivers. Ashley and I had our own private tour from a salty old man with several teeth missing and a dog that didn’t bug the heck out of me. The rivers are beautiful and, because Ashley and I are somehow charmed, the day was gorgeous without a cloud in the sky…usually Valdivia has rain every single day, and we didn’t see a drop our whole weekend there.





The next day, Friday, we were going to go to the coast, but that morning, the Spanish-speaking, German owner of our hostel knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to go on a “tour” – his personally assembled off-road trip to a mini-mountain and the beach for hiking and rock climbing. Why not? So we put on our Merrels – definitely the best thing I brought with me to Chile, and squeezed with two other gringas into his truck. We drove off-road to a national park where we climbed mentioned mini-mountain, took lots of pictures of the thirteen volcanoes we could see from the top, drove down to the coast and climbed on the rocky shores looking at local wildlife, and then took off on a terrifying trip along the coast to watch the sunset on the Pacific. Mario, our guide, told us how terrible the bus drivers are as I prayed I wouldn’t meet each telephone pole we passed head on. Because really, would you have a random Chilean tour along the Pacific any other way?









Saturday we hopped a bus to the beach, where we checked out an old Spanish fort, met up with a very odd Swiss man who seemed only to want to talk about himself, and then proceeded to walk a mile or two up the beach (again, climbing over plenty of rocks to do so), accompanied the whole time by aforementioned Swiss dude. Trying not to be too embarrassed of his very poor Spanish-speaking ability whenever he tried to talk to locals. After hanging out there for a while, we hopped a bus back to Valdivia, reclaimed our items from our hostel, bid farewell to Mario, and hopped the 8 pm bus back to Valparaíso. Just in time for the Sunday procrastination payback…in which I work like a maniac to finish everything for the coming week.





The next weekend was my girly relaxing weekend. Which worked out well since I happened to get a really bad cold that weekend. (If anyone was wondering, it turns out “flem” is the same word in Spanish too…I was informed that my cough had it. Cool.) That weekend, Ashley and I only had to be on the bus for 7 hours. We were headed to Argentina (that’s right, I have more stamps in my passport!) for the weekend, to a town called Mendoza. Mendoza has a lot of Italians (and therefore really good food) like much of Argentina, but is best known for its shopping. So basically, this was our weekend in Italy. We arrived on a Thursday and decided to take the weekend slow. Thursday night we walked around all the stores and looked. Friday we entered some stores, tried some things on, and thought about buying. And finally, Saturday, I bought myself two new pairs of shoes (because really, who doesn’t need cute shoes when they’re sick?) for less than $20 total together (yay countries in financial crisis with big leather markets and without sales tax), gifts for friends and familiy, and two skirts to keep me going through the eternal spring that seems to be the Chilean climate. Which trust me, I’m not complaining about at all.



Of course, we also based much of the weekend on what we were going to eat, when. Because really, what else is more important than food when traveling? Especially when you haven’t chosen your own food in months due to living with host families. Italian food it was, and lots of it. We went to two Italian restaurants, an Italian pizzeria, and two “tenedor libre” (all-you-can-eat buffet) restaurants, the last category being the most interesting. The first we went to for a huge lunch with every possible type of food you could imagine. I even had some stir fry for the first time since arriving in South America. And a salad with all the vegetables mixed together; for whatever reason, they’re very big on piles here. Then, the next night, Ashley and I found ourselves in a vegetarian restaurant (quite a rarity in the beef capital of the universe that is Argentina) owned by a little Argentinean woman who had lived in New York City for several years and seemed determined to practice her English with us. I’m not completely sure she spoke either English or Spanish completely fluently. She also informed us that all Chileans are liars, that if you’re a liar you’re a thief, and that jealous neighbors had cut off her gas lines and so all the food we were eating had been cooked in her house and then reheated in the microwave in the restaurant. “Colorful” would charitably describe our new friend. It was incredibly amusing.

Also amusing, was the laundry list of things that we had to pick up for Ashley's host mom in Argentina. Because facial cream is apparently much too expensive in Chile. But it wasn't just skin products that we left with. One of the items on the list was more of a treasure hunt, and one that we're hoping was within all boundries of the law. Ashley's host mom gave us the address of a leather store in the town, where we were instructed to go and ask for Maurio (or some similar name). He was, of course, there, and we gave him a letter from Ashley's mom requesting several prescription drugs along with a wad of cash. And then we stopped by the next day and picked them up. All looking totally legitimate except for the lack of the pharmacy receipt on the outside. Hmmm... smile and nod. And maybe run. Drug deals in Argentina is one way to spend your South American weekends.

The last night, Ashley and I decided to ditch our fun little hostel and treat ourselves to a one star hotel. Because if we were going to be able to afford someplace with a private bathroom and towels, Argentina would be the place to do it. Besides, we weren’t exactly cool enough for our hostel where there was pizza and beer every night…and we were going to bed at 10 pm. It came out to about $20 for the night (split two ways). Not too bad. And the next morning we hopped a bus back to Chile, over the Andes again (where someone told me my cough was surely a result in changing temperatures from crossing the mountain range, something I somehow doubt) and were back in Valpo by 3-ish on Sunday, again in time for me to freak out about the fact that I hadn’t finished enough work (mostly a result of the fact that I was sleeping 12 hours a night trying to overcome my cold).

Well, I did my best to make the recap short but interesting, and it looks as if I haven’t succeeded in either. Kudos if you’ve made it to the end, if you haven’t, I don’t blame you. Hope you at least enjoyed the pictures!