Pedro and Maria Motorcycle South America!: Los Andes to Santiago then to Vina del Mar 140 miles

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Chile reminds us a lot of the states; I think we have a lot of influence here. Everything seems a bit more organized, clean and structured. Although, just when we started feeling that way, we encountered quite a few situations with our hotel that made us wonder if we were back in Central America.

The last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed and hit the road this morning. I felt extremely exhausted from all the late nights and weird sleep patterns from the days prior. Knowing we needed to press on to organize the bike shipping and the fact that our hotel was $46 a night (and not even nice) motivated me enough to pack up and put my gear on.

Our first stop was the shipping company that had told us yesterday to return in the morning. Well, just as we suspected, once we got there they really had no more information than the night before other than an address of a man in Valparaiso. This is precisely why we gave ourselves so many days to handle the bike shipping; nothing ever seems to go as planned. Mike decided it best to continue to pursue a guy in Santiago that he has been emailing back and forth about shipping for the last month—our next destination, Santiago.

We heard that Santiago is the most polluted city in South America. You could definitely see the smog as we began to approach the city. Once downtown we felt we were definitely in the states. Giant skyscrapers, business people bustling around on the wide sidewalks, clean streets, a nice place! With just an address we were both a little nervous that finding our contact would cause us to tour the whole massive city, but luck was with us and after a handful of inquiries we found AceCargo and met Ronald Chaytor. Ronald was an older man who is from Chile, but spoke great English from his many visits to his warehouse in Miami. He was what I would call a fuddy-duddy—shuffling around, mumbling ideas off left and right. Surprisingly his assistant gathered all the required paperwork and knew exactly what needed to be done. What a relief. We are to return Yoshita to his office in Santiago on Monday. From there, he is hiring a company to come to the office and crate her and our belongings. After she is crated he is hiring another company to pick her up and take her to Valparaiso where she will be shipped on a boat. Quite a few steps which makes us a little nervous, but it seemed to be well thought out and legit. Sometimes I wonder how many times people just drop their belongings never to see them again…

With Yoshita’s departure planned, we now have 6 days to ourselves before flying out. We were told not to miss the beach town of Vina del Mar which is just about 2 hours away from Santiago. There is an impressive new freeway connecting the two cities as it seems many people from Santiago spend their weekend and holidays here. On our way, we ran into a couple on a Harley Davidson at the gas station. Mike has become super-socialite and after chatting with them we rode together towards Vina del Mar as our destination was the same. They had full Harley gear on, belt buckle, hats, shirts, jackets, etc. They even sported an American flag bandana which was tied around the handlebars. They definitely drove a bit fast for my taste, but I let Mike have his fun following them and refrained from my usual leg squeezes to get him to slow down. Chile is more like the US than any country we have been on this trip: lunch at Mcdonalds, riding with a Harley, and on a good freeway no less!

Vina del Mar is HUGE—its as much a big city as a beach town. As we arrived we could see the view confirming both. The sun was shining, it was warm, but not too hot; a beautiful day. Our Harley friends were kind enough to escort us to a decent priced hotel and to inquire about a price as they said tourists always get a higher rate. They landed us in a Chinese owned hotel, first one we’ve stayed at. It is 35 dollar per night, which from what we have heard is a good price for this town during this season. Clean enough in the rooms, although when you walk into the lobby it smells of funky fried rice. The smell in the lobby I could handle as long as I kept the door to our room closed. We crashed on the bed for a while and caught up on some R&R. Since it is Valentine’s day, we wanted to make sure to have a nice dinner out, so just when I started to get ready, I noticed there was no hot water. A pain, but usually something easily fixed when inquired. I went out to the lobby and explained the situation. She said a few things in Spanish I didn’t understand then shuffled out to the backyard where I heard her turning some knobs, more walking back and forth, and at that point I thought Mike better take over. The solution the woman offered was for us to walk upstairs and have a shower. Heck no, if we were to have a separate bath, then we shouldn’t be paying private bath prices which are usually twice as much. The lady then proceeded to tell Mike that she can’t fix it until the ‘boss’ is back, but she didn’t know when the ‘boss’ would be back. She expected this to be sufficient, but not to us. We were upset and had already pre-paid for two nights. Mike returned stating that if he is going to have to use another bathroom, he wanted to pay less. If they didn’t know when the boss was to return, that is not acceptable and he would either have them move us to another room with working water or we would find another hotel. As soon as he said that, the lady looked shocked and then said ‘hold on let me talk to the boss’. Oh! So, now the boss is available to talk with. What BS, we thought we had left this type of service behind in Central America. Mike stood outside the room to add to the urgency and importance as the lobby clerk and ‘boss’, huffed and shuffled back and forth. Much time passed and we couldn’t believe the customer service we were receiving. They finally returned and ushered us to another room upstairs. They obviously didn’t want to put us in here as it hosts 3 separate beds. Yes, there was hot water at least although you receive it in spurts in between freezing cold….oh boy.

We took a bus into the central plaza area of the city which was supposed to have all the restaurants. We were hoping to find a nice little romantic place and enjoy some delicious seafood. We didn’t want to ask any particular recommendations as we usually only receives someone’s uncles restaurant. We figured it was our best bet to walk around the region of the plaza where the restaurants were. The plaza was beautiful, all lined with lights and bustling with people. Much to our surprise all of the restaurants were all fast food types, so we continued to walk down the busy street, after about 5 or 6 blocks ending with pubs and discotechs, no nice restaurants. After much walking and feeling quite chilled from the crisp ocean air, we settled for a little pub type place by the plaza which served Mexican food. I had my reservations on how good the Mexican food would be, but much to my surprise it was quite tasty.

We took a Taxi back to our hotel as it is a bit out of the way from everything but we forgot to buy water and being very thirsty did so at the hotel for the steep price of $1.50 per tiny bottle. Man, I miss Argentina already! Prices are SO high here it makes us both cringe. Well, we paid our 3 dollars for the water, brought them up to the room and while I took my first sip asked myself why I smelt that terrible funky fried ride… Looking at the bottle I noticed it was caked with funkiness which reeked of dirty Chinese food floor. UGH! The odor was so strong, that when you drank from the bottle you actually thought you could taste it. I tried to rinse the bottle, but to no avail. I smelled my hand after holding the bottle and it was as if the smell had absorbed into my skin. The most fowl smell you could imagine. We put the bottles down in disgust not knowing how to get the water out of them without having to endure such smells. We then noticed the room beginning to smell of the Chinese funkiness. We must get rid of the bottles! We scrambled in hopes of finding a cup of sorts, but with no options we plugged our noses and downed the water. Afterwards, we came to the conclusion that the smell wasn’t just coming from the bottle, but from the water as well as we could taste it lining our mouths. We quickly rushed the bottles to the hall and completely showered and soaped ourselves, hoping to rid us of the odor. 2 nights in this hotel and it has already caused us so much grief!

Old salty Chileans