Camacho Watcho

Today is another day…I believe that is what I said a few months ago while in South America. It’s true, obviously. But, it’s something to take to heart as well. Be where you are and enjoy. So, on that note, here are my final days in Argentina and my return home.

The last few days after Mendoza were spent in Buenos Aires. This was my fourth and final trip and I was finally going to do some sightseeing. Buenos Aires is made up of many neighborhoods that have such unique personalities. It really is amazing to wander through each one and experience the people, the food, the sights and the sounds. I had already spent a great deal of time in Palermo, where most of the boutique shopping is, therefore we decided to start out on our first morning for La Boca. This is a bright, vibrant area of Buenos Aires where many artists live. There is a large market with tango, vendors and small shops called Caminita and it is also the home to several of the local soccer teams such as Boca Juniors and Boca River.

The next stop was La Casa Rosada…The Pink House. This is the government building like the White House in the U.S., located near Puerto Madero. The balcony of this historical building is the setting for Eva Peron’s many addresses to the Argentinian masses. From La Casa Rosada, we strolled along until we reached the Obelisk, which is located in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Buenos Aires. With eight lanes of traffic in each direction and billboards filling the sky, this area feels like a cross between Times Square and the Champs-Élysées.

After the Obelisk, we headed to the Eva Peron museum in Recoletta. While I’d love to say that we spent hours pouring through the history of Eva Peron’s life, we actually were starving by the time we arrived, so we ate lunch. Unfortunately, after lunch we decided that since it was so late in the day, we would leave for the next adventure. It pains me now, as I hear how amazing this museum is, so I will need to return someday to properly visit it. However, the artisan pasta we had there was amazing; I highly recommend it for lunch.

After the museum, we stayed in Recoletta and walked through the Japanese gardens. To be quite honest, these were a major disappointment. The Japanese gardens in San Francisco are much better and since we had more places to go…we left after just a few minutes.

Our next destination was the Recoletta Cemetery, where Eva Peron’s body remains. The area of Recoletta where the cemetery is located is very Parisian with its beautiful streets lined with high end boutiques. We first stopped for some ice cream at Freddo’s, which is an Argentinian gelatto store that is amazing! Kyle got the malbec ice cream – another high recommendation from me! After our ice cream, we headed into the cemetery, which is just beautiful. It is, however, a little creepy to be walking through the tombs and to see broken glass and granite blocks that allow perfect viewing of the caskets that are held within. If you are creeped out easily, I would recommend staying on the main, tourist path and not walking through the narrow aisles off the beaten track, as we did. While the cemetery itself was beautiful, the church next door is also quite amazing and actually offers fantastic views of the cemetery next door from the resident chambers.

After a long walk home, we settled in and decided where to eat. Truly, if you find yourself in Buenos Aires someday and you only have the opportunity to eat one dinner – you must go to Cabana Las Lilas. Yes, it is a bit touristy, but it is absolutely the best meal, steak, antipasti platter, dessert, experience ever. That is all I will say.

And so it was my final day in South America. It had been three months of pure adventure and it was perfect.

An unfortunate day for Uruguayan futbol on Sunday…they tied against Chile on this beautiful day, although it was not without a fight. My friends and I went to another soccer game, sporting our baby blue. The games are just so much fun! I’ve decided, based on this last experience, that there seem to be two certainties in Uruguayan life.

1. It is always a beautiful day when Uruguay soccer is played.
2. Uruguayans are late for everything….except a soccer game.

I arrived with a friend a couple minutes before the game, thinking that since we had tickets in a pretty good section, it would be easy to find our seats before the game started. I was very wrong. The stadium, while historic and very amazing, is not the highest tech stadiums out there and is very poorly marked. And everyone was there and had been there, anxiously awaiting the game, for awhile. We found ourselves there right as they were singing the national anthems, so we were in a scrabble to find our friends and have a seat. We found, what we thought was the right set of stairs to descend, although it was tough to identify it as stairs at all. Apparently, there is no order to soccer games and no one really cares where people sit. So, while this was a stairway we had found, it was completely filled with fans sitting on the steps. We were, however, fairly determined this was right, so we made our way down, trying to be as polite as possible along the way. When we reached the very bottom, we realized….wrong stairway…and we were trapped. There was no going back up and there was definitely no going down further. So, for the first half of the game, we were sitting on the steps with the masses in the front row of the middle bowl. The “seats” were not as good as what we had paid for, but the experience was definitely more interesting. Although we did move at halftime to sit with our friends, the first half was a lot of fun!

So, the action on the field….Chile is a better team than Bolivia, as you can tell by the score of the game, and the game seemed pretty evenly matched in the first half. There were a couple missed opportunities by Uruguay, which were major disappointments, but near the end of the first half, Uruguay did score and it was wild! The game was much more crowded this time and people were jumping up and down and going crazy…chanting of course…Uruguay (clap clap clap) Uruguay (clap clap clap). I just loved it! The second half started similarly to the first, but then Chile managed to score and shortly thereafter scored again on a penalty kick. This really fired up Uruguay and they were full out, charging down the field with several close goal attempts until, finally….SCORE!!! All tied up. I knew the end of the game was nearing, although I had no idea when, since this stadium has neither a scoreboard or clock. This was frustrating at first, but then you get into it, and given that you have no idea when the final seconds will wind down, it really adds to the drama of the game. As the players are charging up, so are you, since the game could end literally at any moment. The game continued in this battle, charged up until the last moment, until it unfortunately ended in a tie.

So Uruguay will play Chile away soon, and while not all hope is lost, it’s more difficult to come back when you’ve lost the first game at home. At least that’s what I’m told…remember, this is only my second soccer game ever. I guess, that’s not counting the soccer games I “played” in one summer when my mom decided it would be a good idea to sign me up for a team when I was a kid. I obviously did not retain much of that knowledge, but not all was last that summer, I did perfect my pirouette while idly awaiting the ball to come my way.

To continue in sharing my weekend in Chile with you, I thought I would write a bit about Vina del Mar. We woke up Saturday morning and headed to the bus station for our trip to Vina. The best deal in town. Less than $5 buys you a ticket on a pretty nice bus and you head an hour and a half to the Pacific coast.

It’s a beautiful drive to Vina. You head through a small mountain range and when you emerge on the other side there are orchards and vineyards along the road. Simply beautiful. I had intended to read my book the entire way there, but I honestly never took my eyes from the scenery. One fun surprise was passing the first winery – it was Veramonte! Now, you might not know the significance of this for me but Veramonte is my favorite Chilean Sauvignon Blanc that I drink back home. Literally I was telling Holly a few minutes before that the only Chilean wine I ever drink is Veramonte and voila! There is the winery! So, the picture below is taken from the bus of the Veramonte winery.

We made it to Vina by about 1:30 and had lunch at the hotel. Our sole purpose of heading to Vina was to lounge in the sun and that we did on Saturday afternoon. Our room was right on the ocean, basically hanging over it. It was so relaxing. Later in the afternoon, we took a stroll along the ocean and into the town of Vina del Mar. A long, wooden boardwalk runs along the beach and on it are market vendors, puppet shows, pony rides…just about everything you can think of.

That night we went to dinner in Valparaiso. We had intended on doing some sightseeing there, as it’s supposed to be an amazing older city, but we got there just a bit too late to see anything. Instead we went straight to dinner, which was at a typical Chilean restaurant, but the actual place was beautiful. It’s located inside an old mansion that is on the hillside overlooking the bay. Wow – what a view! I tried to order Chilean seabass again, but wouldn’t you know it…they were out of seabass. Hello! I’m in Chile, right?

At this point I feel the need to digress. So, there is a behavior that is common amongst Chilean people that I really do not care for. I know I should not take offense to it as they do not mean to offend, but it surprised me so much and I really don’t like it. It’s common for people in Chile to shake (or wag, as I like to call it) their finger at you when they disagree or want to show you that something isn’t right. Think of a parent scolding a child saying “no no no”. That is how it makes me feel. You see this all over the place. If you try to catch a cab and you don’t realize that it’s already taken they wag their finger “no no no”. It’s very common. But dinner on Saturday night was my final straw. As I said, I tried to order the seabass and I got the wag of the finger “no no no”. They are out of seabass…how was I supposed to know? They didn’t tell me this. It’s printed on the permanent menu, but somehow I am responsible for knowing to the point that I am now being scolded with the wagging of the finger…I guess that’s just the way it is. So, back to Saturday night…

After dinner, we headed to “Huevo”, a dance club with multi-levels of different themed rooms. There were rooms for disco, 80s, loungey sounds, boy-bands (yes, In Sync and Backstreet videos abound)…just about every theme. We settled into the 80s themed room and hung out there for a bit. We didn’t stay long, however, and decided to leave right about the time when we spotted a cross-dresser wearing a white leotard and ballet tu-tu, with bright blonde pig-tails, gliding across the floor on roller skates. At that point, we said chau to “Egg”.

We, of course, ended our trip with a quick detour to a winery on our way back to the airport. We quickly toured, tasted and got back on the road to make our flight back. All in all, our trip to Chile was amazing. It is definitely a wonderful country, minus the finger wagging, and I hope to return someday soon.

We hit Santiago de Chile in one day…but we hit it hard! We were physically in the city of Santiago for about 20 hours and in that time we did all the sightseeing, eating, shopping, salsa dancing and sleeping that we could. Now that I think about it, we salsa danced for the same amount of time that we actually slept!

So, I will rewind a bit. A couple of friends and I went to Chile for the weekend, spending one day in Santiago and then on to Vina del Mar the next day. I’ll concentrate on Santiago de Chile today and will write about Vina del Mar another day. Chile is such a beautiful country! I am really hoping to go back sometime to spend more time and to explore more of Chile, as it has so much to offer! To get there from here, you fly over the Andes mountain and I must say, that is quite an experience. I know there are many mountain ranges and I’ve flown over many in my lifetime, but this was different. The experience simply left me in awe.

Santiago de Chile is just over the Andes mountains and is a sprawling city, bustling with activity. Full of culture, it has a wonderful mix of neighborhoods, plazas, green spaces and new and historic buildings that make you wonder if you could ever really experience all is has to offer. Believe me, however, we tried! Our sighteeing led us from the Plaza de Armas to Mercado Central and up into the hills overlooking the city below and back again.

The afternoon began with lunch in the Plaza de Armas. There is a restaurant there, anonymous to the public, as it is unmarked and located in an upper floor of one of the buildings surrounding the plaza. Entering was a maze, even for our friend who had eaten there a number of times. Once inside and upstairs, you enter a plain looking door and find yourself standing inside an apartment. The restaurant is literally inside an apartment and is actually a place of business, where the dark, ornate office is an actual working office for someone and you can eat in any of the rooms, including the man’s office! We ate a simple meal, from a simple menu, but it was quite tasty and we certainly had a lovely view of the plaza below. We ordered “special tea”, which is actually wine served in ornate tea cups. They do not actually have a liquor license, but do they serve the tastiest of “teas”! After lunch, we went on with our exploring, wandering through the pedestrian streets and trying local favorites such as a peach and corn sweet drink that was quite interesting.

Then we were on to Mercado Central, which is the sister market of El Mercado del Puerto in Montevideo, but is focused on seafood instead of asado (grilled meat). The structure is essentially the same and is so beautiful, with its tall ceilings and ornate windows. By the time we arrived, the bustle of lunch was over, however, we still took time to meander among the fish mongers, fruit stands and restaurants. Every kind of fish and sea creature you could imagine lay on display; similar, yet different, from the scene at Pike’s Market in Seattle. The difference is that these fish mongers are all business. They are serious about their fish. As serious as I was about wanting to eat Chilean seabass that night….but I’ll get to that part later.

After Mercado Central, we went to Parque Metropolitano to ride the funicular up into the hills overlooking the city. The view from the top is truly a sight to behold. I would recommend this part to everyone who visits Santiago. As expected, the first platform that you arrive to upon leaving the funicular is very touristy. But, this does not distract from the urban sprawl set amongst the distant mountains that you gaze upon from there. Truly beautiful. however, the truly special sight to experience is to climb the stairs to the sanctuary just above the overlook. The sanctuary is an outdoor church with pews set among garden rows and a small chapel just off to one side. Above the sanctuary, and overlooking the entire city, is a 72 foot statue of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, a porcelain white presence set against the clear blue sky.

Leaving the sanctuary, you have the option to ride the teleferico (cable car) across the park and down the other side of the hill, which we chose to do. Floating through the trees, suspended above Santiago, is definitely a must-do when visiting this city. Each cable car seats only four people which makes the experience very intimate and peaceful. The few times we did talk during this ride, our voices were just a whisper, each of us feeling overwhelmed at the beauty and respectful of the experience itself.

That night, we met some friends for dinner at a Peruvian restaurant called “El Otro Sitio”. To celebrate the evening, we started out with a local Chilean drink called a Pisco Sour. I’m not sure what exactly is in this drink, but it was tart, sweet and frothy and very delicious! The perfect start to a very fun evening. For appetizers, we ordered fresh fish ceviche and scallops baked in parmesan cheese. For the main entree, I had Chilean seabass with tomatoes and onions and of course, to complement this perfect meal, we had a bottle of Chilean wine. When I said that Chile had a lot to offer, I meant a lot to offer! Not only is there a plethora of activities to do in Chile, but the food and wine are reasons to visit in and of themselves.

What better way to spend the rest of the evening than in a salsa club, dancing the night away! We danced, watched salsa demonstrations and listened to the live band until it was time to go home and sleep a couple hours in preparation for our adventures the next day. As my travel partner and friend Holly says once we’ve explored and done everything we can in a new city, “Santiago de Chile….check!”