Vina Del Mar – Week Two

January 17

Time is starting to fly by. I leave for Bariloche, Argentina to the south in five days. Yesterday the school hosted a cooking class and today I got a ride into Valparaiso from my teacher to La Sebastiana – the former residency of the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who passed away in 1973. The inside of the house contains lots of interesting artifacts from all over the world – Neruda spent a lot of time abroad as a diplomat in a number of different posts and was well-traveled. The views of the city and the sea from the house windows are fabulous. Much like the rest of Valparaiso, the house contains a lot of stairs, and it consists of four modest levels of living space. The walk back down to the main avenue situated along the sea was extremely steep. It was terribly hot today, by far the hottest day since I’ve been here.

January, 18th

The school provided a trip to Casa Blanca Valley where we visited an upscale vineyard. Our group of five consisted of all Americans (I don’t know that says about us culturally): Adam from Long Island who is a senior at the University of Albany; Iris, a 35 year-old nurse practitioner from San Francisco who is here on an extended holiday with her husband and two kids; and a couple in their fifties with no kids who’ve recently retired.

We had a tour of the grounds and of the wine cellar but I couldn’t follow what the guide was saying. The tasting was elaborate and elegant; we sat at a set table as a young woman talked us through three different wines – a chardonnay, a pinot noir, and a red blend. I bought a bottle of the pinot noir and another bottle of white.

That night I went for the second week in a row to the poliglota language exchange group. Yet again, I was the only foreigner.

Afterwards, I hung out at the hostel with a few guys from Argentina and one guy from Holland who is buying a motorcycle and heading north across the Atacama Desert.

January 19th

After school, I took the bus to a dog shelter in Valparaiso. Some of these dogs have recently become homeless after the wild fires ripped through Valparaiso a week or so ago. Oh, by the way, there are horrible wildfires throughout Chile in epic proportion right now. We were not able to help the dogs because some of them were sick and some of them were prone to biting; the long trip to an obscure and potentially dangerous area of Valparaiso was a bit of a waste, but it was a chance to see the city once again.

There was a party at the school tonight and I brought a bottle wine that I bought at the vineyard yesterday. I asked the director of the school what a homestay would cost next week and it’s just too much for my budget, so I’ve decided that I will indeed move on to Bariloche on Sunday. I met a Swiss guy at school who just completed the Carretera Austal and I’ve gotten all sorts of good tips. I’ll be changing hostels tomorrow for the next two days until I depart on Sunday.

January 20th

My last day of classes today. Sad saying goodbye. It was also sad moving hostels. But the new hostel did have a nice asado tonight and I talked to some folks. The beef, yet again, was incredibly tasty. Lots of Argentinians from Buenos Aires!

Looked at bikes today. The cheapest was 600 dollars, and all the equipment to go with it is so expensive. I’m not going to buy a bike. I’ll look into renting one in Bariloche or Puerto Montt.