Valparaiso y Viña del Mar

The sunset from our guest house in Valparaiso.

Not a bad way to transition from daytime to night, eh?

My friends, from all over the world!

Harbor tour by boat.

Passing the late afternoon in our guest house.

The tail end of sunset as the city lights (and ship lights!) come on.

After the Tsunami, escape routes to higher ground

are clearly marked along the pacific.

Sylvia (in white) and I catch-up with our friends on the beach.

At the far end of our beach were horses.

Jorge, one of two guides for the weekend.

He was raised in Quito, Ecuador, my next destination.

It was a beautiful weekend, heightened by the clear skies that followed the unusual summer rain of last Friday. The rain knocked the smog and pollution from the air, gifting us with crystal, clear views of the mountains and ocean. What a blessing!

A group of students from two schools departed Santiago on Saturday morning to spend the weekend in the popular sea-side cities of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar. The former is a centuries-old port city built on the "cerros" (hills, but more like mini-mountains) and cliffs that surround the harbor. Valparaiso is the largest and most important port in all of Chile. The latter city, Viña del Mar, is a new city built over the past few decades on what formerly was fertile farm land, repleat with Casino (Tony Bennett was performing this weekend), CROWDED beaches and lots of fun-in-the-sun activities.

Our schedule was Valparaiso on Saturday and Viña del Mar on Sunday. Our tour guides were laid-back to say the least. Too much so for my taste -- we could have done so much more! But it is hard to meet the needs of a group of 20 people from many different countries and cultures. We took a tour of the harbor in a boat, took a funicular atop a cerro to see the view, visited one of three homes of Pablo Neruda, ate at a seaside restaurant south of town (with a view far more savory than the food!), and listened to Bassa Nova music performed live in a restaurant until the wee hours. Not a bad day! And some of us were lucky enough to stay in a guest house rather than the hostle -- QUITE the stroke of luck, that. We had an AWSOME view of the city, plus our host kept plying us with frigid beer (we didn´t want to offend her!) and warm conversation. It was a delightful and memorable day.

Sunday we had breakfast in the hostle (how lucky we were in our clean, beautiful house with a view!) and then drove around the harbor to Viña del Mar. After wasting a lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing we finally wound our way to the north to a beautiful and not crowded beach, where we passed the afternoon. After eating empanadas (I had one with shrimp and cheese, another with tomate, mushroom and ham and a third one with chicken and... uh... something else delicious!) the majority of our group headed right to the beach. A new German friend of mine (Sylvia, an English teacher) and I walked the shopping district to stay in the shade a while longer, then heading to the beach to walk barefoot in the water and, later, join our friends. Quite the day!

As we left the beach I felt my first case of stomach-trouble in South America. I blame it on the empanadas -- fried here in Chile. In Buenos Aires they were baked! At any rate, we stopped at a gas station before heading on the highway to Santiago, an hour and a half ride with NO rest areas. This night it took us more than two hours due to the traffic. On summer Sundays driving from Valparaiso to Santiago is not unlike trying to head south in Michigan. You spend a lot of time sitting on the highway, wondering if you´ll ever get home. Lucky for me, I ...uh ... took care of business before we left the gas station. Needless to say, I didn´t eat anything else that night. By today (Tuesday) I felt back to normal.

This is my last week in Chile, and I´m starting to have feelings like those I had in Buenos Aires. I don´t want to leave! But Quito is next on my schedule, and no doubt I´ll feel the same way about that city as I have these previous two.

Let me end with a word about my Intermedio 1A class at school. And the word is... FANTASTIC!!! I am so very glad I advanced a week early. Unlike my previous classes with ECELA (my school), now I have to WORK to keep up with what is going on. My teacher, Veronica, doesn´t speak English. By that, I don´t mean to say that she doesn´t speak to us in English, though that is certainly the case. She doesn´t speak English -- that is, isn´t fluent in the language. She is fluent in Spanish (of course!) and German, and while she no doubt has a cursory knowledge of English, she speaks nary a word of it in class. That pleases me no end! FINALLY, I´m having to communicate ONLY in Spanish in class. And all but one student in the class speaks as well or better than I do, so just about everybody gives me a run for the money every day. What fun! Plus, Veronica is an outstanding teacher. Every teacher I´ve had in this program is good, but she really knows how to keep you on your toes, let me tell you. I couldn´t be happier! OK, I could be happier. If I had more time in her class! Ah, well. One week is better than none, and I am certainly happy to meet the challenge of Intermedio 1A before I complete my work here in Santiago.

I´ve got at least a couple of other experiences here I hope to write about, but I will save those for another day. Time to study reflexive verbs! Such an interesting way to speak. "I wash myself the teeth," for example, or "the homework it forgot me." What a wonderful language! About the only thing I like better than reflexives is double negatives. In Spanish, it´s not only alright to use double negatives, it is expected. "I don´t have no time to type now," for example. Can you beat that?

Take care, beloved ones. Thanks for your ongoing prayers, love and care. How very dearly I appreciate you!

-- Bill