Huanchaco; Eurotrash, beef hearts and an angry ocean.

Well, another retro-post, meaning that days have gone by and I'm writing about things that have happened hundreds of miles ago.

After driving back to Santiago, Chile from Valparaiso I flew back to Lima and then directly onto another flight to Trujillo and cab to Huanchaco. I only mention that to show that you can convert an incredibly long day into a mere 25 words. I really enjoyed Valparaiso but for some reason I couldn't get rid of the rental car fast enough. The flights back were easy enough, flying in South America reminds me of flying in the US in the 80s and 90s. Everything is low key, security doesn't treat you like a combatant and you get fed. Here are some pictures of the way back.

Huanchaco is definitely a surf zone, and works pretty well as one. I stayed in two places;

Hospidaje Oceano
Gets great reviews on Trip Advisor and I'd have to agree.  At an equivilant of USD $14, this is definitely on the budget end of things, but Carlos and his wife Esperansa were absolutely lovely folks. I was staying by the night since I wasn't sure exactly where I'd end up. It's at places like this you find the more interesting range of people, usually backpackers from Europe, wacky expats from the states, blah blah blah. Case in point; Hazel and Lola. These girls had just graduated college (nutrition and philosophy, Ireland and London respectively) and were out for six months or more bopping around South America. They looked and sounded impossibly young but were making money along the way teaching English with their TESL certifications. They were waiting for the night bus that was coming by after about 11:00 or so. Central America notwithstanding, I've seen a LOT of this. I really wish I had rebounded from the discouragement I got about seeing the world when I was younger. Yep, that's a shade of resentment you see there. Anyhow, after a nice long chat I bade them safe travels and goodnight. I probably would have stayed here longer, but for some reason my laptop wouldn't connect to the internet so I poked around and found another place.

Casa Chill
Casa Chill is full of groovy Euro 20 somethings all completely indifferent to anything but their Freunde, their surfboards und ihre Rave-Musik. Fine with me. It's kind of like home where my kid takes up massive existential space and I just kind of ghost through like some irrelevant, steampunk robot trying to stay out from underfoot.

At the time I wrote;
"So I'm hanging out, looking at the sea, writing a little here and noticing that there are all kinds of flags for all kinds of countries... but no American flag. Oh well. Maybe I'll send one down. Maybe they dont want to attact fat or loud people, but if I had my phone I'd record this loud mouthed older brit woman (oh hell, she's probably my age) who's been going on about some aquatic fauna that's put the hurt on her foot. A crab or a stingray according to here, but geez she's loud as all hell and is still going on. Meh. Maybe it's the sun. Someone needs to put a beer in 'er." A note from later on, an American told the story of when it happened and we all died laughing since it turns out that the beach is full of rocks and crap and it was probably nothing. I'm not sure how it got so funny but we were definitely in stitches."

This is pretty much how I spent my time in Huanchaco. Sitting on the terrace, drinking beer, watching the ocean go nuts and foraging for the next helping of ceviche, arroz con mariscos and pappas. Let it also be known that the street food will not kill you. I had the both the pollo and beef heart skewers and my stool remained firm.

Valparaiso on Chile's west coast, part 1.

Okay, so last time I was posting I was in Valparaiso, Chile.

This was a really interesting place. Bearing in mind that I haven't been to Europe yet, this looked a lot like what I've seen portrayed of of old European places on the web, TV and films. I think that's probably because in the US if it's run down it looks one way, there... another. Yeah, I know that tells you nothing. It reminded me of the French Quarter draped over San Francisco. Whatever.

I ended up renting a car and driving over, something I planned on NOT doing, but it was okay. I ended up driving a Kia "Morning", and if it was an automatic I'd probably be dead. Honestly, if a car has a manual transmission you can at least goose it and get it to move. This would become critical in the tiny twisting and very busy streets on the sides of the hills of Valparaiso.

 Driving out of Santiago I again got the feeling of being in the North American west. It's flat but surrounded by arid hills and mountains and very, very brown. Valpariso is only about 1-1/2 hours west and fairly uneventful. A lot of big buses, fast Audis and more little cars like mine. As I recall there were two 2600 (pesos? dolares?) in tolls on the way out and I think they were 1700 each on the way back in.

Once you get into Valparaiso it's pretty much like the center of many other South American cities. It's wall to wall people, cars, motorcycles, buses, dogs, cats and people selling things. Google maps on the phone was NOT any help as far as navigation, though the GPS still showed the roads and my general location. A word of warning though, and I had heard this from another traveler in an online forum and can testify that sometimes Google will try to route you up stairs intended for pedestrians. You have been warned.

The short story is that I was able to figure how to get to my hotel by connecting my location to where the hotel was on the map. The end.

Actually the real story is this...




...and this;

... and the fact that many of the roads are one way, twice as wide as my car and I got to share it with people that parked in both directions on one side and oncoming traffic. You know, I hear a lot about Europeans and Americans taking motorcycles across South America and puffing up their chests like it means something. Real men drive in town in cars. I will vigorously debate this with anyone.

Anyhow, I really liked my first hotel, The Ultramar. Their stated price was more than what Tripadvisor had me expecting, but I was able to negotiate to something below that. And like I said, it was really great. It's high on a hill and has a great view of the city and bay. I was given a cold beer and shown my room. Talk about civilized! Ultramar was good for me because they had parking, but the view, the breakfasts and the overall mellow nature of the place made it a favorite stop for me. The guy who worked the desk while I was there, Jose, spoke excellent English and was an absolute pleasure to have as a contact for the hotel. He was super helpful and was a great face to the hotel.

In the area I was in there were boatloads of murals on the walls outside of apartment buildings and homes. These are a couple of the more compelling that I saw. When I get home I'll put the rest of the pictures somewhere and link to them. There were some really good ones.

I also made a friend. 

Another city loaded with cats and dogs, though there were a lot more dogs here and many of them were big. They're fairly ubiquitous, almost like another class of citizens. People leave water out for them, and food so it's kind of cool. Neither group seems to hassle each other and the dogs are bright enough to stay out of traffic or be nuisances. There's a street smartness that the dogs and cats seem to have that I'm sure has a dark side, but I never saw it.

Next stop, Vina del Mar.

The weird fish thing I mentioned...

...isn't really that weird. All along the west coast of Central and South America Ive been enjoying a dish called Ceviche. Basically (as I understand it) it's seafood cured with citrus juices and has all kinds of styles. To me it always seems to have the best qualities of pico de gallo with seafood added. Can't go wrong. Actually I might have linked to it earlier but no one else reads this so why should I go back and look, right?

When in Santiago I took a trip out to the Belle Arte district and walked around, got the feel and then stopped to eat. It's actually a nice walking area full of students and regular folks of all kinds.

Here's my ceviche, because for some reason I've taken a crap load of pictures of food and beer. This picture features a beer that I've grown to like; Kunstmann.

I also saw these and thought they were cool. They looked really heavy.

       

Here's a street. Loads of them down there.

 

 

Anyhow, that's a little closure for Santiago. Next stop, Valparaiso.

Santiago: Arrival, laptop, and I plan to eat some more weird fish stuff.

 Something about flying to another country from another country... It really gives me a charge.

I'm traveling pretty light, I've got all of my paperwork in order. All I need to do is answer the questions when the airport folks ask them and this is pretty easy to do anywhere that's not the US. Security is real but not over the top. I never feel abused by the customs people and even when I drift into the wrong aisle no one yells, pulls out a tazer (or worse ) and starts pretending they're lead asshat in a stupid movie. Funny thing is that I did drift through the wrong door and the guy was serious, but was actually more interested in what my goal was rather than assuming I was trying to hoodwink someone or bust the ruuuules. Anyhow the Trip to Santiago was cool.

Highlights:

I ate a horrible airport burger, texted with a buddy from home and flew out. I did have some some interesting airplane food (Causa!)
The guy next to me (Alberto) practiced his English and showed me pictures from his travels and vacations. He was a pretty interesting gent and traveled to Santiago once a month for work.
Behind us an elderly woman is crooning some hill music from her home.

It's so sweet it hurts. No one complaining. I tried to record some but the ambient hiss from the the engines cancel it out. My neighbor and I exchange a smile and enjoy. The flight attendant got a smooch from for helping her get to el servicio. A little later: Wow, that lady is really starting to belt it out now. I got her on recording now, I think folks are starting to get a little full, she's narrating too.

 Huh. Alberto chuckled when we got off the plane, remarking "That's Peru", and explaining that most flights he's on seem to have someone like that. Funny.

Okay, customs was a breeze. And out the door I went. Staying at a major hotel has its benefits, and a free shuttle is one of them.

Last week I mentioned that my laptop became gone. Well, a good Samaritan in Florida found it and offered to send it directly to me. I figured it'd probably be easiest to send it to where I was going to be rather than to sit around and wait in Lima, so I set up an account and expecting us to intercept each other out in Santiago. Easy, right? Wrong.

While the folks at the Fedex in Delray Beach did a good job packing it, they didn't let us know that a commercial invoice that was required. So I was up until 3:00 in the morning on Thursday night trying to nurture at 2 business-day process into 1 single day.

Here are some things I learned;

I. Shipping anything into Chile could require a commercial invoice. How it is filled out is a mystery of the Holy Roman Church.

II. Fedex international shipping phone support is as useless as tits on a chicken. What information they did provide was worse than useless, it was incorrect. I incurred expensive international phone charges for no reason at all.

III. When Fedex puts a trace on a package, you get a trace agent in the process. That person's value is defined in #2. Worse than useless, a red herring. I could never reach them.

IV. The guys in the airport Fedex office and the dude out at the airport Fedex cargo location were the only people between me and a shipment bound for /dev/null. Thank God I realized I was within walking distance and walked over in the best clothes I brought.

Also deserving of special mention is Julio Salfate of tenispro.cl who helped me find (and delivered me to) the airport location (not easy!) so I could hand deliver the hand crafted paperwork and retrieve my package. There was no reason for him to involve himself. He was a total stranger who had the compassion and made the time to inconvenience himself on my behalf. The time and hassle that he saved me was not trivial.

And again, I shout the benefits of staying at a major hotel, because after I got my box I bounced on over to TripVIP and said, "Hilton Garden, por favor, my good sir."

 So; Mike K. in Delray, and the other gentlemen who I will mention by name a little later; I raise a toast to you. You revitalize my sense of trust in my fellow man. I thank you.

I ended up spending so much time on this that I only got to see a little of Santiago, which is a shame. Leaving the airport in Santiago you would swear you were in the States. Alberto (from the flight) suggested it was more like a European city than South American and I bet I'd agree; but I haven't been to Europe yet. I only had a little time and didn't want to get caught up in a shopping mall or business location so I consulted Tripadvisor.com, my go-to travel source these days. I heard the Belle Arte location was worth checking out so I did. I'm starting to run down a little so I'll post a little of that tomorrow. I'm a couple of days behind and posting from Valparaiso now and it's pretty much the high point of the trip. I'll have a bunch of pictures of that too.

I went to Lima and all I got was this sunburned head. J/K

It's been so long since I sat down and did *nothing* that I need to take a look at where I started. As usual, writing down what's going on take so much more effort than actually doing it. Whatever.

So for me, Lima (at least the Miraflores part of it) is kind of a mixed bag and I say this in the light of hindsight. Now, Miraflores is not a microcosm of Peru. It's one of the most wealthy areas of the city and flooded with rich folks and tourists. I found the people on the street to be really intense. There's a lot of the Incan culture in the people's faces. They don't smile but they clearly have a good time with their friends. As a 6' tall Anglo with a beard I stick out like a sore thumb, and as a middle aged, solo traveler I think some of the people here thought I might be some kind of a sex tourist. It was a little off putting honestly. I also caught a whiff of resentment from some of the more indigenous folks against people they refer to as The Spanish. I'm not saying it's everywhere, or the rule, but I saw it around. Then again, there are many faces to the district; socioeconomic, racial and personality.

When I got to Peru I spent the first few nights at the Miraflores Hotel Lodge. This is one of a bunch of smaller hotels that pepper the area near the business zone and in the residential areas. In my opinion these are the way to go in this area. This was a nice old villa style hotel building, 4 floors and and I had a good sized room with a separate bathroom. I got breakfast with my stay and with it came the traditional "first meal in the country" culture shock. It's all basically food you're used to but assembly seems to be different. Ingredients seem just a little out of  phase. Milk came in a box, which of course I've seen before but down here it is damn nigh condensed. And I LIKE it. Actually, down here, milk comes either powdered or sometimes condensed because (according to the one guy I talked to about it) they don't really do the cow thing down here. Peru is mostly desert on the west side and they don't get a lot of rain, so little rain that a lot of people pretty much have parts of their houses open to the elements. Wherever I saw houses wide open like that I thought it was really nice. You get a low temperature mist off the ocean and anywhere there is shade it's nice and cool but that sun, whoo! I got my head nice and sunburned just walking around. So anyhow, no cows. They eat a lot of chicken down here and seafood is a really big deal and they do it well. I had some awesome cerviche and other seafood out at a place called Punto Azul. I recommend it. So Miraflores Hotel Lodge is nice, and I would stay there again but I preferred the second place I stayed in a few ways.More about that in a minute.

Since the Lodge didn't have room for me the next day, I spent my last day out at B&B Tradiciones  out at the end of Tradiciones Park. The manager, Angelo was awesome. Once he set me up with my room he said I should come down so he could tell me about the area. He was like a one man tour. He told be all about Peru, how it's the potato capital of the world, how much they do with corn and lot of other truly interesting details about Peru at a high level and some stories about some of the other guests that had recently come through. He had a copy of a map that he thoroughly marked up with routes to places I could go and what I could see (this isn't me, but clearly other people appreciate it as much as I did). He gave me the lowdown on breakfast, which after I called would either be served on the patio or my room. He gave me some tips on where to eat, including where the grocery store was. That night I ended up grabbing some Cusquena beer at the local Wong's grocery store (a very modern and nice grocery store) and getting some arroz con mariscos downtown. It was a nice quiet night with a book and some beer and then bed after that.


Looking back, I realize I never got the names of any of the people out at the previous place. Don't get me wrong. The rooms were bigger and it was really close to the action but I got a lot more value out of B&B Tradiciones. That said I would stay at either again. Both were great value for the money.

First impressions

It's like a cross between Miami and Beijing, or actually it's pretty similar to San Jose, Costa Rica. I guess if you realize that every intersection is a free-for-all it's pretty predictable, right? I'm not complaining, I actually kind of like it.

So here are some pictures from my first walk to get some cash, a razor and some pasta de dientes and to see what this place looks like I the daytime.

They may have my laptop but I don't think they're going to post for me.

My shiny new laptop got nicked at a car rental agency. I'm going to do a little bit of a test post here to see how I'm going to be able to keep up with this little iPhone.

Here's southern Ecuador as Google maps sees it;

...aaaand here's how it looked out the window;

I think I'll do a little bit more tomorrow it's getting late but I think this is going to work out.