Chile

Puerto  Varas,  Peulla  (northern  patagonia)

November 18, 2022

I didn't report out anything yesterday because it was a travel day. A long travel day! We left our hotel at about 10:30 in the morning and then arrived at our hotel in Puerto Varas at 11 PM.

When we arrived at our first hotel, it was a total dump. It was very old and needed updating, and the room could not have been any smaller. One of the bouncy twin beds literally had a six-inch walkway around it to get into the bathroom. The only electrical outlet was in the bathroom and so we had to charge our devices on the bathroom floor. The only redeeming quality was that it was clean. I could tell by the look on Robin’s face that there was no way she was going to spend three days in this dump. So, I immediately got online and miraculously we could get the next two nights at the Radisson on points. I barely slept at all at this crap hotel and then we woke at 6 AM and dragged our suitcases over to the Radisson where we dropped them off before we left on our all-day tour. It was a mad dash to get over there on time; unfortunately, we ended up being there an hour before anybody else. I don't know why they told us to be there at 7:30! We snuck into the dining room buffet at our new hotel and made ourselves something to eat and ate it out in the street.

It was starting to rain just as we were getting on the bus for our tour.

Our tour guide was making us smile because every time he talks about anything in English he says, “this is very interesting for you to know”.

We stopped at lower Petrohue River because the upper falls were closed due to a park ranger strike.

We then boarded the catamaran boat for the trip to Peulla. I thought it would be an excruciating two-hour ride but it was quite delightful.

The walls of the Andes tower above us, although the volcano peaks were obscured because of the cloudy weather.

One minute it was cloudy and rainy, the next minute we'd have sun breaks.

We really enjoyed the little town of Peulla. The population is 34.

The trees are growing out of the stumps!

I LOVE this photo. The darkened skies really made the flowers pop.

The beautiful Peulla Hotel Natura. I think all 34 people work here.

The only food in town was at the hotel buffet lunch. A bit pricey at $25 per person. We only had salad because the rest of the stuff on the food line looked pretty picked over. I guess we paid for the million dollar view!

Time for our 2-hour ride back.

We did have better views of the volcanoes on the return trip.

Throughout all three countries, we saw many people drinking yerba mate. It's a strong caffeinated tea that is drunk through a straw. We saw many people carrying the whole yerba mate setup - a wooden container with a handle (like a lunchbox) that holds the thermos, metal cup, and the metal straw.

We had several different groups on our boat. One was adventure cyclists. Another photography group had the most amazing camera equipment worth thousands of dollars. I was embarrassed to pull out my tiny Canon point and shoot.

It had finally stopped raining and ended up being a really sunny day despite the gloomy weather forecast. Supposedly they get nearly 7 feet of rain every year, and it rains 220 to 250 days.

The name of the lake we came in on (Todos los Santos) is translated to “Lake of the Saints” because it was supposedly discovered on All Saints Day. It's over 1000 feet deep and the deep blue color is gorgeous.

November 19, 2022

I had the best night’s sleep last night of this entire trip. The hotel is quiet, the bed is comfortable, and I was just exhausted after yesterday. It was a pretty low-key day today. Actually, that's kind of a misnomer because we walked over 10 miles. We quickly exhausted the streets of the downtown area since there is not much to it. We were in search of a T-shirt for Robin but for some reason there are no souvenir stores.

We stumbled upon an abandoned train station and could hear music coming from one of the buildings.

It turned out to be a pop-up market... which makes Robin very happy!

We tried the vegan tiramisu from one of the bakeries.

Thought I was in Portland again...!

We finally made it to the number one rated restaurant for lunch. We tried for dinner last night, but the line was way out the door.

We opted for pasta instead of pizza.

We refrained from ordering whatever this dessert is.

The sun was finally out again.

Even though we refrained from dessert at lunch, we didn't for dinner. I wish we had, because it was too much.

santiago

November 20, 2022

We are in Santiago. Now we know why the guy on the boat said to us the other day when we asked him if he liked Santiago and he said, “not so much”. It's a huge city with people everywhere. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so damn hot. The temperature isn’t really that high, but the sun is so strong and I'm almost immediately getting overheated. This is our hotel from a more flattering angle.

We were on the 22nd floor and also had a great view.

But at street level? You can see our hotel above the barbed wire that's above the graffitied walls.

Directly across the street is a burned out church.

Graffiti is literally EVERYWHERE.

It's supposedly a legitimate form of protest and Chile had many protests in the past few years.

Sadly, it's also all over the historical buildings...

...as well as the churches.

Don't forget the base of a missing statue.

Apparently, Chileans are going through some tougher times and there have been uprisings and confrontations with police. All the police cars have these metal grates around the windows.

Shortly after arriving, we went to lunch at another sandwich shop. People here eat sandwiches all the time. The name of the place for lunch was called Utopia. Unfortunately, it had no AC so I wouldn't exactly call it Utopia.

We sat inside where it was slightly cooler. The World Cup started today in Qatar and everyone was watching the large TV above my head.

We walked over to trendy, crowded Bella Vista. However, you wouldn't know it by this photo. No one is in the sun because they didn't want to melt.

The one saving grace was Parque Forestal. It was very shaded and ran for many blocks. It's so smart to put parks in urban areas.

EVERY menu on the entire trip could only be accessed by barcode. That is IF you can get a signal. We would have to ask for the wi-fi password (some didn't even have wi-fi), then pull up the menu, then run it through Google Translate. It was a time-consuming process. This particular restaurant didn't have wifi and my Comcast Global Pass never worked for a single minute in all of Chile, so the waiter...

...just brought the giant display menu over to our table. Thankfully, some of it was in English.

Once again, another sandwich. Chileans never try to pick them up and always eat them with a knife and fork.

The napkins were always like the size and weight of a toilet paper square. Maybe that's why they didn't try to pick the sandwich up?

I dreaded the thought of spending the next couple days in Santiago including the tour we booked up into the Andes - about 10° cooler but still in the full sun. So, after talking it over with Robin, we are checking out of this hotel tomorrow and taking an Uber to Valparaiso. Since it’s on the coast, it’s about 15-20° cooler than Santiago. We are staying the next three nights at what looks like a B&B close to the ocean. I don't know if we can fill up three days. But I'd rather fill up three days in tolerable weather than fill up three days in the broiling sun.

Valparaiso  &  Vina  Del mar

November 21, 2022

A lovely day. We walked for about an hour in Santiago before heading to Valparaiso. Our original plan was to have lunch in Santiago and then order an Uber. However, it made more sense to just get out of the hot weather and over to the coast. So, we were gone by 11:15 AM. It was a longer ride than expected even though our Uber driver drove very fast. It cost us $109 with tip. Sometimes these things are worth it when the alternative is schlepping suitcases to/from bus stations in broiling heat. Here is the street view from our wonderful new hotel. It only has nine rooms.

Here is the view of the back of the hotel.

They had three different levels of terraces.

The fantastic view from the terrace.

Valparaiso is extremely hilly just like Lisbon or Porto. There are steps and hills everywhere.

Going back over a hundred years, Valparaiso used funiculars to climb the hills. About 15 are still in service today. They use a pulley system... as one is coming down, it pulls the other one up. The cost? Ten cents. There have been only two accidents on a funicular since 1883. One was in 2022 when a cable snapped. There were a few minor injuries from broken glass.

We ate lunch at the cutest little Italian restaurant, walked around, and then came back to that same restaurant for coffee and tiramisu.

Street art is everywhere!

The piano stairs are on Beethoven Street.

More musicians on Beethoven Street.

Amy Winehouse around the corner.

Even the garbage trucks have murals.

We spent a lovely afternoon talking to a German couple from Munich about everything from travel to politics to immigrants to healthcare. For dinner, we went to a restaurant just around the corner where we chatted with Greta, an attorney from Los Angeles. She's on her way to southern Patagonia and is waiting for a friend to fly in. This is always the best part of our trips… meeting others who are traveling. We got back to our room just as it was getting dark because we had heard that we should not be out after dark. It definitely felt that same way in Santiago. But we wouldn't be out after dark in certain areas of Portland either. All in all, a wonderful day. I am so glad we made this decision to come to the coast and not stay another minute in Santiago!

November 22, 2022

We had an excellent night’s sleep here at the Zerohotel followed by a decent breakfast.

It was a quick walk down to Plaza Sotomayer for our walking tour. Our guide turned out to be a very tall Cuban man named Alex who has a PhD in some kind of science. He brought his wife and a photographer who is producing a promotional video. There were only four of us on the tour, but one person didn't speak any English, so Alex had to do both Spanish and English.

The plaza was a very busy place and two heavily armed guards stood watch over the monument which had a fence all the way around it. The guide said that because of protests of the past few years against anything government, they are now protecting their monuments.

We then walked down to the port which once was the busiest port in all South America. It's also a naval base and we saw three battleships as well as a submarine in the area.

Some of the buses run on electricity.

Linda the dog joins the tour every day and will bark if she’s not getting enough attention.

Paolo also joins the tour every day. But he doesn't last long because of the stairs. He is too fat and he's also 17 years old. It's amazing that these street dogs live that long!

The inhabitants started using leftover paint to paint their houses in different colors. The paint was left over from painting their boats so that family members could see their husbands returning from a day of fishing. Now, colorful houses are a tradition.

I found this very interesting. A mural artist must ask the owner of a building if they can paint a mural. Of course, the artist will expect payment for the mural. If your building ends up with a mural, people won't graffiti over it. So, if you are a building owner, you must choose between paying for a beautiful mural or constantly painting over the graffiti.

You can see that the graffiti is under the mural but not on it. I'm surprised that people respect this unwritten rule.

Some houses are super skinny because they are in the shape of a ship.

The locals love making tourist attractions out of stairs.

Another staircase we visited has a slide where our guide's wife slid down. Robin wanted to do it, but I talked the 62 year old out of it.

Some murals or graffiti are political. We kept seeing characters with a red eye. Apparently, the police shot someone's eye out a few years back.

The man in the blue suit is Donald Trump but long before he was president. He signified greedy capitalism.

This beautiful mural on an award-winning hotel has lasted for years because the artist used very high quality paints.

After our tour, we went to another number one rated restaurant.

Another fantastic terrace.

Traditional squash soup.

Quinoa bowl for Robin and ravioli for me.

This is just down the street from our hotel. It feels like we didn't really do a lot today but we ended up with nearly 60 floors, over 6 miles and 16,000 steps. All of this despite Robin having a cold and not feeling well. She took a Covid test this morning and it was negative.

November 23, 2022

I woke up to shaking this morning and Robin was already awake. She thought that I was shaking in my bed, and I noted the time as 5:55 AM. I went back to sleep until about 7:30 and when I picked up my phone, I had an alert from the travel insurance company about a 5.0 earthquake that happened near Concepción at 5:53 AM. We were on the outer edge of the earthquake circle… so that’s what the shaking was!

We took an Uber to the nearby city of Vina Del Mar. We had the driver drop us off at the flower clock - about a 2-second photo op.

However, above the flower clock there was a nice view.

We walked for a long time down this beachside road. The cars whizzed by at about 45-50 mph and the buses felt dangerously close. Only some of the sidewalk had guardrails. I was hoping no one was texting while driving!

No thanks... I don't think I'll stay here.

This is the only real Moai statue outside of Easter island.

We found this trendy area and this amazing spot for lunch. Of course, they didn't have Wi-Fi which meant we couldn't take a picture of the menu nor translate it, so we left. Surprisingly, the little tea shop next door had free Wi-Fi and we were able to stand near the doorway and access the menu.

So, we went back to Delirio and had one of the best lunches we've had on this trip.

Then we walked to the beach and looked at the Pacific Ocean for two minutes and then back to the tea shop where we could get the free signal to order an Uber back. We’ve really had to be resourceful on this trip because of no internet connection. Our only chance to order Ubers, look at food menus, and translate the menu is getting on someone's wireless network.

While we were gone for the day, they had painted a brand new mural in our neighborhood.

We spent a couple hours hanging out on the terrace which has been our favorite thing about this hotel. Robin is coughing like crazy and isn't feeling so great. For dinner, we walked over to Allegretto and had to wait for it to open at 7 PM. The entire time we were there no one came in. It's an old rock 'n' roll/karaoke restaurant that had a rooftop deck that was up many scary flights of stairs. We decided to sit on the main floor because we didn't want to put the server through walking up to our table. Plus, it's fairly cool out… only 58°. Thank God we were able to switch our plans and spend this time here!

November 24, 2022

Our last day. We had our usual breakfast at the hotel and then walked all the way to the Pablo Neruda Museum. We had to walk down the hill and then up an extremely long hill that went so high that our ears were popping. It was grueling; I thought we'd NEVER get to the top. Plus, Robin is doing this with a bad cold.

The house was an interesting mid-century 5-story home. It was still furnished with Neruda's original furniture from 1959.

However, the greatest part was that every single floor had a fantastic view.

Afterwards, we walked back to our hotel since it was mostly downhill. By the time we got back to the Zerohotel (where we had already checked out) my phone app said we'd done 58 floors and it wasn't even noon yet. We hung out on the terrace in the gorgeous weather before heading over to Maria Maria for lunch. This restaurant was featured on another “Somebody Feed Phil” episode.

It was definitely the most modern restaurant we had been to on this entire trip. Plus, the sandwiches were awesome!

We also tried Pavlova for the first time. It was good but I would not order it again.

We then took a $110 taxi back to the Santiago airport. Thankfully, the truckers strike did not affect us and they did not block the highway. While the domestic terminal was a shithole and we had to eat at McDonalds… the international terminal is fabulous with many good places to eat food.

Thank You for my fabulous life and another wonderful trip!