BootsnAll Travel Network



Santiago, Valparaiso + Vina de la Mar

I met Marilyn in san Sebastian 2 years ago, I annoyed her at first due she knows now a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of something I said while in the company of others. To cut a long story short we ended up getting on really well and along with my best mate dave and a travel buddy of hers we ended up having an amazing night out in san Sebastian before myself, dave and barry flew back to Dublin, to work. Before we parted I told her if she ever came to Ireland to look up phil gill, having already been there she did the next best thing which is to look me up on the pop culture phenomenon that is facebook.

Over the course of the next 2 years we kept in contact, mentioning from time to time maybe meeting up in south America before I finished my behemoth of a journey around the globe. Towards the start of this year our plans became more than just talk and we committed to seeing what travelling together is like for a couple of months. I reckoned it would be fun but to be honest having only really known her for 1 day in person it made for at least a little nerves while I sat in the arrivals hall in Santiago.

Eventually she arrived and we looked at each other and blinked and pinched to see if the other was real and if they were actually doing what was going on. Turns out it was and so we boarded a bus into town. Its funny how you can know alot about a person but not really know what they sound like. Its a fundamental feature of a person but I guess in the modern world where so much communication takes place through the miracle that is the internet it will become more and more the case where you can build up a relationship with someone without the basic fundamental that is the physical presence. Anyways it was time for us to see if we could turn the potential that one night promised into a 2 month jaunt across latin America.

Fun wasn’t far around the corner, infact it happened pretty much in the first step. Upon getting off the bus at the main bus terminal Marilyn noticed that the one remaining bag on the bus which resembling hers was not hers at all. I have been in this situation before, bags and buses and phil – its an old school relationship. Poor Marilyn though, she tried to put forth a calm persona but you could see it was a mini mare. It took a bit of panicking, a bit of clear thinking, a mixmash conversation with some airport bus officials and a wee bit of waiting before we finally got reacquainted with her luggage, having the other bag all along gave me confidence that it was simply a case of mistaken indentity rather than petty theft

Our first day or so together involved walking around some markets we randomly found, getting some food and chatting away with some of the other guys in the hostel, one of them Denise will feature again in the future as she is from Sao Paulo and totally sold us on the idea of meeting up with her and getting some proper brazillian mammy food into us.

It was our second day that we really took off… we walked until we found a park, took some silly pictures before venturing forth to the comfort of a big white couch where the staff silently stayed late while we chatted about things that mattered, well all things bar football I guess. Our evening turned into a night as we searched out a bar where a tipple was to be had. It has to be said that while I like Santiago alot, it stinks when it comes to getting yourself a drink. You really need to be in a certain part of the city or at least not be in the part where we were as it was more than a little morman for my likings. Our evening ended up with us on a 6th floor balcony overlooking Plaza de Aramas, the square where all signposts in chile measure their distance from.

Gustavo was the vertible friend of a friend. I say was because he now firmly is. I wasn’t sure what to make of him at first, a friend of a friend of marilyns so I guess I have already lied about our relative proximity he met us in plaza de aramas and whisked us away in his car off to see the sights of the city. Marilyns Spanish is pretty much spot on while mine is spot off, I can gauge a trend in a conversation, sometimes even the topic but beyond the hotel, money, restaurant and direction basics I am a bit of a disaster. Anyways for the first few hours I could only communicate with Gustavo thru Marilyn. He turned out to have pretty much perfect English, especially when he had a few drinks in him.

We visited a bar which his friend was the proprietor, they opened the bar especially for us. We guzzled a bottle of wine before heading off to a local bar which was just as dirty, dark, damp and grotty as I like them. I got us all a sweaty bottle of beer and we sat down and watched gustavos team succumb to a a defeat in a dead rubber Chilean FA cup semi final type thing. It was perfect, football in south America in a dank bar with the locals.

A party was mooted and before we knew it we were equipped with enough pisco to down a horse. A friend of a friend of gustavos birthday was on, twas a guy who was but a friend of a friend of his so we are up to 5 degrees of separation from me here, not to even mention the language barrier… anyways as we crossed the threshold of the house we were met with the warmest of welcomes imaginable. Before we knew it drinks were in our hands, food on the table in front of us and people doing their level best to chat to us in basic Spanish or really good English. It really was one of those nights which you have to pinch yourself to believe that you were a part of it.

We got back to the hostel and made arrangements to meet Gustavo once the following evening and travel with him to his house and place of work on the coast in the cities of Vina Del Mar and Valpariso.

These cities lie about 2 hours from Santiago, 2 hours to the west and to the pacific for the last time on this trip. The 2 towns are initially indistinguishable from the other, I guess you could say that one is old town and other is new town. Valpariso is where the fun is to be had, a 10 minute jaunt around this place and you see 10 times more nightlife than the countries capital. For a couple of days we stayed with Gustavo, in his home with a wonderful pacific view we dined in some really traditional Chilean restaurants, a steaming pile of stewed beef, friend eggs and a bed fit for a king of chips was one while the other was not a symphony but an orchestra of seafood something I have craved since leaving the ozzie short. Outside the restaurants we exchanged anecdotes, quips etc in various student bars where the music swung from the ridiculous to the sublime.

It was with a heavy heart that I left Gustavo, he’s one of those guys you want to have around all the time. His face seems to be permanently teetering on the brink of a smile – he would  be the perfect host for a willing couch surfer – he is a native of the capital and so is an alien in this town you could tell that he had a ball having us stay as much as we enjoyed it there.



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