Chile: NYE and New Years Day
Ahhh here comes some sappiness. Please forgive me.
NYE in Valparaiso was a blast. The crew made banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches), Sangria and giggled and swapped stories and deep discussions until 11:45, at which point we scurried about, changing into New Yearsish attire and heading outside the AirBnB to see the biggest fireworks show in South America (apparently). Precisely at midnight (maybe a minute after, actually, because you know, South America) all the barges started blaring their fog horns and everyone crowded the fences. Then, the barges shot off timed fireworks displays and lit up the whole beach town. Our view wasn't the best, but we saw the main show and even ran the streets trying to get the best angle. We climbed up on a fence at one point, and police starting sprinting toward us yelling "TOURISTS...NOOOOOO!!!!" So we got off and scurried somewhere not as cool.
[I should mention that during dinner, we each gave each other one emoji that we felt best described that person. We went in a circle around the table, and when we got our phones back (we wrote them in our notes app), we got explanations for each person. Mine were as follows:
🐄 cow
👶🏼 baby
🏃 runner
👻 ghost
Emily gave me the cow because earlier in the day, my banh mi job was to marinate the ground beef. I poured soy sauce and a few spices all over it and kneaded it around with my hands, all the while proclaiming how much I loved having "meat hands". So that explained the cow. Dane gave me the baby because...I'm not totally sure why, other than I love babies? His explanation was kinda funny and ended with "okay so I can't explain it but I felt it was right". Cristel gave me the runner because I like to run, and Ron gave me the ghost because he said I'm "quirky and this is by the far the quickest emoji". I almost teared up. Thanks buddies.
I think I gave everyone pretty self explanatory emojis (an eggplant for Ron, an Angel for Emily, and the prayer hands for Cristel) except Dane, which I gave the pig face. It needed to be explained: at my birthday party, the murder mystery one, I gave him the name Jig LePuff, which is a knock off on Jigglypuff, the cuddly pink bubble Pokemon. Dane owned it and I really appreciated/thought it was so cool that he was so down with such a ridiculous name. I felt the pink pig was the closest emoji to a Jigglepuff that there was. End aside.]
The streets were absolutely PACKED with people. Valparaiso is THE place to be for NYE. If you weren't in Valpo for NYE, you were basically a loser, amiright?? I'm jk. Sort of. After the 25~ minute show, Dane, Ron, Emily and I rolled down to the main square for the after New Years party. It was essentially a massive dance party in the street, with a huge stage playing Latin and American music. We made friends with some Chilean people about our age, and they tried to get us to go to a party with them. I got a little sketched out by them, mainly because this one girl told me she didn't know any of the rest of them before that day, but then they'd all huddle together and it seemed like they were scheming, to me. Maybe I got paranoid, or I was tired, I dunno, but we ended up losing them and then Dane ran into his Semester at Sea friends randomly. We walked with them for a while, through the chaos, and then I think someone said something to piss one of the girls off (to respect privacy, I will refrain from stating the name of this Patagoon Squad member) so we split from them and from here on out, I can't really remember how we spent the next 4 hours. Not because I was one too many drinks deep, but because all of a sudden we checked our phones and it was 4:30. I guess we spent it talking with locals in incredible Spanish and learning about the town. This group of youngish guys told me they learned English in school, but only how to read it. They never got any talking practice. Guess they never had PALS tests like I did. They also hate the American government and said they'd rather visit Canada than USA...but one of them told me I was very nice so I wasn't complaining.
4:30 is late for me, a woman of almost 26 years, so we soon departed the street fiestas and returned to the AirBnB.
[Another aside: on the walk to the fiesta, we stopped and bought beer. Dane complained about the glass bottles we got, saying that plastic bottles are just "better for the streets." Something about the way he said it just sent Ron and me into fits of giggles. "Dane Harrington: Better for the streets" we decided will be his campaign slogan when he decides to run for public office. We even made a song. And we repeated this line off and on from 12:30-4:30. The next day, my abs hurt from laughing so hard. We were in tears. I think Dane hates us both right about now but I hope he knows it was all out of love and respect for our dear Golden Eagle.]
This is from the day before but I thought it was funny
Suddenly it was 10 am. We all wiped the crust out of our eyes from the NYE craziness and stepped into the light. Amazingly, I felt great and even ate a full avocado while cuddling with the cat/using tape to get its sheddings off of my clothes. We got a private transport (so posh right??) to grab us from Valparaiso and take us back to Santiago at noon, and I PTFO almost immediately. The driver didn't play music...until halfway through the journey when he decided the time was ripe to turn on Spanish techno, which is kind of like one monotonous beat for 10 minutes straight. Or maybe it just felt like one song lasted that long. The music played for a while, then he turned it off. Then back on again. Make up your dang mind, dude!! It was not the peaceful car ride one expects out of Chilean drivers.
I guess I didn't mind the music so much, because I woke up enough to finally got to see Santiago at a wide angle. This city is massive. And the environment - oooeee is it something else: a desert, with hills poppin up every so often. And then mountains, seriously gigantic, jaw droppingly huge mountains. The sheer height of these bad boys made me wake Cristel up to show her the monstrosity. I wish I had a picture or something that can do them justice.
We then arrived at the hostel, had the ever so lovely reception dude check us back in, then kinda fiddled around for a while. I think this is the first time we were ever truly 100% pooped. No sleep + driving = helplessness. The lot of us showered and took naps and someone...Dane....decided to play "floor is lava" with all our top bunks, sending us into a singsongy good mood that propelled us out of bed and into the streets.
The first thing we discovered on the street was a pizza place that we kept getting recommendations to go to. Three pizzas split amongst us was more than enough, and we sat at that little corner table, listening to homeless guys on drugs yell out nonsensical whale noises, and eating pizza while discussing plans for the day.
The part of town where our hostel is is probably the most touristy possible, but we were so lazy and unwilling to travel great distances that it didn't matter. It's so close to San Cristobal hill, a "hill" nearby that you have to ride a funicular up. Well, you don't have to, but you'd have to be completely insane to have to want to walk up. The hill is said to have the best views of the city, and whoever said that is not wrong. Santiago is stunning, and much much much bigger than I was led to believe. It never ends. There are tall buildings in every direction. It looks like Albuquerque on steroids. GO HERE. Just don't expect too much from the food.
At the very tip top is a statue of Mary that Bernadita, our tour guide from a few days before, said is SO BIG. I asked her if it was comparable to the Cristo in Rio, and she said more or less. Sadly, it's definitely less. I thought Mary was cool, regardless of her diminutive size, but others were just not impressed. Ron was so disgusted by this statue that I ended up getting him a postcard of it as a goodbye present, lest he ever forget. The gang sat at the top for a while, taking pictures and marveling at how many couples we saw where there was an older American male with a younger, super hot Latino female. Made me feel kinda gross about Americans, I dunno why. This one couple in particular was takings loads of selfies: kissing selfies, hands under the shirt selfles, beer belly hanging out selfies, you name it, they were selfie-Ing it. Later, we were behind them in line for a peach/corn drink that's all the rage in Chile, and they were asking each other getting to know you type questions! Think it's a mail-order bride type situation? Discuss in the comments below.
This is a screenshot from a top secret music video I'm making...stay tuned...
The sky really is trippy this far south, because I checked my clock and it was 8:30 and still bright as all day out. I'll miss this in a few days when I'm home and in the office. We decided to walk down San Cristobal, which ended up us finding a motocross bike path and trekking down that - which ended up with us covered in dirt and dust. I met a Chilean fellow named Gary, though, who was so excited to practice his English, I thought he was going to explode from joy.
An hour later, we got back to the hostel, freshened up, and headed back out to try out Terremotos, Spanish for Earthquake. Terremotos are pitchers full of red wine, ice cream, and grenadine, and are supposed to just EFF YOU UP! We got one and sat outside at a restaurant on Pio Nono, the popping, trendy, Admo type street nearby. I don't think anyone got effed up, sadly. I kinda liked it, though.
Coming home from Chile with only one arm...nice
While sipping, we realized it was Ron's last dinner with us. We went around the table and told our favorite trip memories of him, and then expanded it to everyone saying our fave memories of all of us. I shared that I really appreciated Ron's humor on this trip. Sometimes I was laughing so hard I could barely contain myself. If not for him, I wouldn't have made it through Camp Italiano on Christmas and I can't ever thank him enough.
We wanted to dance so we finished up the pitcher and headed to a bar across the street that had been playing EDM at 128 bpm and was making Ron so jolly he could barely breathe. I think they could sense we were coming, though, because the second we walked in, the music stopped. It was all for the best though, because I saw this dude's butt crack and it haunted me and I could not dance after seeing such a traumatic sight. No one could. Would've been physically and emotionally impossible.
After a few minutes of healing, we found a churro truck, and a drum line, and you know what happened next: we danced with the drum line, flailing our churros around like it was some sort of rain dance. Sugar flew everywhere as we let loose in the middle of the street. Then the cops came to break it up and we came back down to reality. Eff the police, yeah!!
The dance circle with the drum line couldn't be topped, so it was time for bed.
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