Santiago and Beyond

After a string of small tourist towns, Santiago was quite a change. Santiago reminds us of New York, except everything is in Spanish and the crowd is not quite as international. I was the only ¨rubia¨ (blonde) in town, and that drew quite a few comments and stares. The most frustrating part of Chile is understanding Chilean Spanish - Chileans talk very fast, drop many consonants, and have a strong accent. They don´t usually understand me, and I have an even more difficult time understanding them. However, Santiago is a cool city, especially if you´re a night owl - the city comes alive after dark. Restaurants don´t open until 8 or 9:00 at night. Night clubs don´t open until midnight and people stay out all night. Mall culture has taken the city by storm - There are huge malls EVERYWHERE filled with hundreds of tiny stores (about 50% of which sell specialize in leather boots and skinny jeans - this trend understandably fared better in SA than in the US).

The Chilean wine is fantastic and incredibly cheap. Empanada and sopapilla stands populate every corner. Every restaurant starts the meal with delicious breads and salsas. Desserts abound - heladerias and pastelerias decorate every street corner, and Chileans seem to have icecream cones in their hands at all hours of the day (I don´t know how they fit into those skinny jeans!). And the metro - this beautiful system here is faster, easier, and more efficient than even DC´s metro (not to mention they have NYC beat by a long shot).



We couldn´t visit the third largest importer of wines to the US without soaking up some vino. On our second day here, we went on a full day tour of wine country south of Santiago. We visited Undurraga, a beautiful, formerly family owned winery that produces excellent wines on grounds that rival any Napa Valley estate. We found a new favorite wine - carmenere - which is a grape that only grows in Chile (it was originally imported by the French, but the crop died out there and only thrives in Chile). It has all of the richness and flavor of a cab sav but without the tannins. If you come across this in the US, you have to try it! We also visited Concha y Toro, which is sort of like the Disneyland of wineries. The tour was a bit cheesy but fun.



The Anderson network abounds, even here! We met up with Pedro and Ignacia Jamarillo (for those of you who don´t know Pedro, he was in our class at Anderson). They definitely showed us a good time! We started the night with dinner a few piscolas (Pisco and Coke - the national drink of Chile), then headed to Ignacia´s brother´s apartment around midnight. We hung out, had some great Spanglish conversations, and hit up a Chilean night club until it closed at 5 a.m. What a night! Craig and I were told we danced like Americans. Shocking. Apparently, this is just a typical weekend night out in Santiago.



It´s SKI SEASON here! We traveled two hours on windy mountain roads to reach Valle Nevada in the Andes. The morning fog and snow were so bad mountains that we literally snowplowed down the mountain in a cloud of white. We couldn´t even see the people on the ski lift chair in front of us. However, in the afternoon, the skies cleared and we experienced the most perfect snow imaginable. We were up to our waists in fresh powder, carving out new routes, and it was incredible! They don´t have trails here, or even trees on the mountain. Instead, skiiers just take a lift to the top and choose their own way down. The entire face is open. This makes for some amazing skiing and a lot of room for creativity.

After six days, seven nights in Santiago, we took the bus down to Valparaiso, a hilly, coastal city with a huge navy port. We´ll be exploring Valpo and Vina del Mar (the Malibu of Chile) for the next two days, and then we´re braving a bus over the Andes to Argentina. Pictures coming soon!