Chile, wrapping it up, part 1

If I don't ever finish this, then I won't ever finish it. We've already been home for almost three months and I can't even tote up the last few days of our excellent summer vacation. Real life tends to be distracting. It almost seems like a waste to even bother anymore, but I want to. Now it's been long enough that I remember only fragments, best to get it down before I lose any more and only "remember" what's in the pictures.

La Serena

17 hours on a bus. Very plush bus. Top floor. That Ashton Kucher Coast Guard movie. "iMusculos no flotar!" said the tough pool training guy. I was impressed with myself that I was now fluent in Spanish and that was really funny.
We arrived midday I think in La Serena, took a cab to the hotel. Very quaint, like European, small rooms, a monster gas heater like my grandparents had, little old man to give me the stinkeye when we walked in, and talk sweetly to Allison. He seemed like a good old guy. The room was pretty nice, didn't have to step outside to the bathroom. Hot water. Heater. Big windows with shutters on the second floor.
We didn't really have a plan for La Serena. We walked around and went to visit the Japanese Garden, a friendship gesture from La Serena's sister city in Japan. And it was perfect. Seriously a garden like you see in the Japan movies with a pond and bridges and pagoda and waterfall and sand garden and swans and giant goldfish and ... everything. No samurai, but you can pretend.
This was the most multicultural thing I'd seen since we'd been here. Surreal a little, at the end of this grubby soccer field and diapidated graffitie'd monument to something, across the highway from the big home improvement place, you stepped through a bamboo gate in a wall, and ... Japan. Pretty cool.
After the garden, we saw a church, some teenagers yelled "Gringo!" at me in the square, we fought with the Internet for a few minutes, Allison bought some books. Somewhere we ate lunch. It was warmer than we'd expected. We went to a couple of museums, I walked into someone's office, he scowled at me, to a former president's house that looked just like a museum house in Savannah. There was some art, including Chilean comics, very good. Maybe we napped. We got dinner, after walking around for a while. We saw a pack of dogs all after one bitch in heat (HA!) on the pedestrian mall. I went into the electronics store and bought a new card for my camera. I made a non-tourist transaction in another language. I rule.
I felt a little bit nervous in the street. It was an awkward feeling. I really stood out. Probably just me.
In the morning we went on a trip up the Elqui Valley, where they make pisco. It was Allison's turn to not feel well. We stopped at a dam. The guide pointed out the new village built to replace the old village that was now under the lake. I'm sorry to have forgotten the guide's name. We toured Capel, a big industrial pisco factory. Allison stayed off the tour because the cellar smelled like old grape wine. They showed us a movie, smiling blond girls, grapes, sunshine. Eventually I tasted some kind of Christmas chocolate milk and brandy concoction. It was better than I expected.
We ate at a solar restaurant in some little town. The waiter wore an elaborate hairdo, lots of lip gloss, blush, and eyeliner. I don't know what the kids are getting up to these days in the Chilean mountain valleys. We were served some kind of Chilean desert delicacy, a dried peach in some kind of juice with grain. It was not to my taste. I pulled the peach out of the brine and it looked JUST LIKE the facesucker eggs from Alien.
On up the valley we stopped at Gabriela Mistral's house, post office, and school. She was very industrious and this little town has benefited a lot from her awesomeness. The very large "Inca Iris" flowers turned out to be poinsettias. I always thought poinsettias were just some genetically modified commercial flower, turns out not.
We went to Los Nichos vineyard. I stepped in dog shit. Behind a locked basement door and stairs we entered this sort of cavern where apparently the old man of the house had held days long drinking binges for he and his buddies. They rescued all the bones from the local cemetery after a flood and put them under the floor. It was all about death. My camera's "face recognition" feature kept picking out faces in the dark. Weird. We bought a bottle of their organic, made-and-bottled-by-hand pisco.
On the way back we stopped at a couple other little towns, very nice, small, bought an empanada in a bakery, some American girls were there on a college exchange and Allison talked to them, we saw a church made of wood (and again, why do I almost NEVER go in churches at home, but always do on trips abroad?).
Back in La Serena, we had another mountain of meat at "Bavaria," a German-themed Chilean restaurant. Kind of looked like a small Shoney's. We slept.
Morning a very quiet breakfast alone at the hotel, looking at the pictures of the old lady's husband. Turns out the old guy who had been at the desk was just some dude that liked to hang out, not the lady's husband. His photos were from Europe, she said sometime in the 80s maybe. More jam and toast and Nescafe for breakfast.
Taxi to bus terminal, bus an hour or so late, talked to the tall Germans who get something like 5 months of vacation a year. Socialists.
This was a regular bus to Santiago, daylight, only six hours or so. Somewhere in all this bus riding, we stopped at a terminal where a little dog danced on his hind legs while some girls gave him treats.

Santiago

There must have been a cab from the bus terminal. To our hotel in the afternoon. Hotel Bonaparte in Providencia RULES. While all of the places we'd stayed had been nice, it was very nice to now be in American-style luxe... automated glass doors! Chrome! Uniforms! Those little rolly carts for baggage! We got a suite after Allison had misunderstood something. We came out winners. Cable TV, hot hot shower, top corner room with great views, frigobar, couch. It was nice to stop traveling and just be on vacation. I think that was Sunday.
It was four days I think in Santiago. Providencia is super-nice. High-quality graffiti. We walked up to the main drag through trees and pretty buildings, past the Japanese Embassy (what is it with Japan now?). There was a Starbucks. We walked up and down looking for a nice place to eat, settled on La Giratorio, it looked Italian from the name and the neon colors. Comfort food. Turns out it was a revolving restaurant at the top of this very tall building. I sat down and noticed we were moving. I've never been to a revolving restaurant before. Nice views. The food was decent, the waiter crossed out "propina" and wrote "TIP" on the bill.
It was great to go home and lay on the couch and floor and watch cable tv in English. I am a product of my culture.
The next day I think was Monday. It rained. Everything was closed. We went to the mall. Clothes were nice, and cheap. Now I have an awesome "leather" jacket, very similar to the much missed jacket of the 1990s. And a sweater. Allison got some nice things.
Later we took the metro to visit with Allison's host family from when she lived here in 2000. The metro is fantastic, clean, stylish, efficient, very nice. Everyone complained though because apparently the micros, little buses, went further and were more convenient. The government had taken over transit. It looked successful to me, but I don't know how great the micros were.
Al was very excited to see her host mom. We bought flowers and beer and a bottle of wine. Arrived at the place, there's now a big supermarket underneath a bowling alley across the street. You used to be able to see the Andes from here. I saw Allison's old college room. There's a new bed, she said. Her host mom was sweet, I called her tia mama for some reason... I guess because I didn't know what else to call her. The place is very small, modest, not the kind of space you'd see for a family of four in North America. Very middle class there. The family arrived. Two brothers, now married, one baby. Both sons some kind of managers, both wives dentists. Claudio and Pancho (Pancho's not his real name, but that's what everybody called him and I can't remember his given name at the moment). All very kind, good people. I was happy that Allison had gotten to spend time with these people. Delicious dinner, learned "yoke" = joke. Almost sort of maybe kinda followed some of the conversation. Occasional English. Smiles and nods all around. Good time.
Everyone left eventually, after cards.Me and Al and Tia mama played more cards. Ocho Locos and Escoba, a fun game with a Spanish deck where 10, 11, and 12 cards are actually 8, 9, and 10 for the game. Difficult to master in Spanish after several beers. Eventually tia mama said, "you understand me?!" in English. In a very nice way. She is a sweet lady. I liked that game.

and now I'm out. got no more tonight. looks like this will stretch out for a few more days, but at least I'm a few days closer to getting us back home.