Touring Valparaiso

After my late night at the hostel hearing of people's travel adventures, I planned to go on a free city tour the next day at 3pm. I could not believe it when I woke up at 2pm and realized I was very likely going to miss the tour. I jumped out of bed, showered quickly, possibly only oiled visible body parts (hands, legs etc) and sped off. I was extremely hungry, but because of foolishly waking up late, I had no time to eat and had to go for a 3 hour walking tour on an empty stomach.

The tour was great in that they told us a lot about modern Valparaiso - artsy town, large port, UNESCO World Heritage site etc, but the tour was severely lacking in historical information. I love history and learning about different countries' past. I was hoping to hear about dreaded former dictator Augusto Pinochet. I wanted to hear about the Chicago boys - a group of US educated Chilean economists who in the 70s and 80s were responsible for free market policies that are lauded for the positive economic impact in Chile. Unfortunately we didn't get to hear about any such things. 

The tour was useful though in many ways - I got to see a lot of Valparaiso in a short time. We went to a place that sells 60 types of empanadas. I stuffed my face given how hungry I was. We used a few of the town elevators - really ancient but interesting elevators. We went to the port, walked up and down crazy hills. I felt energized. When I got to my hostel I actually walked up the hill. It was exerting, but not too bad given altitude was not an issue. If this had been a hill in Bolivia, I would probably have given up the ghost after 5 minutes. 

I got to the hostel and sat on the balcony with my hostel mates watching the sun set. We decided we were going out that night. I always do stupid things like that when I have an early morning bus/plane/train. It's some sort of self sabotage thing. We had dinner and drinks at the hostel then went out to party. We walked around in circles for an hour or so, finally gave up on finding the specific club we were looking for and just went into the first bar we saw. We found a place that sold "Terremotos."

"Terremotos" require a paragraph of their own. It is Chile's national drink and translated to "earthquake" mostly because of what it looks like, but it is might also be a forewarning for what your tummy will feel like after drinking this. It is served either in a half liter or liter cup and is sweet white wine with pineapple icecream. It is actually quite sweet, which is why I would say it is dangerous - so sweet that you don't realize how much you have had.

As we drank our terremotos we told horror stories. I'm not quite sure why.

I really struggled in the morning to wake up by 6am to catch my morning bus to Mendoza in Argentina.

Aaaaaaaah Argentina! I will enjoy telling you about my time there in my future blog entries. 

Valparaiso - home of artists in Chile

Valparaiso was one of those places I had never heard about before getting to South America, but once I heard about it, I immediately decided I would visit. As I said before, I found Chile to be a bit too conventional for my tastes - too clean, too organized, too-not-what-I-imagined-it-would-be. Everyone told me that Valparaiso was completely different from the rest of Chile - it was an artsy place, where people wore bold colors and dared to different in all kinds of ways. I quickly added it to my itinerary. 

I planned to take a 4:15pm bus to Valparaiso from Santiago. It was only an hour away by bus. I got to the train station, bought my ticket and the girl at the ticket counter, had a pretty bad handwriting. She wrote my bus would leave from platform 7....or so I thought. I waited and waited and finally at 4:30 I went to the booth to find out why my bus was delayed - only to find out my bus had left from platform 1. She told me I would have to buy another ticket or try my luck talking to a bus driver for the next bus - I tried my luck and was luckily able to get on the next bus without any additional charges. I had slowly been picking up enough Spanish in Bolivia to survive, have basic conversations etc, but I realized that I could barely understand anyone in Chile - they speak really fast and have a different accent. 

When I got off the bus to Valparaiso,  I was directed to another bus that would get me close to the hostel I was to stay at. My hostel was on top of a proper hill. Valparaiso is very hilly and there are old school elevators linking lower parts of the town to upper parts. The bus driver assured me that I would be at my hostel shortly when I hopped on the bus. Half an hour later, we had been driving and driving and driving - dropping people off and still no sign of my hostel. Another half hour later I was now the only person remaining on the bus and I started to panic. Of course I had no idea where we were. I kept on asking the driver if he was still going to get me to my hostel and in his rapid fire Spanish, I think he said something like, "The moon is wearing a purple dress." With this assurance I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the view. My anxiety came back when we got to a bus parking lot - not quite different from bus station in Nairobi except for the fact that it was deserted. I remember thinking of what I could use as a weapon in my bag because by now I was beginning to think I was getting kidnapped. 

The driver got off the bus and came back with a broom and started cleaning the bus, "Cough! Cough! Ahem! I am still here." His response, "Yes the sun shines a brilliant blue." After this he proceeded to count coins. He then sat down, read a newspaper for 15 minutes and finally started the bus after that. In another 10 minutes I was close to my hostel. I was able to get a cab from the bottom of the hill. I was in no mood to lug my backpack up a hill for half an hour. I still have no clue why the driver took me around on a sort of not so joyful joyride.

I got to my hostel, rang the bell and a barefoot Indian guy with a British accent and long dreadlocks came and opened the door. I immediately knew I would like this town. It just seemed like a very chill place. He directed me next door where he told me I could buy some yummy empanadas (meat pies) for dinner. I went there, bought some food and drinks and came back to the hostel. It was such a happy place. I went to the lounge, ended up meeting lots of friendly people and we shared drinks and talked till the wee hours of the morning.

One particularly fascinating conversation was about ayahuasca. I had seen a documentary about this crazy natural hallucinogen that is used by healers in parts of the Amazon forest to give them visions that enable them to cure sick people. One of the tourists in our midst told us how he had spent a few months living with a tribe in Ecuador in a forest and that he had used ayahuasca to "become one with humanity", "open my mind" etc. I sipped on my beer and thought to myself, "Some people are just from a different planet." 

Arrival in Santiago

I got to Santiago around 4pm and took the metro to my hostel. I stayed at a place called Princesa Insolente (the rude princess) and it was one of the hardest hostels to find. Poor thekenyanexplorer had to carry her backpack for around 30 minutes to find the hostel. The directions there made no sense. I had evening plans with a lovely Chilean couple I had met on the streets of Bahia in Brazil. I had notified them on facebook that I had arrived and they invited me for a night out with them and friends. 

I had a huge dinner alone at a place close to my hostel. After my 24 hour bus ride with no liquids and a few snacks, I felt like "splurging" and eating a proper meal. I don't remember exactly what I ate, but I remember that I had a huge 1L beer to go with it. Aaaaaah! The joy of a large meal and a refreshing beer. Later on we went to watch a dance show by a Chilean group that was performing Colombian inspired music.....Yeah, I am still confused by what that was:-)

My Chilean friends and their friends were really kind. I have to confess though that of the 4 South American countries I went to - Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, Chile was my least favourite. It's hard to explain why, but my main reason was that it felt so conservative and not exotic enough. All the other countries had tribes, different races, unique cultures etc, but Chile felt like a generic European country - which is fine if I am in Europe, but when in South America, one clearly has expectations of "flavour", "rythm", "excitement." I never found that in Chile. I guess it's kind of like Wazungus who come to Kenya and expect to see jumping Masaais, lions everywhere, people walking around in their "tribal" clothes and instead find Nairobians in Western clothes sipping lattes in Java. 

It was not Chile's fault - I just had my own expectations of the place.

"Great expectations make frustrated men" - Hama Tuma in The Case of the Prison-Monger.

Heading to Santiago, Chile

My last day in San Pedro de Atacama was spent doing nothing. I had not realized how exhausted I was from all my crazy traveling in Brazil and Bolivia. I had a 4:45pm bus to Santiago. It was going to be a 24 hour bus ride and I was looking forward to sleeping through most of it. I had paid for a "cama" seat which I assumed would be fully reclined, but was disappointed to find out it was only halfway reclined. I realized that the next 24 hours were probably not going to be the most comfortable. A few minutes after getting on the bus I realized just how pressed I was. I was so annoyed with myself, "Why would you drink so much water before getting on a bus?" I had been forewarned about how buses generally left passengers who got off the bus at restpoints and didn't get back quickly enough. I had already vowed that I was never going to be one of these passengers - who got off the bus, were left by the bus and had to figure out how to get their luggage from halfway across the country and also find another bus to your chosen destination - I had zero interest in being one of those people.

I tried to think dry thoughts to ignore my bladder - think of dry bread, ok, now think of deserts. No, not the oasis! Just the dry dry desert. By the time the bus made it's first stop, I realized I was going to need the washroom - my dry thoughts had only made me more and more pressed. The bus stopped and I was the first person at the door. The conductor drily announced that they were only going to stop for 10 minutes. I had thought of asking the person sitting next to me to make sure the bus didn't depart without me, but I did not know enough Spanish to say this. I thus opted for running really quickly to the washroom and back. The building we had stopped at had 2 floors. I ran to the first shop I saw and asked about the washrooms. The person behind the counter must have had some sort of speech impediment that made him speak reaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllly reaaaaaaaaaalllly slowly. I wanted to cry. "You are wasting my 10 minutes!" Finally he finished explaining where the washroom was. I ran there only to realize that you had to put coins into a machine, that opened swinging doors, that let you into the toilet. I had no coins! I ran back to the shop to get change. The guy who spoke reaaaaallly reallllllly slowly also worked reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallly reaaaaaaaallly slowly. I wanted to scream as he slowly opened the till, slowly counted the coins, slowly handed them to me. I ran back to the loo and I was in and out in under a minute!

I ran back to the bus platform and was happy to see my bus (or at least a bus that looked like mine) still at the platform. I got in, went to "my chair", sat down and turned to "my neighbour" only to realize I had never seen this person before in my life. "Oh shit! I am on the wrong bus." I ran towards the exit and the bus had already started moving. I told the conductor (who I also didn't recognize) that I was on the wrong bus. He slowly looked at my ticket instead of letting me get off to figure out where my bus was! I was getting irritated. He assured me that I was on the right bus and told me that my neighbour had alighted at this particular location and that was the reason why there was someone new next to me. 

Phewks! I sat down. Despite not drinking anything for the next 24 hours to avoid a repeat performance, my bladder still felt it was only proper to spontaneously fill every few hours. As such the scene narrated above was repeated at least 3 or 4 more times during the trip until we got to Santiago - the capital of Chile. 

It was only when I got to Santiago that I learnt the buses had loos! Sigh......

The floating lagoon, Atacama desert

The morning after experiencing my first earthquake in life in the heart of the Atacama desert in Chile , I woke up extremely well rested at 9:30am. I spent the day running very unlikely errands for the desert, but important ones given all the technological drama I had in the Uyuni salt flats and the Siloli desert in Bolivia. My dear phone had crashed, and now I needed to either get it fixed or get a new one. It had been serving as my camera, but now I needed to use my camera and it turned out the Chinese memory chips I had bought at a great price near Bus station in town (Nairobi) were not working. I needed therefore to also buy a new one. I also needed to find a place to get my laundry done. I had almost no clean clothes after my cross country journey across Bolivia. I walked to the city center and it was like something from a Texan cowboy movie. The city center was a collection of little shops. It was really hot too. I kept on expecting to see a horse or cow carcass on the dirt road. 

For a little town, San Pedro de Atacama had some nice restaurants. I went into one and had a hearty meal. I then hurried back to the hotel where I was to be picked around 3:45pm to go to the floating lagoon. This is a world famous lagoon whose salt concentration is so high that everyone floats. As much as you try to force yourself underwater, you can't. I hopped on the tour bus and we had a tour guide who kept on pointing out things in our drive, but I could not understand a word of it even though it was in English. He had the strongest Spanish accent I have ever heard. Every English word sounded like a Spanish word. I gave up on understanding him and just enjoyed the view. 

The lagoon was amazing though very cold. There were hundreds of people in it, but it was large enough to not feel crowded. I spent close to half an hour floating around in it, and it was wonderful seeing how gleeful all the people in it were. Some things in life turn all of us into little kids - who get easily excited. When I got out of the floating lagoon, I was white - completely white - even Whitenicious could not have done a more extreme job:-) That is when I realized just how salty the lagoon was. Even my dreadlocks had salt crystals on them.

We were taken to a freshwater lagoon to wash off the salt. That lagoon was made of melting icecubes. It was FREEEEEZING. I did a 30 second dip in the lagoon, and tried to get off as much salt as I could off my body with my fingers that were quickly turning into popsicles. The day ended with us having pisco sour cocktails and snacks in the middle of the desert as the sun set. It was such a beautiful sight. I had originally planned to go on a San Pedro de Atacama pub crawl on getting back to the hostel, but I was in bed by 9pm. Traveling is hard work, but someone has to do it;-)

Going to town to see a man about a horse....

The cast: Myself (i.e. Thekenyanexplorer), a horse named Aholera Segundo, a guide called Manuel, a taxi driver hellbent on raising my blood pressure, an errant snake who made a brief appearance and thousands of marathon runners.

The venue: Starting off in the quiet streets of Santiago on a Sunday morning and eventually ending up on a picturesque mountain somewhere in the countryside

I woke up really excited on this particular morning. I had signed up for a horseriding hike up a mountain somewhere in the countryside close to Santiago, the capital of Chile. My previous horse riding expertise was limited - a ten minute horse stroll along a beach in Accra (obviously with a guide holding the reins and the horse moving only slightly faster than a lazy snail.) I had also had similar 'horse rides" when small and at different locations in Nairobi including Hillock in Industrial area and Shade hotel in Ngong'. I also have a brief memory of almost riding a camel when I was small. I use the word "almost" because as soon as it started getting up on it's hind feet in that drunken staggering sort type of way camels get up, I started screaming like a baby and the camel was brought down......With this impressive equestrian resume I felt I was especially well positioned to go up and down a mountain on a horse.

Fate was somehow trying to keep me away from my horseriding adventure. I was to be picked up at 9am at a certain hotel in Santiago, but it turned out that this was the exact day of the Santiago marathon. All the roads in that general area were closed because of the marathon. I managed to get to the location by walking a very long distance, but once I got to the hotel, I realized the driver who was to pick me up wasn't there. I had no phone as mine had died in the Siloli desert in Bolivia, and it made no economic sense to buy a phone in Chile for my short stay there. After lots of back and forth, that involved me paying a juggler on the street to use his phone, walking up and down in search of a taxi etc, I finally had to give up and go back to my hostel. On my way back, I watched the marathon runners and noticed I didn't see any Kenyans....or Africans actually. I guess the Santiago marathon is one of the smaller ones that doesn't get the superstar athletes.

Once I got back to the hostel, the tour organizer had called. It was finally decided that I could do a horseriding session at 2pm. I took the subway train to one of its last stops and there I was met by the taxi driver who would get me to the mountain. We drove for close to one hour on a long winding road to get to the mountain. The cab guy was crazy. He was overspeeding, overtaking at blind corners where any miscalculation would lead to us falling off the cliff, tailgating etc. I almost wished I could sleep. That was my remedy when in Bolivian buses - If I slept I didn't  have to witness all the near death moments on narrow roads on the cliff's edge.....It's much trickier to sleep though when you have a chatty cab guy and no one else in the car for him to talk to. 

We finally got to the ranch and I was introduced to my horse for the day - Aholera Segundo (the 2nd Aholera.) I can't quite recall what the story was about the first aholera - was she Aholera the II's mother? A distant relative? A riika-mate? Not quite sure. She was introduced as being "Well behaved, obedient and loving." We instantly bonded over some sugar cubes and tea....ok not really...but we bonded. Before going up the mountain, I had a short training session, "How do you get her to turn right? Left?  Stop? Ok. You're good to go!" 

We left the ranch and I was feeling like a character in a Wilbur Smith - riding a horse and wearing a cowboy hat. Within a few minutes of leaving the compound, I looked down and saw a snake slither away. I was so lucky that Aholera was looking at the opposite direction. I am pretty sure she would have thrown me off in panic as she fled if she had seen the snake. I told Manuel about it, and he said that snakes were rare in this area, but there are a few pumas on the mountain. Manuel said this as if he was telling me there are lots of kittens on the mountain. I decided that on this trip I would just have to have faith in Aholera and in Manuel. Considering Manuel brought hapless tourists up the mountain all the time, I was pretty sure that I was in safe hands. 

Faith was an important part of that trip. The pathways were narrow and most times Aholera and I would be on the edge of a cliff and I had to trust she wouldn't jump off or trip, but would instead turn in the right direction and keep taking me up the mountain. She did not disappoint. I realized that the most important quality of a horse on such a trip is "non-suicidal." If your horse wanted to jump off a cliff, he or she would jump off a cliff, and there is nothing you could do to save yourself. I had to believe that Aholera wanted to get up and down the mountain safely, just as I did. 

We stopped for lunch by a lovely stream and I explored a bit on foot. It was such a beautiful day and I had such a wonderful view. Getting back down the mountain was scarier than going up because as some points, the path was very steep and I feared I would fall off Aholera, but thankfully Manuel showed me well how to angle myself when going downhill to ensure I put minimum pressure on Aholera, and also protected myself from falling over. I remember in the beginning of the trip Aholera started off panting loudly, and I thought to myself "Oh, Lord! This poor horse hates me. All those beers and hearty meals I was having in Bolivia will be the end of Aholera." After a while though she stopped panting. I think she came to terms with the fact that this chubby girl was not getting off.

That was a lovely day. Thank you Aholera Segundo!