Feliz Navidad from Valparaiso, Chile!

Hope everyone has a great day. Love to our friends and family.

From sunny Chile

Beach Day

Today we walked and took a funicular and found a spot to fix a tablet for 30 bucks, hopped the LRT to the beach, same music choices, grabbed a few shrimp empanadas at the fish market, para llevar (to go), walked along the beach boardwalk, watched some fat seals sunning themselves and fighting for position on a remnant of a former pier. Always one trouble  maker in the bunch. One starts the shoving and all hell breaks loose, kind of like a night on the Byward market.

Bought bananas at the local fruit market and a few grocs at our new favourite grocery store, Lider, oddly enough owned by WalMart, and again hopped on a collectivo to return up the hill. This time was a bit more civilized, albeit not much. Time for a Cristal! Remember, we're two hours ahead of you.

A few pics from today...the university is a nice building on the water.

Peligro means danger. This is the bike path along the boardwalk. I'd say that's muy peligroso, probably should get on that one day soon.

The green building is a restaurant by the fish market. They're gearing up for a bash tomorrow, tailgate style,  complete with charcoal half barrel BBQs. Hmmm, heading that way to pick up the tablet anyway....
WTF... (Where's The Fish)? I kill me.

Watch Dog

It's 5:51 AM YOW time, 7:51 Chile time and we have a guard dog looking out for us. Can you spot Fido in this pic?

The second shot is a fuzzy zoom in on the roof. He's watching and barking at anything that moves on the street below. Taken from our sliding door.

No accessibility issues here...

A nightmare for walkers let alone anyone with accessibility issues. Absolutely nuts. Risky business, for sure.

Getting our workout on stairs and up and down hills.

So far we've walked, taken collectivos (taxi for whomever you pick up along the way - cheap, cheap, 800 pesos and a tip to get home from grocs  amounts to a whopping 2 bucks, for two!) You can't walk for that price 😐.  I think the gringo I squished in the back was wishing we had though, after Rainer jammed into the back with us.  Couldn't go anywhere else, there were already 2 in front of a beany car.

Took the train yesterday, on a quick tour to check out the countryside for kicks, and loaded a metro card for future jaunts. A guy got on and played guitar and sang for money while he had a captive audience. We switched trains to come back and damned if a dude doesn't whip out his eukelele...we had used up our spare change so this guy got a koozie, and not your run of the mill koozie but a genuine Rainer Bloess limited edition. He doesn't know what he has there, but seemed happy nonetheless.  The kids we encountered enjoying a Corona on a stairway also were grateful for theirs. Small things that make people's  day. All good and fun.

Dog Days of summer...

So many pups, so little card space. Will have to download my camera card, these are some from the Samsung tablet cam. There are some good ones on the camera though.

Two mutts followed us home from dinner last night...no comments from the peanut gallery please. Also cats all over, notably one sleeping in front of the incoming train and seemingly oblivious to the onslaught of a ton of steel bearing down on  it...no worries, a safe ending.

Today had to chuckle at a thirsty dog drinking from a nice refreshing bucket of coke and frosty drinks for sale, which is why Mom always taught me to wipe lids of everything. Smart lady,  my Mom.

A few random shots...

Guess what I'm making?

Well, maybe a few things...

Arica and Valparaiso

When the wifi's not 100%, some things just don't make it to the big screen so re-posting a few classics.

In Arica, our first port in Chile, we made some friends when we stopped for a beer. With a bit of broken Spanish and the International language of futbol and an imaginary ball, we managed a few laughs, distributed some koozies to our new friends and went on our merry way. So, they have real litre bottles of beer and when you order a cerveza grande, you really get more than you bargained for. I did get help from Jime (like Jorge), not  Watson. 😂

Arica is at the edge of the Atacama  desert, rivers are dry most of the year but they still manage to grow olives, fruit etc. The closest thing to the back side of the moon, but with a vibrant city centre. We liked this stop.

We did a bus tour - about three hours. Highlights included geoglyphs created between 500 and 1000 AD. We went to the top of El Morro, and held our breath as the bus winded its way up,  almost zero curb to the plunge below. Saw a few shards of glass but no entire vehicles. Guess they cleaned those up!

Valpo

Yesterday afternoon we did a scouting of the hood to see what we might find in our area. We had lunch, which was pretty much the same for us both. Rainer had steak, I had chicken, on a heap of fresh cut fries and fried onions (cebollas) with two fried eggs on each. Needless to say that was lunch and dinner. We winged it. A  couple of local cervezas and off to find the local grocery store.

Fun shopping facts - tea and coffee are on the second floor (take the escalator),  eggs, milk and yogurt are not refrigerated and don't forget to weigh your bananas before you get to the cash....we'll get fruit today when we look like old pros!

Our airbnb host Elena graciously bought us a bottle of Chilean wine. We reciprocated with a bottle of Maple Crown Royal so we're all happy campers. We returned back home in time to see our ship sailing out of  the harbour headed south, the trip we'll rejoin a month from now, to cruise the cape.

Today we find bus and train possibilities, and feniculars - there are a number of them in Valpo.