Puerto Varas

Hellloooo cuteness! This small town in the lake district was our last stop in Chile. The highlights:
Beerfest: We got here just in time for a festival of artisan beers from the region. If it wasn't for the polka band we would've stayed all night. Kunstmann amber takes the cake.

 

 

Hostal Erika: 

Pleasant B & B not far from the town center. Erika and her son run the place and are incredibly helpful-- her son even lent me his jacket to wear today as it is very cold and rainy. And they've made the best jokes so far about my brothers height (he is hella tall for yall that don't know). "He won't get lost, all he has to do is jump and he'll see the bus station..."

Kuchen: These german tarts are actually made in the neighboring town of Frutillar (also reeks of cuteness). We found this family-run kuchen factory, grabbed a slice and sat on the pier.

 

The view from the plaza: 

Nuff said.

Got the travel bug?
Hostal Erika: http://www.hostalerika.cl/

Chile: The Hits

Dive Bar Honorable Mention: La Notta

 

What could be more fun than sitting in a smokey bar listening to a chorus of drunkin chilean bachelors belting out chilean folk songs??? Probably a lot. But remember that I am in Rancagua. No cheesy karaoke menus here, just Don Ramon on the guitar and several mics being passed from table to table. It's 4 am and David and I have already had a bottle of havana club (ha ha!) and hit the disco. Usually I'm in bed by this point, but the tia who owns this place is absolutely charming and the commodore between sloshed macho men seems so genuine and sweet when punctuated by a duet.

If we are talking about dive bars then we are inevitably talking about late night munchies too. Award goes to El Bajon. Completos, As Lomos (don't really know what they are, but I decided to call them Lamas Ass and ate one anyway), and cute hipsters.

 Valparaiso:

 Valpo is like that hippie chick you think is kinda dirty and mismatched but are charmed by anyway. Colorful houses, great views, and awesome street art. This would be such a great place to be high. From Cerro Concepcion and Alegre:

 

 

 

Our best meal was on the second floor of the city market:

Fried eel is actually pretty delicious. 

Isla Negra: 

 

Shout out to Rick Ayers for educating an entire generation of B-High kids about Pablo Neruda, the poet who loved his women as much as his patria. It may have been his poetry that inspired me to come to Chile in the first place. The tour of his house is a closer peak into his genius-- he was a collector of folk art, glass bottles, toy ships, and each item is in it's right place-- even the bed is set up to rise and fall with the sun. It was in this bed that Pablo spent his last days battling cancer and the devastation of the military coup on September 11, 1973 (he died 12 days later). For those of you that don't know, Pabs was as dedicated a politician as he was a poet, and I think that makes him even more of an intriguing person. When the military searched this house, my guide said that he told them, "Look around—there's only one danger for you here—poetry."

Side note: I wonder what Pablo would be thinking now... Chile just elected a right-wing billionaire, Sebastian Pinera, after 20 years of liberal leadership. He's the third-richest citizen in Chile. Talk about conflict of interest! My younger friends were down with socialist candidate Marco Enríquez-Ominami, so keep an eye on him and an even closer eye on Pinera.

Curanipe: When I first came to Chile, I was told that I would be going to school with a bunch of upper class pinochetistas, and to keep my Berkeley mouth shut. Buttoned up in my catholic school uniform (no pictures), my first day was pretty intimidating. My teacher called role and my eyes darted around the room looking for a potential friend. "Maria Jose Guevarra Allende!"
"Present!" And the clouds parted to reveal a freckled-faced hippie nicknamed Cote. 

Cote (no relation to Che or Salvador Allende, btw) was my first friend and I spent the last few weeks of my study abroad time at her family's beach house in this town in central Chile. The family is still wonderful: They loved my brother Mikael and even let him win at dominoes every night:) The beach is just as quiet (they chuckled when I asked if there was an internet cafe), although we did get to treat Mikael to his first latin american karaoke experience (again, no pictures). No major tourist attractions here, but the shrimp empanadas are so good drunkin middle aged women yell outside of a restaurants at 1pm out of impatience. Okay, just one woman but I've never seen anyone want an empanada that bad.

Got the travel bug?
La Notta and El Bajon: HellifIknow, Rancagua.
Isla Negra:http://www.fundacionneruda.org/home_islanegra.htm (make reservations)
Nice Hostel in Valpo: http://www.rinconmarino.cl/

Ode to Street Art

From the streets of Rio and Rancagua:

From the Pueblo

When I was 16 I moved to Chile for a semester and was placed in a small city a bit south of Santiago called Rancagua. Neruda prose in mind, I was a bit shocked when I arrived here. The cement here is whiter than it should be, so when it's hot the sun hits you from above and below. There are few trees. A mall. A copper mine. Not much else. Luckily, there was a wonderful family here for me. And lots of pisco and fresh fruit and friends. My brother David is a cynical socialist who loves to argue, and mama Sonia is the loudest, chattiest Jewish mother you could ever meet.  Seriously, she actually yells at you to "eat, eat!" as you are taking a bite.

Back in the day we used to go to a small town called Marchigue to visit the rest of the family. As my brother puts it, "the only thing fun to do in Marchigue is ring the doorbell." And indeed we did. But this time I was pleasantly surprised by a few new sources of entertainment:

1. Street food! Empanadas and Choripan. No comment on other chilean foods.

2. Live music. There was also a miss marchigue contest going on but I'll spare you the photos. Slightly disturbing.

3. Communists! Awesome.

4. This fancy library. Other small towns in Chile should also have new libraries like this, thanks to a country-wide initiative by Chile's first female president (yea girl!)

5. They even have sideshows now, just like in Oakland. JK, this is some kind of annual wheat harvest thing when they drive around in circles. Mostly an excuse for a party.

6. Finally, the home cookin. Everything on this plate came from my auntie's farm (even the lamb and the bread were cooked in the oven pictured below).

The proof:

And the wine was local. Take that, Alice.

Oh and check out the beautiful family: