Wandering the Hills of Valparaiso

Wandering the Hills of Valparaiso

Thursday, Jan. 27, Valparaiso and Vina del Mar

I bought my bus ticket to leave tomorrow morning at 9:30 for Ovalle. It is 6 hours north of here in the area where all the powerful observatories are located. Of course, those observatories are off limits as far as anything other than a guided daytime tour, and they require a car to get to them. But in a few days I will be in a town that has one open to the public at night with bus service to it, and I hope to make a reservation to tour it. Ovalle is not much of a tourist town, but it has a market I want to see and a museum. I will stay only one night. I hope I can find housing when I get there!

I went to the market for lunch yesterday. It has several restaurants upstairs. Unfortunately, each has hawkers outside trying to get you to go to theirs. I would much prefer to read their menu and think. I decided on a small place that didn´t have a hawker and that had a luncheon special posted. First, I was served a large boiling (bubbling wildly when it arrived at the table) bowl of soup. It was onions, tomatoes, a very few chunks of a root of some kind, and oysters--lots of oysters. Of course, I burned my tongue with it even though I tried to blow on each spoonful to cool it down. The next course consised of a fried fish with rice and sliced tomatoes. The fish was battered with a crispy batter somewhat like is used on tempura. That sealed the steam inside so that the fish was somewhat mushy. The soup was much better than the fish.

I returned to my hotel for a nap and to read. Then I went back out around 7:30. First, I went to one of the main squares. It just happened that the only seat I could get was on a bench toward one end of the square where the skateboarders were congregating and practicing. I spent quite a while watching them, not for their talent at skateboarding but for their lifestyle. The younger ones who were skating (mid-teens) were dressed in typical skateboard fashion--jeans low and loose on the hips with underwear showing and t-shirt. The older ones (late teens) seemed to be in transition. Maybe they still skate sometimes, but they weren´t last night. And most of them were dressed up in suits and even with ties. They seemed to be "playing" at dressing up. It was obvious they were a close group even though some were in this transition phase. As a new person walked up, he gave a single kiss on the left cheek of each of the older ones and did a handshake with the younger ones that consisted of a slap of palm against palm followed by sliding into a finger tips-to-finger tips clinch.

As I looked for a place for a sandwich for dinner, I came across another square that had a stage and live music being performed by local people in native costumes. It was like finding a stage in Texas with country and western performers drawing a crowd. There was so much of a crowd that I couldn´t get a good photo, but I could hear well.

Just as I was leaving there, fire trucks arrived. Apparently, there was a fire in a nearby building. It was an old wooden building. I watched from a distance as the fire fighters broke in the front door with an ax and used ladders to get to windows to enter the 4th (top) floor. I never saw a fire, but I got the impression that it might be in the roof area--maybe wiring.

I have found a new sandwich I like here. It is called the churrasco. It was served on a nice bun that reminded me of the ones at Crofutt´s in Bayside, Texas. As the name indicates, it had thin slices of beef that had been cooked over charcoal. It had melted cheese, tomatoes, and mashed avocado. The avocado was messy, but it sure made the sandwich a good one.

I find it interesting that as I move from one country to another in South America the people look so different. They are mostly all descendents of Iberians and local native peoples, but the the Chilean people look totally different from the Argentineans across the border. Wonder what makes the difference? I know there are also many Italians who moved to Argentina, but I doubt that they could account for the big difference in appearance. The Argentineans are more attractive, I think.

Well, I have wandered most of Valparaiso that I want to see. Today, I am taking the train to nearby Vina del Mar. It is a more up-scale resort. I´ll wander around there and see what I think of it.

Question for people who read my blog regularly: As you know, until I broke my thumb I was typing from my handwritten journal to the blog. For the past two weeks, I have been just typing directly to the blog. It makes a difference in the posts. I want to know which is more interesting to read--entries typed from my journal or my spontaneous typings like those of the last few days. Please drop me an e-mail to let me know so that I will know whether to go back to journal writing when my thumb heals or not.